In the U.S. some Roman Catholic prelates have done all they could to discourage U.S. circulation of the Dutch catechism, a lively, undogmatic compendium of doctrine.

Catechism in Dutch

Some Roman Catholic prelates have done all they could to discourage U.S. circulation of the Dutch catechism (TIME, Aug. 18), a lively, undogmatic compendium of doctrine that reflects the most recent radical insights of theologians and scripture scholars. First the Roman Curia ordered a thorough study of…

Nowhere is ecumenical enthusiasm for Reformation Day greater than in the NL. Catholic, Protestant and Jewish scholars have participated in preparing a series of documentaries on Luther.

On Oct. 29, Reformation Sunday, members of ten Protestant churches in Albert Lea, Minn., will proceed in a motorcade to the Roman Catholic Benedictine Abbey of St. John’s at Collegeville. There, leaders of the churches will hand over the proceeds of a special collection as a contribution toward completing a…

Dutch clerics are involved in theological disputes with Rome over two bestselling books that deal with fundamental church issues.

Pope Paul VI issued yet another statement last week cautioning the faithful about ultra-reformist tendencies in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.

The Pontiff rebuked those who are trying “to attribute to the council every type of novelty, even going so far as to question fundamental doctrines of Catholicism,…

In The Netherlands a branch of the church has suddenly become the acknowledged center of avant-garde thinking within Catholicism, openly discussing a break from the formal dogma.

The Second Vatican Council unleashed a passion for change in the Roman Catholic Church that has shown no signs of subsiding. And nowhere has the urge to question and challenge the past taken deeper roots than in The Netherlands, where a branch of the church once noted for its stodgy…

In England, Germany, and especially The Netherlands, a number of speculative theologians are independently reconsidering transubstantiation.

The questioning spirit of aggiornamento begun by Pope John, having opened up discussion on such long-settled issues as clerical celibacy and birth control, is now turning toward another and even more central teaching of the Roman Catholic Church: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In England, Germany, and…

The little farming and fishing community of Elburg was horrified seven weeks ago when four local youths reported that they had seen pretty, blonde Matje Leusink, 26, kissing the pastor.

“I solemnly declare before God and my parish that I have committed adultery,” announced Pastor Bastianus Gerardus Andries van der Wiel from the pulpit of the Reformed Church of Elburg in The Netherlands. The congregation listened in thrilled silence; then the chief elder rose to deliver a thunderous, hour-long sermon…

Ecumenical marriage ceremonies have taken place in the methodically unity-seeking Netherlands.

ECUMENISM

“Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” intoned the Rev. Claudius Miller, an Episcopal minister, at the wedding last month of Susan Ekberg, an Episcopalian, and Patrick C. Barker, a Roman Catholic. The words were from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and the wedding…

Lately, the sources of radical and rebellious Roman Catholic thinking is the staid and sober Netherlands. The latest incident to alarm Rome’s Holy Office involves a lively magazine.

The sources of radical and rebellious Roman Catholic thinking used to be the industrial missions in urban France or the theological faculties of German universities. Lately, the fount of ideas that may skirt heresy — or may become the accepted reshaping of church thinking — is the staid and sober Netherlands.

The…

A new European approach to birth control has here and there gone from theory to practice. Sales of the pill in the Catholic south of Holland reportedly rose 40% last year.

Revisions in theology start inconspicuously enough—usually as footnote-laden articles in grey, learned journals with modest circulations. Future church historians may well date a profound change in Roman Catholic thinking on marriage from the current issue of a scholarly Belgian periodical called Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, There, the Rev. Louis Janssens,…

This week, Rev. Herman Hegger will open Europe’s first organized haven for ex-priests, because says he: “A priest who wants to break with the Roman Catholic Church is helpless.”

“A priest who wants to break with the Roman Catholic Church is helpless,” says the Rev. Herman Johannes Hegger, 46, a minister in the Calvinist Church of The Netherlands. “He needs somebody, just for the simple things in life, because he is actually left on the street without a penny…

A World War II candidate who might be named saint by the Catholic Church was Father Titus Brandsma, died in a Dachau chamber, refusing to retract his anti-Nazi views.

In the Roman Catholic Church, saints are made, not born. Since 1588, when Rome first established strict procedures for canonization, the Congregation of Rites has declared that 211 men and women are, as far as man knows, in the company of God in heaven. Only one is an American, Mother…

Pope John XXIII last week added new members to the College of Cardinals, among them archbishop Bernard Jan Alfrink, 59, from The Netherlands town of Nijkerk.

For the third time during the 17 months of his reign, Pope John XXIII last week added new members to the College of Cardinals. From 1586, when Pope Sixtus V reorganized the college, the traditional membership had been fixed at 70.

Two years ago Pope John broke through the old…

No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist, said Pius XI. In the Netherlands the Catholic Archbishopric warned Catholics for socialism as well.

The socialists wrongly assume the right of property to be of mere human invention . . . and, preaching up the community of goods, declare that … all may with impunity seize upon the possessions and usurp the rights of the wealthy. More wise and profitably, the Church recognizes the…

The Netherlands’ Catholic Institute for Social-Ecclesiastical Research has launched a $5,000 prize contest to find new ways to control the fast growing world population.

By 1980, the U.N. estimates, there will be from 34% to 63% more people on earth than in 1950. To some this suggests the need for birth control. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that any mechanical interference with the consequences of sexual intercourse is a mortal sin. But The Netherlands’…

A fine old Dutch custom (when the winter ice is firm enough) is to stage a skating race, point to point, Last week Dutch Jews staged a variant: a synagogue auto rally.

A fine old Dutch custom (when the winter ice is firm enough) is to stage a skating race, point to point, through towns of the northern Netherlands. Last week, proud of the synagogues restored or newly built since the end of Nazi occupation, Dutch Jews staged a variant: a synagogue…