Headquarters of the Primate of the Netherlands could be sold
St. Catherine's Cathedral in Utrecht will probably be closed and sold due to the ever-decreasing number of worshipers, which increases the cost of maintaining this historic building. The potential buyer will be the Museum of Religious Art Catharijneconvent, which was established on the site of a former monastery.
A group of parishioners published a petition on the Internet, which collected over 1,600 signatures. According to the petitioners, closing the cathedral and thus removing the visibility of Catholicism in the city centre will stop the future growth of the community.
In 1580, during the Reformation, Saint Catherine’s Cathedral was handed over to Calvinists. It returned to the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century and became the cathedral after the re-establishment of the Utrecht archdiocese.
Church historian Peter Nessen explains that he is really surprised that the Primate of the Netherlands, Cardinal Wim Eijk has not yet objected to the sale of the cathedral.
“The headquarters of the Primate will probably be moved to the Utrecht parish of St. Augustine or to the church in Appeldoorn, over 60 km east of Utrech. (…) It would be the first time that a Dutch episcopal seat is being moved because of financial problems and the low number of the faithful,” Nessen explains.
The number of Catholics in the Utrecht archdiocese fell from 942,000 in 1980 to 750,000 in 2014.
Source and image: swiato-podglad.pl
