Findings of a Dutch survey show the Covid pandemic’s impact has had lasting effects on parish life in the Netherlands. The Katholiek Nieuwsblad survey was conducted three years after the initial lockdown in the Netherlands. It has confirmed the decline in church attendance from pre-pandemic levels. The decline, already predicted by many, shows between 2019 Read more
The Netherlands’ assisted suicide proposal to allow assisted suicide for healthy individuals over the age of 75 has drawn widespread criticism. A similar proposal in 2016 also faced opposition. It offers death rather than social support to people who are lonely and depressed, critics say. Among the critics is Dr. Gordon Macdonald, head of the Read more
The Netherlands’ police and and transport companies are unwilling to enforce a ban on wearing a face-covering burqa. Their lack of cooperation with the so-called burqa ban made the new legislation largely unworkable on its first day in law. Under the terms of the Partial Ban on Face-Covering Clothing Act, various forms of headgear are Read more
A recycled news story published earlier this month that accused over half of Dutch bishops of complicity in sexual abuse was first published in 2011. The Dutch bishops’ conference said “much of the information” provided by NRC Handelsblad had been “public knowledge” since 2011. “The time for praying and apologizing is clearly over; we’re in Read more
Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk of the Netherlands has written to Pope Francis criticising him for ‘creating confusion’ among the faithful and ‘endangering the unity of the church.’ Eijk was responding to Francis’s response this week to a delegation of German bishops about allowing the non-Catholic partners of Catholics to receive Communion in certain circumstances. Rather Read more
Holland’s far right presidential candidate, Geert Wilders, wants to prevent the spread of Islam and Muslim “scum” from the Netherlands. Islam is an ideology that “poses an existential threat to core European values”, he says. Wilders wants to close all mosques, ban the Quran and seal the Dutch borders to asylum seekers and immigrants from Islamic countries. He Read more
A New Zealand doctor now based in Britain has blown the whistle on Belgium’s euthanasia explosion — an increase of 4620 per cent in 10 years. Dr Peter Saunders, now chief executive officer of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said the number of euthanasia cases increased from 24 to 1133 in the 10 years to 2011. Read more
The Catholic bishops in the Netherlands have offered “sincere apologies” to more than 20,000 victims of sexual abuse in the Netherlands. Archbishop of Utrecht Wim Eijk apologised to victims on behalf of the entire Dutch Catholic church. He said the report “fills us with shame and sorrow.” “It’s terrible.” Eijk’s apology comes after a damning Read more
The head of the Dutch Salesian order, Father Herman Spronck, has been placed on “administrative leave” for his part in a Dutch Catholic pedophile scandal. Over the weekend, Spronck, known as the Delegate, said that sexual relationships between children and adults were not always damaging. “Formally I always say that everyone must obey the law. But Read more