To be honest, I’d be trying to get front row seats if it would happen, but I don’t expect that Pope Francis will really make a papal visit to the Netherlands anytime soon, let alone next year, as Trouw suggests. Then again, even the bishops have been toying with the idea, as we learn from the letter about the ad limina visit that Bishop Punt sent his faithful. There we find the following passage:
“At an earlier occasion I spoke with the Pope about a possible visit to the Netherlands. He seemed very interested. With the other bishops we have agreed to consider the possibilities.”
Both Trouw and Catholic broadcaster RKK are now reporting that a spokesman for Bishop Punt has said that they hope for a visit to Amsterdam sometime next year. I don’t read that in the bishop’s letter, and I have doubts if next year is realistic. Pope Francis does not yet seem to be as keen a traveller as both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, having only visited Brazil (and that visit was scheduled for Benedict), and the Dutch bishops, who have not yet issued a formal invitation (as Cardinal Eijk said during the ad limina), are not the first in line. We may be certain that Pope Francis intends to visit the Holy Land next year, as he himself has said in the most recent interview. The bishops will be discussing possibilities regarding the visit during their January meeting, it is said.
A papal visit will be something to look forward to. It will be an enormous boost in confidence for Dutch Catholics, but we can’t forget the disastrous previous visit of a Pope, in 1985. Pope John Paul II, who was also a much beloved and popular pontiff, suffered much criticism then for the Church teachings on controversial topics like women’s ordination and contraception. Hey, it’s the Netherlands, anything can happen.
While a papal visit may be in the books for an unspecified time in the future, I don’t see it happening next year, nor do I believe that the bishops themselves think so.
EDIT: Anna Kruse, the spokeswoman for the bishops, confirmed on Twitter that a possible papal visit was not discussed during the ad limina visit, and that there has been no formal invitation from the bishops to the Pope. The bishops would welcome a visit, of course, and via Bishop Punt we learn that Pope Francis isn’t opposed either, but that’s about as far as it goes.
Photo credit: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images
In Caelo et in Terra 
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