The Archbishop of Utrecht, Cardinal Willem Eijk, has restated his plan to eliminate lay-led Sunday services in all Dutch churches by 2028, emphasising the central role of the Eucharist and pushing back at a protest petition signed by about 6,000 parishioners.
The Dutch primate said in a pastoral letter that parishioners who want communion at their weekly worship would have to drive to a nearby village or town where a priest consecrates hosts at a full Mass.
This came amid continued church closures and parish consolidations, often resented by Mass-goers, to downsize the Church in line with the widespread secularisation of Dutch society in recent decades. Eijk denied any link between his policy and the closures.
Protest letters to the cardinal said this would be a “death knell” for rural churches that already cannot find a priest to say Mass every Sunday.
“Elimination of Word and Communion services seriously affects the vitality of our local faith community,” a suggested protest letter argued.
“You are tearing down the whole church," Nederlands Dagblad quoted one letter as saying.
Many letters predicted a further drop in attendance if villagers could not attend celebrations in their local church. Lay-led celebrations of the Word with pre-consecrated hosts were a pragmatic and popular response to the priest shortage, they argued.
The conservative cardinal insists his solution preserves for the Eucharist “the central place that it deserves” in Catholicism.
He denied that the decision was made without consultation and said previous mentions of the option showed he had been thinking of this plan for some time.
Lay-led celebrations would still be possible during the week, Eijk added.
Twelve Apostles in Zutphen, a consolidated parish in a rural area near Arnhem, illustrated what this would mean. Ten of its 13 churches have already been slated for closure because of dwindling use.
On a recent Sunday, the parish listed five lay-led celebrations in struggling local churches and only two Masses led by a priest. One was by the 65-year-old parish priest and the other was a retired priest, now 86, who helps out.
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