Cordial and open minority” “” “

Secularism and questions of faith – In the small but lively and highly developed country of Denmark Catholics form a very small minority: out of 5.3 million inhabitants, there are approximately 35,000 registered Catholics, to whom should be added the immigrants of various countries who declare themselves of Catholic faith. “Catholics have always been a minority in our country – says Bishop Czeslav Kozon of Copenhagen – and it should be borne in mind that our condition is that of being a minority in a state that recognizes the Lutheran Evangelical Church as the official religion”. Only the Lutheran Church is eligible for state funding, derived from the taxes paid by citizens, even though the believers of other confessions and religions may refuse to pay the percentage of income tax allocated to support the Lutheran Church. In any case, this situation of “privilege” for Lutherans has itself to come to terms with a level of secularisation apparently among the highest in Europe: recent statistics speak of a rate of attendance at Sunday church services fluctuating between 1 and 3% of believers. In recent days, the country’s popular press has been full of the case of a pastor of the Lutheran Church, Thorkild Grosboel, who spiritually guides the community of the little town of Taarbaek, north of Copenhagen, and who is reported to have made public declarations of the type: “God does not exist. Life in eternity does not exist, and therefore there is no resurrection”. The case has even been taken up in the international press, since it has given rise to a fierce dispute within the Danish Lutheran Church between those who maintain that the pastor should resign his post, and those who believe he should be shown a certain “clemency”. The Lutheran bishop has temporarily suspended him, but the question remains open. A minority presence – “As far as we are concerned, the Catholic presence, even if it is a minority, has its significance – explains Bishop Kozon –. For example, each year we register some sixty conversions. The figure is not so small, but up to 40-50 years ago it was far higher: the average was some 200 conversions per year. What Danish Lutherans have difficulty in understanding is the sense of the Catholic hierarchy, and in particular the so-called social doctrine of the Church. For example, a certain disenchantment greeted the publication of ‘Dominus Jesus’ and the consequent definition of the Church. In any case, although the public presence of Catholics in Denmark is rather limited, the Catholic schools in the country do play an important role. They are few, but of high quality. On the other hand, all the Catholic hospitals have now disappeared. At one time there were 12 of them, because they were run by the religious congregations which subsequently suffered from a decline in vocations. At the present time, the pastoral service is provided by some eighty priests, of whom two thirds are foreign, and 234 nuns, subdivided into 34 different communities”. During the recent ad limina visit of the bishops of the Scandinavian Bishops’ Conference (April 2003), Pope John Paul II exhorted the pastors of the small Catholic communities in the Nordic countries with a large Protestant majority to increase their local ecumenical programmes, “because – said the Pope – the common witness of all Christians will contribute a great deal to ensuring that the values of the Gospel bear fruit in society and that the Kingdom of God may progress in our midst”. Another appeal made by John Paul II to the Scandinavian bishops was that of “doing your utmost to promote the dynamic presence of the religious and contemplative communities among your people”. In a country that risks generalized secularism like Denmark, an appeal of this kind seems more than ever timely.