Twelve new Catholics priests in Holland were ordained on Saturday 5 June. It’s the tradition in this country to celebrate ordinations in the period around Pentecost. The new priests were ordained in Utrecht, Den Bosch, Roermond, Haarlem and Rotterdam. Other ordinations are due to take place in November, on the feast of the national saint, St. Willibrord. As in various other countries, the number of new ordinations is declining in Holland, even though an apparent reversal of the trend has recently been registered, to judge from Church figures. There were only 41 new priests between 1976 and 1980, whereas 123 new ordinations were celebrated between 1996 and 2000: a threefold increase. Up till the mid-1970s the Dutch Catholic Church had, at the world level, one of the highest growth rates in terms of new ordinations, with the result that many Dutch priests were posted to foreign dioceses, where the number of new vocations was lower. At Maastricht there was even a European seminary for the specific training of candidates who would practise their ministry in other European countries.
