More Than 30% of the Money Goes on Buildings: Half of the Netherlands’ Catholic Parishes Have Closed

• A Dutch Catholic newspaper found that 55% of parishes had closed
• More than 30% of church funds are spent on maintaining buildings
• Utrecht’s cardinal warned two-thirds of churches in his area could close by 2025
• Only about 5% of registered Dutch Catholics attend Mass

More than half of the Catholic parishes in the Netherlands have closed, and the heaviest wave of church closures may still be ahead, according to a January 2020 report by Catholic News Service carried by the Catholic Review.

The figures came from an investigation by the Dutch Catholic newspaper Katholiek Nieuwsblad, which found that 55% of parishes had been dissolved. The country has about 3.7 million registered Catholics, but only around 5% attend Mass, and the Catholic population fell by a fifth in 15 years. The paper warned that with more than 30% of church funds going to the upkeep of buildings, the biggest wave of closures was yet to come.

Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht had already pushed for sweeping consolidation, proposing to merge 326 parishes into 48 larger units, and warned that two-thirds of churches in his archdiocese and its neighbouring dioceses would be forced to close by 2025. The report also noted that Utrecht’s 16th-century Gothic St Catherine’s Cathedral had been put up for sale in February 2019, and that one village church had become a Buddhist temple in 2017.

Peter Doorakkers, an editor at Katholiek Nieuwsblad, said church leaders had hoped the closures would send a clear message to members. “It’s been hoped people would draw the obvious conclusion — that if you want your church to stay open, you don’t just need to support it financially, you also have to attend it more,” he said. Some Catholics interviewed said they simply stopped going when their local church shut. “I do miss the church at times, especially at important moments like when someone passes away,” said Mark Van Dinteren, who lives near Nijmegen.

The Dutch experience shows how quickly church property can turn from an asset into a burden. Large, historic buildings need heating, roofing and insurance whether ten people attend or a thousand, and when giving falls, maintenance swallows the budget that would otherwise pay for ministry.

Jamaica is far from that position, with church attendance still strong across the island. But many congregations, particularly older denominational churches, are carrying ageing stone buildings with shrinking and greying memberships. Churches here, and diaspora congregations that own buildings in the UK and North America, can learn from the Netherlands to plan early: budget for maintenance, consider shared use, and decide what should happen to a building before a crisis forces a sale.

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