From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2013
Dutch bishops visiting Rome this week told Pope Francis that about two-thirds of all Roman Catholic churches in the Netherlands would have to be shut or sold by 2025. In the Netherlands, churches have been closing at a rate of one or two a week.
Although the bishops five-yearly report blamed a “drastic secularization” of society, a critical group of Dutch lay Catholics said the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by priests, which has afflicted many Catholic dioceses around the world, had also driven many people away, as had the closures themselves.
According to independent inquiry, tens of thousands of children were abused by priests over decades, a scandal that has not only forced the church in Netherlands to apologize but also have paid large sums of money in damages.
This has resulted to more than 23,000 Catholics quit the Dutch Church in 2010, the peak of an exodus in which an average 18,000 have left each year since 2006. This year alone about 7,500 had left by October.
Despite sex scandals, Netherlands is one of the most secular countries in Western Europe. This has affected both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant church in the Netherlands.
However, not all religious groups are affected by decreasing church attendance. Evangelical groups in particular are enjoying an increase in interest. Since the 60’s, this growth has been due to a faith directed towards person and experience, modern views and a business orientated mode of practice.
Muslims are also not affected. Since the mid 1970’s, Islam has seen a growing emergence in the public domain and it is spreading steadily.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002