On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Bishop Jan Hendriks’ ordination to the priesthood, celebrated last Friday at the diocesan shrine of Our Lady of Need in Heiloo, Bishop Jos Punt announced his intention to ask the pope for an early retirement next year.
The bishop of Haarlem-Amsterdam will mark the 25th anniversary of his consecration as bishop in the summer of 2020, six months before his 75th birthday. This, he said, would be “a good time to pass the staff to Msgr. Hendriks.” Bishop Hendriks has been coadjutor bishop of Haarlem-Amsterdam since December of last year, so a possibly months-long search for a new bishop is already averted.
Bishop Punt has been struggling with health issues for the past years, regularly needing periods of rest. The appointment of Bishop Hendriks as coadjutor will have been the first step in a smooth transition in diocesan leadership. Considering that most coadjutor bishops in recent years have only held that position for a calendar year or less, this fairly rapid turnover is also not unexpected.
Bishop Punt has been the 13th bishop of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam (simply Haarlem before 2008), which was established in 1559, suppressed in 1592 and established again in 1833. He was appointed as auxiliary bishop of Haarlem in 1995, and became apostolic administrator of the diocese three days after the early death of Bishop Henny Bomers in 1998. He held that temporary position for an uncommonly long three years before being officialy appointed as bishop of Haarlem. From 2000 to 2011 he was assisted by Bishop Jan van Burgsteden as auxiliary bishop, and, after the latter’s semi-retirement (semi because he retained duties in the bishops’ conference as well as in the inner city parish in Amsterdam), by Bishop Hendriks. Since 1995, Bishop Punt has also been the apostolic administrator of the Military Ordinariate of the Netherlands, which has not had its own bishop since the retirement of Bishop Ronald Bär, who held the position in addition to being bishop of Rotterdam.
The retirement of Bishop Punt and Bishop Hendriks’ succession will be the last episcopal appointment in the Netherlands for some time, barring any unforeseen circumstances. The next-oldest bishop in the Netherlands is 66-year-old Cardinal Wim Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, who is therefore still nine years away from retirement. There will, however, be a few earlier changes, although they do no involve native bishops. Towards the end of 2021 the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Aldo Cavalli, will reach retirement age. Additionaly, the Ukrainain Diocese of St.-Vladimir-le-Grand de Paris, which ministers to Ukrainian Catholics in the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg), is currently awaiting a new bishop, who will have his seat in Paris.
Photo credit: Wim Koopman
On 1 April, Father Pierre Valkering celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. After the festive Mass he presented his autobiography, which he had been working on in secret over the past couple of years. In it, he describes not only his homosexuality, but also his addiction to pornography (going so far as to say that something of the Gospel may be found in pornography) and his past visits to dark rooms and other homosexual meeting areas. These revelations came as a shocking surprise to the diocese. In the past, Bishop Jos Punt had spoken at several occasions with Fr. Valkering about his celibacy, receiving the assurance that the latter was dealing with it “responsibly”. That was obviously a lie.
30 January: Alberto Cardinal Suárez Inda, archbishop emeritus of Morelia, Mexico
In Belgium, Bishop Luc Van Looy of Ghent (pictured at left) has already had his retirement accepted. At 77, he completed a two-year extension to his mandate last year. He is to remain in office until the appointment and installation of his successor. Namur’s Bishop Remy Vancottem is, at 75, also past retirement age, so the southeastern diocese may see a new bishop before the year is out as well.
In October, the Synod of Bishops will gather again for a special assembly for the Pan-Amazonian region, to discuss the specific challenges for the Church there. The expectations are high, as many assume to what will be decided there, especially on the topic of married priests, will have global consequences. Participation in the special assembly is limited to bishops from the area, which means there is a minute Dutch link, at least when it comes to language, in the person of the bishop of Paramaribo, Msgr. Karel Choennie. Bishop Choennie is a member of the pre-synodal council preparing the special assembly in cooperation with Synod of Bishops’ general secretariat.
“We are celebrating Christmas in a tense time. The Middle East is on fire. North Korea and American are threatening “fire and fury” upon each other. Almost all countries are rearming themselves. Each one, in their own opinion, to defend themselves against the others. That is how the First World War started. How do we break this spiral of fear, hate and violence?
As expected the Dutch bishop’s conference today elected a new president after Cardinal Eijk 
The president is part of the permanent council of the bishops’ conference, together with the vice president and a third member. This council prepares the monthly meetings of the bishops. The vice president was until today Bishop Frans Wiertz of Roermond, but health reasons, which he so openly discussed 
Of these, Bishop de Jong (at left) may have the best cards. A bishop for 17 years, he was allegedly in the running to succeed then-Bishop Eijk in Groningen-Leeuwarden back in 2008. Ultimately that appointment went to Bishop de Korte, but his time may now have come. Coming from a large diocese, he has relatively little experience with the process of parish mergers and consolidations as it is taking place in Groningen-Leeuwarden. This could speak against him.
This leaves only two other ordinaries to be considered: Rotterdam’s Hans van den Hende (at right) and Breda’s Jan Liesen. Bishop van den Hende is a native of Groningen-Leeuwarden, serving as its vicar general before being appointed as coadjutor bishop of Breda in 2006. If he was to come home, it would mean his third appointment as ordinary, after Breda and Rotterdam. While not impossible, it is quite unlikely. And with only four years as bishop of Breda and almost five years and counting in Rotterdam, he may be excused for wanting to stay in one place for a while longer. That’s better for his diocese, too.
In the Netherlands, to begin with, a new bishop will arrive in the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Bishop Antoon Hurkmans (right) has already has his resignation on health grounds accepted and it shouldn’t take more than a few more months for his successor in the country’s largest diocese (in numbers at least) to be named. Will it be current Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts? Who’s to say.
In Germany, three prelates are expected to retire this year. First of all the long-serving Bishop of Mainz, Cardinal Karl Lehmann (left), who will reach the age of 80 in May. Losing his voting rights in the conclave and his memberships in the Curia, his retirement is expected to follow around the same time. The Diocese has already announced that Cardinal Lehmann will continue to live in his current home, while the former abode of Cardinal Volk, bishop of Mainz from 1962 to 1982. Cardinal Lehmann has headed Mainz since 1983.
In Limburg we may finally expect the arrival of a new bishop. Administrator Bishop Manfred Grothe (right) will be 77 in April and has already retired as auxiliary bishop of Paderborn. In March, it will be two years since Bishop Tebartz-van Elst was made to retire, and according to Bishop Grothe, the time is just about ready for his successor to be named.
In the Archdiocese of Hamburg, the last auxiliary bishop, Hans-Jochen Jaschke (left) will reach the age of 75 in September. This may mean that Archbishop Stefan Heße will be requesting one or more new auxiliary bishops from Rome, either this or next year.
In Belgium then, Ghent’s Bishop Luc Van Looy (right) will turn 75 in September. The Salesian, who became president of Caritas Europe and was among Pope Francis’ personal choices to attend the Synod of Bishops last year, has been bishop of Ghent since 2003.
In Rome, another Belgian bishop will reach the retirement age in April, Archbishop Frans Daneels (left), secretary of the Apostolic Signatura and a Norbertine priest, may return to Averbode Abbey in Belgium, where he made his profession in 1961.
The Dutch bishops, meeting last weekend, perhaps unsurprisingly, decided to heed the call of Pope Francis to offer aid to refugees. They are following the example of bishops in Germany and other countries, and a decision on this topic had been forthcoming. I already came across grumblings that the bishops as a whole were keeping rather quiet about refugees and their plight. Only Bishops Gerard de Korte and Jos Punt had shared their thoughts on the websites of their dioceses. More on that in a later post.
Archbishop Aldo Cavalli was born in 1946 in northern Italy and became a priest of the Diocese of Bergamo in 1971. Before enrolling in the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the Holy See’s “diplomacy school”, in 1975, he taught literature at the minor seminary of Bergamo and studied political and social sciences. In Rome he added canon law and theology to his studies. Subsequently he worked at the Holy See’s diplomatic mission in Burundi and at the Secretariat of State, before being appointed as Apostolic Delegate to Angola and Apostolic Nuncio to São Tomé and Principe in 1996. A year later, he became a full Nuncio to Angola. In 2001 he was transferred to Chile, in 2007 to Colombia and in 2013 he came to Malta, in what was once of the last appointments made by Pope Benedict XVI before the latter’s retirement. Like his predecessors, Archbishop Cavalli also became Nuncio to Libya a few months later, in addition to his appointment in Malta.
In Caelo et in Terra 