Abstract
This study is intended as an attempt, on the one hand, to collect and order a number of salient facts concerning modern Dutch Catholicism, on the other hand, on the basis of these facts to render more compre hensible the movement at present stirring in the Church and which appears at first sight to be a confusion of conflicting tendencies, in a historico-sociological perspective.
The author employs in his observations both the available statistical information, relative to the present-day vitality of Dutch Catholicism, and the likewise clearly evident tendencies toward renewal, and attempts to bring both aspects to a synthesis in a total view. Here it is primarily a matter of placing the ascertainable decline in religious practice, which incidentally goes hand in hand with a greater stability of Catholic social, political and educational institutions, into a closer connection with the tendencies toward renewal.
Therefore, the general conclusion of this study is not that Dutch Catholicism is declining but that it has taken a different form now that the social emancipation struggle in this country may be considered over. It is in essence no loss in vitality but a vitality with a different objective. Dutch Catholicism is strong but finds itself, precisely because it has successfully fought a hard battle for emancipation, in a completely different situation, forcing it to re-orientate itself. From this inner strength it is now experiencing a crisis in a search for forms in which, in the world of today, now that it is full-grown, it can express itself adequately.
The study thus states that what is going on at present in Dutch Catholicism is comprehensibly seen from its own history, albeit in close contact with the more general tendencies in the history of the West. At the heart of the renewal lies a striving for a more authentic Christianity, just as the alienation of ecclesiastical Christianity lies at the heart of de-churching with regard to modern man. In essence here we are concerned with the fact that the Catholic of our times, who has himself become a modern man in every respect in the emancipation struggle, now wishes to be modern in his religious life too, or rather, by his being modern has become conscious in a different way of the significance of his faith in the Gospel and in Jesus Christ. He consequently experiences the tension between modern life and ecclesiastical life as an inner tension. For those who find themselves at the heart of the renewal, the phase of dialogue between Church and world - in which Church and world are involved in discussion as independent entities - is past; for them it is an inner struggle for an understanding of Christ's message now, in this world.
This theme is explained by various examples. In this it is not the concern of the author to take up a personal position in the discussions, but more to arrive at an understanding of the tendencies in the light of the dynamics revealed in them, which must be made understandable in their turn historically and sociologically.
Moreover, the author presents a few principles from which the fact that the situation itself appears so confused, can be understood. The dynamics emerge at a moment in which the traditional ecclesiastical forms for large groups have, it is true, lost their meaning, but for others have retained their full significance. All these things cannot go without conflict, without pain and sorrow on the one hand, without courage and impatience on the other.