Not a Church Tower in Sight. The Secularisation of the Netherlands

ot a Church Tower in Sight

The Secularisation of the Netherlands

Wim T. Schippers, Drienerlo Tower. 1979.

Photo courtesy of Univers i te i t Twente.

On 6 March 2001, the national Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published an interview with the Archbishop of Utrecht, Cardinal A. Simonis. The interview was announced on the front page under a heading taken from a statement by the Cardinal himself: `Purple is banishing religion'. `Purple' is the name given to the coalition of socialists, liberals and liberal democrats that has been governing the Netherlands since 1994, the first government since 1918 without any Christian representation. (The Catholic party, formerly a separate entity, merged with two Protestant parties in 1973 to form a single party, the CDA or Christian Democrats). The `purple coalition' had come about as a result of the staggering losses suffered by the CDA in the 1 994 elections. Simonis' complaint was that the government was ignoring the churches entirely; the Christian faith seemed to have not the slightest influence on government policy. So the Prime Minister and the Cardinal got together over a traditional Dutch cup of coffee to discuss the Catholic allegation. Not long afterwards, the mayor of Amsterdam officiated at the first gay marriage and the euthanasia act was passed in the First Chamber, the Netherlands' upper and the smaller extrepp house, with the Christian parties pa me left parties voting against.

The Cardinal was both correct and incorrect. The government is indeed failing to take Christian thinking into account, or rather the interests of Christian thinking as represented in Parliament by the Christian parties, which are in opposition. You might say that that's the way it goes in politics — if the government's disregard for the churches wasn't almost symbolic of the disappearance of every scrap of Christian influence, as represented by the churches, in public life. The Netherlands has become a pagan country, or to be exact a post-Christian country. There' s no denying that, not even after two cups of coffee. The process of secularisation has taken about thirtyfive years to complete, and it's most marked among the Catholics. According to recent data, only ten percent of the Netherlands' Catholics still go to church on Sunday. Among the Protestant denominations (there are two large Protestant churches and many smaller ones, varying in orthodoxy and strictness) that figure hasn't dropped quite so drastically.

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Reconstruction of the altar in a hidden Catholic attic church in Amsterdam. Ons Lieve Heer op Solder, Amsterdam.

Closed ranks

For centuries, the Netherlands has officially been a Protestant country.

Other religions, including the Catholic, were tolerated, but they were forced to live sequestered lives. It wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century, when the Catholic hierarchy was restored in the Netherlands (almost at the same time as it was in England and under as much protest), that Catholics could practise their religion openly and hold public functions. The Catholic faith became a religion of emancipation in the Netherlands; Catholics had to shake off centuries of deprivation. This not only drew the Catholic community together, it also filled them with enormous fervour. The character of the Dutch Church became highly ultramontane, with the Pope being the object of great devotion. The beliefs that were preached put great stress on morality, especially sexual morality. Priestly vocations were extremely numerous, and vocations to the religious life — for women and men — were equally so.

During the first half of the twentieth century the Netherlands produced the greatest number of missionaries in proportion to its population, sending them all over the world. Countless churches were built in cities and villages, mostly in the neo-gothic style and many of them very large: the triumph over centuries of practising the faith in secret. The community of faith was a closed one; people segregated themselves among `their own kind', especially in the north where, in contrast to the south, Catholics had always been in the minority. A comparable focusing on identity occurred among other population groups as well — Protestants and socialists. Thus developed the

typically Dutch `pillar system', which was manifest in every area of life: politics, education, the radio (and later television), health care and even literature.

It could be argued that there has been very little development, certainly within the Catholic faith. Until the second half of the twentieth century, it was abundantly clear that its period of ascension had been the nineteenth, This meant that great emphasis was placed on observing commandments and obligations within the collective, under the authority of the clergy.

There was hardly any appeal to the individual sense of responsibility, as there was among the Protestants. In such a closed community, self-satisfaction was no stranger.

Dutch Protestantism had already had a taste of modernism and had entered into a confrontation with the `outside world' in the nineteenth century, exactly when the Catholics had just stepped into public life. The result was the separation of the more orthodox groups. Modernist tendencies had also manifested themselves in the Catholic Church at the start of the nineteenth century, but they were suppressed. The ranks were kept closed, which may have proved fatal: it led to isolation.

K.J.C. Verlaan, Service of the Seceders. C.1910.

Canvas, 82 X io6 cm.

Rijksmuseum Het Catharijneconvent, Utrecht.

In 1843 a group of traditional Calvinists, led by a number of ministers, split from the Dutch Reformed Church a move they regarded not as a separation but as a return to the old seventeenth-century Reformed Church of Dordrecht (see p. 1 44)• —

Porous walls What applies to the Catholic Church as a whole applies to the Dutch Catholic Church as well: ever since the eighteenth century, the entire culture had 23

Drawing of a Dutch Catholic procession, by Petrus van Geldrop (I truc I an

been developing independently of the Church. This process continued through the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth it moved so fast that by the fifties the split between Church and what I call `the world' was complete. The cultural language as it exists outside the church walls — in literature, in the visual arts, in music — is entirely different from the language within. At the root of this situation is the fact that the break with major cultural traditions was never greater than in the twentieth century. The arts seem to have started from scratch in many respects. Such a development is certain to ignore church culture, which by its nature is embedded in a tradition encompassing the last twenty centuries. The isolation seems complete.

In the end, the emancipation of Dutch Catholics was one of the causes of the Church's decline. No longer were the seminaries the exclusive, strongly protective centres of secondary and higher education. Catholic secondary schools were established everywhere, and in 1923 a Catholic University was founded in Nijmegen. Growth isn't something you can tie down. Openings to the outside world began to appear in the Church's intellectual and cultural isolation, and the faith proved unable to seal them back up. Its efforts only made the openings bigger. Starting in the 1960s, great pieces of the wall — which had become porous long before — began to fall away.

What very gradual process had led to this porosity? The massive abandonment of the Church that has been taking place since the late sixties cannot be explained without looking at prior history. I think one of the major causes was the absence of any profound spirituality. The Catholic faith had been reduced to a small number of obligations: attendance at mass on Sunday, confession and reception of Communion at least once a year (around Easter), not eating meat on Friday and fasting on fast days, to name a few.

Simplifying the faith to the keeping of five commandments turns it into a faith of externals — and of minimalism. No shirking of obligations without

the threat of punishment. That the obligations were able to survive for a long time was due to the fear of punishment and Hell. A system of obligations turns believers into a collective group, and very little was done to minister to individual spiritual needs. But the fear of damnation began to give way and it became possible to fulfil the so-called Sunday obligation on Saturday as well — a decision by Rome that may have had more far-reaching repercussions than any other because it made all the other obligations seem deferrable, too, until they were just swept aside, almost as a matter of course.

It was then that Catholics began to leave the Church, not just individually, of course, but collectively. For many of them the religion of obligation had had little content, so that leaving caused them no pain. The only change was in their external circumstances. The big question may be whether their faith had ever meant as much to the Catholics as the success figures from the thirties, forties and fifties suggested. For many Protestants, with their personal responsibility and their personal relationship with God, abandoning religion was an agonising process, in keeping with the seriousness of their belief.

A people with a poor memory

Catholic procession, Eijsden, 14 June 1998.

Photo by Marie CĂŠcile Thijs. (From Roomse Rituelen. Ad Donker, Rotterdam; mariececilethij s.com.)

For many, the cultural rift placed them in an almost schizophrenic situation.

People felt that they belonged to two irreconcilable worlds, and the modernisation of the liturgy failed to bring about a reconciliation. Even worse, the high-handed approach to the search for new forms drove many more tra ditional believers out of the Church. An entire generation was in exile, churchless, left alone with their memories. A wilfulness similar to that involved in liturgical change became visible in the Dutch Catholic archdiocese. The Netherlands seemed to be leading the field in everything: in their view of the dominating central power of Rome (and only thirty years earlier

The austere church of the Benedictine abbey in Mamelis near Vaals. It was designed by architect-monk Hans van der Laan.

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the church had been ultramontane ! ), of the place of the laity in the Church, and of the value and worthlessness of priestly celibacy. Conclusions were drawn from the Second Vatican Council that were far from the conclusions being drawn in Rome. What was most devastating, in my opinion, was the questioning of the sense of almost everything. `Sense' is easily identified with 'usefulness'. Not only are the Dutch a highly practical people, but their culture is characterised by the absence of a feeling for tradition — unlike that of, say, the English or the French. The Dutch have the worst memories in Europe. In fact, the Dutchman is a 'momentalist'. I believe that this momentalism, combined with the conviction that upon examination religious values and practices serve no useful purpose, has been partly responsible for the massive departure from the Church. It cannot be denied that the many priests and religious who have abandoned their vocations have impressed the laity with the seeming ease with which they did it.

Naturally, what happened in the churches cannot be separated from what was happening throughout the Netherlands from the mid-sixties on: a revolt against every kind of authority and a struggle to break free of it. As usual, the arts led the way. In revolutionary movements in poetry and the visual arts, traditions and norms that had seemed indisputable were done away with. These movements took place within a highly conformist society (in the Netherlands, the pre-war spirit seemed to have survived the war). It wasn't until the sixties that the freedom and anarchy of the arts got the society they had envisioned. The conclusions were drawn. The gentlemen's hats, professors' berets, policemen's caps and priests' and bishops' birettas were blown to smithereens. The word `control' was the `liberté' of this revolution.

Every group found itself participating in this craving for control, and pil larised Dutch society began to break down. The late date at which this all took place (in the Netherlands, the nineteenth century continued deep into the twentieth) explains the vehemence and somewhat exaggerated character of many of the movements involved. And the small size of the Netherlands is the reason why so many movements were affected. Amsterdam, a city with a mind of its own throughout Dutch history, did its best to set an example.

Religion

a

la carte

Society and the Church, always governed from above, began to feel the power from `below' (and it goes without saying not for the first time). At first ecclesiastical authority — from the parish priest to the archbishop — was just under pressure; then it began to lose its power altogether. Increasingly, the Catholic Church found that its hierarchy seemed to be suspended in a vacuum. The grassroots had discovered personal responsibility, which developed into what I call a philosophical eclecticism, or a religious eclecticism as regards church life. This was reinforced by the growing sense of individualism during the 199os, a quality whose influence is only absent today among football supporters (sport as the new church — that's a whole new chapter). Many people who say they're still religious are selecting from a variety of spiritual goods based on usefulness or on what matches their particular feelings. Many Dutch people have put together a religion a la

with choices made more from the dessert trolley rather than the main course menu. Most people are completely indifferent. Personally, I think that what is called tolerance is in fact indifference; and that ties up with the above-mentioned momentalism of the Dutch culture.

This entire history is necessary to understand the present situation. It all boils down to the fact that within the society and culture of the Netherlands today the churches have almost no authority, nor are they able to compel it, not even at the level of the religious leadership. It should also be noted that because of the very large influx of immigrants from Surinam, Turkey and Morocco and many other countries, Dutch culture is becoming more and more heterogeneous. It's far from simple. The whole world is represented, and both the Church and all of Christian culture occupy only a small place within it.

The only thing that has managed to remain intact in the Netherlands is anti-Papism, which seems fiercer than ever but at the same time betrays a Don Quixote character: more and more protest against something that no longer exists. carte,

The last of the faithful The history of a single place may be better at proving my point than theories `The feeling you want to share': advertisement

which was part of a campaign mounted by the Catholic Broadcasting Organisation KRO in 2000.

John Valentine's cover illustration for the Catholic weekly De Tijd (i i January 1980): the Pope tries to gather the Dutch bishops, his `fallen angels'.

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The Chinese Buddhist temple on Zeedijk in Amsterdam. It was officially opened by Queen Beatrix in 2000.

and speculations. I'll choose my most personal spot: the church of my youth.

My church was located in a very densely populated neighbourhood of Amsterdam. It was built around 1924, and its first priest would later become bishop of Haarlem. The building seated eleven hundred. Many young Catholic couples came to live in the area around the church, my parents among them. Gradually, the church became the centre of the neighbourhood, regardless of the number of non-Catholics who came to live there.

Nearby were a Catholic nursery school and girls' school, both run by nuns, who lived in great numbers in a huge convent. At late mass on Sundays the church was packed, attended by what in retrospect turned out to have been a largely faceless mass coming to fulfil their obligation. The church calendar imposed shape on time, both inside the church and at home. In the forties and fifties the church had five priests.

My mother, who remained in the neighbourhood for a considerable time, lived to see the beginning of the drop in church attendance. More and more of the eleven hundred places in the church remained unoccupied and the number of priests grew smaller. New people moved into the neighbourhood, people who had no contact with any church, and later many people from other countries who now even form the majority. About twelve years ago I went back to the church one Sunday. I sat there with only a handful of people, many of them reliable churchgoers whom I recognised from the past, now grey and elderly. These were the last of the faithful, the remains of what had been — or rather, had seemed to be — a blooming community (the number had been keeping up appearances far too long). The church is now closed, the convent was locked up years ago (religious communities now mostly consist of elderly members). Another decade, and all traces of what was once a vigorous monastic life in the Netherlands will have disappeared.

My church will be demolished, as so many other churches in Amsterdam, and indeed throughout the Netherlands, have been closed or demolished in recent decades, including some built less than forty years ago in new neighbourhoods. One of the largest mosques in Amsterdam was once a Jesuit church. Islam is the only religion that is growing in the Netherlands. On Friday evenings you can see many Muslim men on their way to the mosque.

Sunday has changed from the Lord's Day to `koopzondag' shopping — `

Sunday'. And many people are completely ignorant of the meaning of most Christian holidays.

Not a word of regret

Perhaps the most bewildering thing is this: the ease and the noiselessness with which this total change has taken place. Naturally this applies to our whole social existence, in which the year of my birth, 1929, seems closer to the seventeenth century than to the twenty-first. And perhaps the noiselessness of secularisation is less bewildering than the way it was accepted as a matter of course. This must mean that the roots in the sacred soil did not run very deep. The process began with the defection of the working class, evident from early on, and later of the intellectuals. The middle classes held out the longest.

It's easy enough to say that material prosperity has taken the place of faith, setting economic riches against spiritual poverty. It's undeniable: the structure of life in anticipation of a hereafter remains the same, except that now the hereafter is what comes after one's working life is over. And advertisements which in every respect recall the language of the old-time sale of indulgences promote the paradise of the carefree life as up for sale. `Enjoy life' — that's what it's all about. The notorious frugality of Calvinism seems to have disappeared.

The only possible explanation for what has taken place is that the structure of Church and faith have simply become historical. And since the structure is regarded as the substance, the faith disappeared along with the ageing of the structure. None of my numerous friends and acquaintances, once Catholic or Protestant, has ever uttered a word of regret. It was nice as long as it lasted. Their children still recognise the inside of the church, but they left it very early on. Their grandchildren will be the first with absolutely no memory of religion or church. Then secularisation will be complete. Not a church tower in sight. We'll be the Low Countries once and for all — except for the pointed towers of the minarets; they're growing thick and fast.

New towers in the Netherlands: the Sultan Ahmet mosque in Delft.

This Turkish mosque was built in 1995.

KEES FENS

Translated by Nancy Forest-Flier.

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