Catholic numbers grow in Scandinavia

“The number of Catholics in some of our dioceses has tripled or even quadrupled”, the secretary of the Nordic bishops’ conference, Sr Anna Mirijam Kaschner CPS, told ­journalists at the Hamburg Diocese’s annual meeting on 10 September, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

In Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, 330,000 Catholics had now registered in their dioceses but in reality there were probably as many as 600,000 Catholics in the Scandinavian countries, as many immigrants had not yet been recorded, Sr Anna explained.

Most were immigrants in search of work from Poland, Croatia, Lithuania, Philippines and Vietnam but the number of Lutherans who had become Catholics was also on the increase, she said. “The influence of governments in matters of faith has irritated many Protestant Christians who are looking for a deeper spirituality, a clearer liturgy and orientation in matters of doctrine,” Sr Anna said.