Everywhere the summer holidays are over, and that means that the seminaries are staring their new academic years as well. Notable among them is the Ariëns Institute of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, which opens its doors for the first time. After several years outside the archdiocese, the seminarians have returned to the city of Utrecht to live in the newly refurbished house and to study at the University of Tilburg in Utrecht or the Fontys University of Applied Sciences. Yesterday Cardinal Wim Eijk opened and blessed the house, which is home to six seminarians. A further two are studying parttime at Bovendonk seminary in the Diocese of Breda, one is spending a pastoral year in a parish, and four Colombian members of the Misioneros de Cristo Maestro live nearby, in their own communal house. The cardinal blessed that house a day earlier.
^The seminarians for the Archdiocese of Utrecht, posing in front of the seminary house with their families and Cardinal Eijk and auxiliary bishop Hoogenboom and Woorts.
At the aforementioned Bovendonk, 21 students for the priesthood or the diaconate (re)started their studies and formation. They come from the Dutch dioceses of Breda, Rotterdam and Utrecht, as well as the Belgian (Arch)dioceses of Breda, Rotterdam and Utrecht, as well as the Belgian (Arch)dioceses of Antwerp and Mechelen-Brussels. Two seminarians from the Diocese of Groningen-Leeuwarden also live, not at Bovendonk, but in the Diocese of Breda, studying at the University of Tilburg.
The eight men preparing at Bovendonk for service as permanent deacons.
The Vronesteyn centre in the Diocese of Rotterdam coordinates the formation of seminarians for that diocese. It has six men studying in the Dioceses of Haarlem-Amsterdam and Breda, as well as Eichstätt in Germany.
The seminaries of the Tiltenberg (Haarlem-Amsterdam), Rolduc (Roermond) and the St. John’s Centre (‘s Hertogenbosch) have not (yet) made statements about their numbers of seminarians this year.
Photo credit: [1] Ariënsinstituut, [2] R. Mangold
Now, the seminarians are to come home to Utrecht, back to the old house they vacated four years ago, which now lies next door to the Faculty of Catholic Theology, which moved to the inner city a few years ago. Seminarians will receive their academic formation there. Fr. Kuipers will be the rector of the newly established institution.
There are several reasons for the return to Utrecht, of which the improved financial situation of the archdiocese if the most important. There is also a slow increase in seminarians, which, together with the limited space available, means that the new seminary is only open to seminarians from the archdiocese. In the past, Utrecht was also home to seminarians from the Diocese of Groningen-Leeuwarden. Another reason to return to Utrecht was the peripheral location of the Tiltenberg, the seminary of Haarlem-Amsterdam, as seen from the archdiocese. The seminarians would be travelling long distances from there to the parishes in which they learned the trade, so to speak.
Vocations and Education to Church Ministry (Wim Cardinal Eijk): Mentions the intended merger between the three Catholic theological faculties in the country. The Faculty of Catholic Theology (logo pictured) of the University of Tilburg, but located in Utrecht, was the result. Two faculties participated, while the third lost the right to dispense ecclesiastical grades. No mention is made of the seminaries.
Education (Bishop Jan Hendriks): Government policy and secularisation put pressure on Catholic education. Ways are sought to improve relations between Church and schools and increase religious knowledge of teachers.
Pastoral care in Justice and Health Care (Bishop Everard de Jong): Pastoral care in prisons takes place in close cooperation with the state. Most hospitals and nursing homes are secularised, making providing pastoral care more difficult. It is being ‘professionalised’ and thus becoming more secular. There are very few priests available in this area, and the challenge is to strengthen the bonds between caregivers and dioceses, and dioceses and institutions.
Mission and Development (Bishop Jos Punt): There is solidarity and creativity in the parishes, often aimed at local projects. These can be integrated in national actions. There is also a decline in financial contributions to missionary projects. (At left: Bishop Punt on a missionary visit to Ethiopia)
Medical Ethics (Wim Cardinal Eijk): The cardinal lectures on this topic in the Netherlands and abroad, and also teaches the subject at the seminary of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam, and writes articles for various publications. He also maintains political contacts to emphasise the topic, and has published a handbook on medical ethics (pictured), which is currently being translated into English and Italian.
Pilgrimages (Bishop Herman Woorts): The bishop takes part in the annual meeting of the three official pilgrimage organisations. Important now is the creation of a new pilgrims’ book related to the publication of an interrim Missal, probably sometime in 2014. The bishop takes part in various pilgrimages and celebrations.
More than seven years after the publication of Summorum Pontificum, which ‘freed up’ the use of the traditional form of the Mass, the so-called Extraordinary Form, as it was used for centuries before the liturgy changes of the Second Vatican Council, a milestone is reached for the Catholics in the Netherlands: for the first time a Dutch bishop will offer Mass in this form.
3 July: The Diocese of Breda publishes a special diocesan magazine about the Second Vatican Council, including an informative poster (front page at right).
Virtually simultaneous with yesterday’s consecration of Bishop Jan Hendriks, the new bishop expanded his new media presence. Already quite active on Facebook – which also saw his first words as bishop appear soon after: “The day of my consecration to bishop was a beautiful day on which I look back with much gratitude. Thank you, everyone, for your heartfelt words and prayers!” – Bishop Hendriks launched his own website, 
Five years ago (well, five years and a few months), the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter was given the church of St. Agnes to use as their home base in Amsterdam. The society, more commonly known by its abbreviation FSSP, is a worldwide group of priests who, according to 
With the academic year well underway (in fact, the first break is happening this week), the numbers of new students at the Dutch seminaries have been released. With 18 new seminarians (some of whom are pictured to the left, at the Tiltenberg seminary) there is an ever-so-slight drop from last year, when 20 new names were added to the books. With several ordinations having taken place in the previous academic year, the total number of students at the four seminaries in the Netherlands remains at exactly 100.
In Caelo et in Terra 