The Archbishop of the Dutch diocese of Utrecht has warned the Irish Church it needs to take care of its financial resources as a priority if it is to avoid the sort of difficulties he has experienced.
In a public address in the Diocese of Waterford & Lismore last week, Cardinal Willem Eijk recalled that his appointment to Utrecht made him “the poorest bishop of the Netherlands”. He learned on his appointment that his archdiocese would be bankrupt after a year-and-a half if he did nothing to address the looming financial crisis.
Embarking on a cost-cutting drive, he called a halt to the ordination of permanent deacons, who were receiving salaries of €70,000 annually, as were lay pastoral workers. Two thirds of the diocesan curia and the deaneries were dismissed including paid lay pastoral workers who were developing catechetical programmes, but he noted that these programmes were “hardly used in the parishes”.
Branded “a cold bishop, with no empathy, only interested in money”, Cardinal Eijk said now that the archdiocese is economically healthy again, nobody was talking in this way any more. His second piece of advice to the Irish Church, which he outlined in his paper, “What the Irish Church could learn from the Recent History of the Church in Holland”, was to “take care of an excellent formation and preparation of your collaborators”.
In 2009, he closed down the archdiocesan seminary due to lack of financial means and lack of seminarians. But as the financial situation improved over the years, there was also a modest rise in the number of seminarians, many of whose vocations were linked to Lourdes, and he was able to reopen the seminary in 2014. There is now also a new three-year training programme for voluntary catechetical collaborators and the first group completed their training in June last year.
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