Via Twitter (the social media network once again proving its value as a news disseminator) I am reading announcements that the Vatican Congregation for Bishops will announce the name of the new bishop of Rotterdam tomorrow at noon. The as yet unknown person will succeed Msgr. Ad van Luyn, S.D.B., currently serving as Apostolic Administrator of Rotterdam, as the fifth bishop of the southwestern Dutch diocese.
Sadly, I’ll be working at the time the announcement is made, but I expect to be able to draft a serviceable blog post about the appointment in the evening. The upcoming appointment will be the first one of a new diocesan ordinary since Bishop Gerard de Korte was appointed to Groningen-Leeuwarden in 2008.
Since the retirement of Bishop van Luyn in January, very few names of possible successors have been thrown about, although there are a fair number of possibilities. Of the current ordinaries, Bishop Hans van den Hende of Breda has been mentioned to move one diocese over; an option which I consider unlikely. Msgr. van den Hende has been in Breda for less than five years (including one year as Coadjutor Bishop), and still has enough work to do there.
Another name is that of the auxiliary bishop of Roermond, Msgr. Everard de Jong. A rumoured close runner for Groninger-Leeuwarden in 2008, he is conceivable ready for his own diocese after more than 12 years as auxiliary. Of the other Dutch auxiliaries, none seem to be likely choices: Msgr. van Burgsteden of Haarlem-Amsterdam is beyond the age of retirement himself. The two auxiliaries each of Utrecht and ‘s Hertogenbosch have only recently been appointed; moving them now will most likely be too destabilising for the diocesan curia they leave behind, let alone themselves (but it will not be entirely unprecedented).
Of course, the new bishop may come from the clergy of the Diocese of Rotterdam itself. The first one to come into my mind, as mentioned here before, is Fr. Jan Hendriks, currently the rector of the Tiltenberg seminary, which belongs to the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam, although Fr. Hendriks is a priest of Rotterdam. Another name is that of Fr. Ad van der Helm, the dean of The Hague and professor in canon law at Louvain and Bovendonk. If appointed, he would be the first true twittering bishop of the Netherlands. Rotterdam’s vicar general, Father Dick Verbakel, is an option as well, but a remote one, I think.
But in the end, Rome may still surprise us. Will there be a third Bishop Adrianus* in Rotterdam, or not? Wait and see.
*The first was Bishop Adrianus Simonis, later archbishop of Utrecht and cardinal; the second Bishop Adrianus van Luyn.
Photo credit: Peter van Mulken
In Caelo et in Terra 