Catholics in the Netherlands celebrated their restoration as the nation’s biggest party in the last provincial election, polling 31.5% of the votes.

After four years of rule by the Social Christian (Catholic) Party, Belgium last week got a new government, headed by moderate Socialist Achille van Acker, 56, a stubby, ever-smiling ex-basketworker who has been Premier twice before. Presiding over a coalition of Socialists and free-enterprising Liberals, Premier van Acker will control…

According to Jesuit Father Antonio Messineo in Rome the Netherlands will be a tolerant country when Dutch Catholics become a majority.

“There’s no question of innovation, but only of clarification,” protested black-haired Jesuit Father Antonio Messineo in Rome last week. Those who regarded his article in the Jesuit fortnightly Civiltâ Cattolica as something new in Roman Catholic thought, he said, were wrong. Father Messineo’s conclusion had been that “tolerance is a…