Bishop Jan Hendricks, Bishop of the Diocese of Harlem-Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said that 60% of the diocese's churches, or nearly 100 churches, will be closed within the next five years, because of the number of faithful going to church. , the number of volunteers and the diocese's revenue decreased.
Bishop Jan Hendriks in 2011. Maarten Jansen via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Bishop Hendricks said this, during a meeting with about 90 parish administrators, on September 10. The diocese was founded in 1559, and covers all of the northern Netherlands as well as the southern province of Flevoland, including the capital Amsterdam.
The bishop has been in charge of this diocese for two years now. He noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the decline in church attendance. Many elderly people no longer go to the mosque. Others have become accustomed to attending Sunday Mass online. The number of volunteers decreased and many choirs also stopped working. This situation leads to the scenario: of the 164 churches of the diocese, 99 will be closed within the next five years. Of the remaining 65 churches, 37 will continue for five to ten years, as “supporting churches,” and only 28 will remain primarily considered permanent.
Monsignor Bart Putter, Vicar General of the Diocese of Harlem-Amsterdam, told The Pillar newspaper in the US, September 26, that the diocese has not yet made a list of churches that need to be closed, but hopes the communities The locality will choose the main churches. “The main idea is to establish 28 active evangelizers and we hope pastors and parish councils can do that.”
The numbers presented at the September 10 meeting just said show attendance dropping from more than 25,000 in 2013 to 12,000 last year, 2021. Mass attendance has been declining for years. past, not just recently. In the 1950s, 80% of Catholics attended Mass, but today only 3% of the faithful go to Mass, out of a total of 425,000 Catholics in the diocese.