Cardinal Alfrink and the Dutch Catechism

Cardinal Alfrink

Priesthood: Ordained, August 15, 1924. Episcopate: Elected titular archbishop of Tiana and appointed coadjutor of Utrecht, May 28, 1951. Consecrated, July 17, 1951, Utrecht, by Paolo Giobbe, titular archbishop of Tolemaide di Tebaide, nuncio-internuncio in Holland. Apostolic administrator of Utrecht, September 8, 1955. Transferred to metropolitan see of Utrecht, October 31, 1955. Military vicar of Holland, April 16, 1957. Cardinalate: Created cardinal priest, March 28, 1960; received red hat and title of S. Gioacchino, March 31, 1960. President of Episcopal Conference of Holland. Resigned pastoral government of archdiocese, December 6, 1975. Death: December 16, 1987, Nijmegen, Holland. Buried, St. Catharina metropolitan cathedral, Utrecht. 

The Dutch hierarchy and the heretical Dutch Catechism 

Before the Second Vatican Council, Sunday Mass attendance was more than 80% in the Netherlands. This percentage dropped in 1966 to 64.4%; in 1970 to 47.2%; in 1976 to 31.1%. By 1978, Sunday Mass attendance hit the low level of 27.8% of all registered Catholics of seven years or older. The destruction of the Catholic Faith in the Netherlands falls squarely on the shoulders Dutch bishops. The Dutch Church following Vatican II has been likened to an “ecclesial laboratory” [you don't under any circumstances experiment with the salvation of souls]which, like a rotten seed, germinated and poisoned the hearts and minds of many of the Catholic faithful. The modernist tactics of disobediently promoting Communion in the hand (and later saying it was out of control so it should therefore be “legalized”), spreading heretical catechisms, and openly disobeying the Holy Father, became a winning recipe for Faith-wreckers throughout the world. As Cardinal Adrianus Simonus has said, “There is no doubt that public criticism of the Magisterium and hierarchy, which became widespread in the whole Church, did start more or less in the Netherlands.” 1965: As early as 1965, the Vatican had taken to task Cardinal Alfrink of the Netherlands for not stopping the abusive practice of Communion in the hand: “Preserve the traditional manner of distributing Holy Communion. The Holy Father … does not consider it opportune that the sacred Particle by distributed in the hand and later consumed in different manners by the faithful and, therefore, he vehemently exhorts [that] the Conference offer the opportune resolutions so that the traditional manner of communicating be restored throughout the world.” (October 12, 1965 letter of the Consilium to Cardinal Alfrink) 

1966: On March 1, 1966, the heretical Dutch Catechism received an “Imprimatur” from Cardinal Alfrink, showing that the bishops of the Netherlands approved the catechism and that they shared the beliefs expressed in it. By October 9, 1966, over 400,000 copies of the Dutch Catechism had been printed. The Vatican intervenes 1967: The Holy See undertook a doctrinal examination of the Dutch Catechism and appointed a combined Dutch and Roman Commission, which met at Gazzada in April 1967. In June 1967, a Commission of Cardinals drew up a list of serious doctrinal errors in the work, with the request that the relevant passages should be amended. During the summer of 1967, the authors prepared a "corrected version" of the disputed passages, but the Commission of Cardinals found the corrections to be entirely inadequate, and in some cases even worse than the original version. 1968: On February 2, 1968, the Dutch hierarchy published their reply to the Vatican. Their text was prefaced by a Letter to the Faithful, which was a firm defense of the Dutch bishops’ "errors and dangers.” This document has been said to amount to an open declaration of heresy and schism. It appears that Pope Paul VI, in reply to the errors of the Dutch hierarchy, issued his Credo on June 30, 1968. 

On October 15, 1968, the Vatican issued the Declaration of the Commission of Cardinals on the ‘New Catechism’ (‘De Nieuwe Katechismus’), which stated, “the book itself dares to come to the conclusion, not without violation of the Catholic faith, that the faithful are permitted not to believe in the virginal conception of Jesus in its both spiritual and corporeal reality, but only in its certain symbolic signification.” Doctrinal errors in the Dutch Catechism were in ten major areas: (1) God the Creator, (2) the Fall of man in Adam, (3) the conception of Jesus by the Blessed Virgin Mary, (4) the satisfaction made by Christ, (5) the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass, (6) the Eucharistic Presence and the Eucharistic change, (7) the infallibility of the Church, (8) the hierarchical priesthood and the power of teaching and ruling in the Church, (9) various points concerning dogmatic theology, and (10) certain points of moral theology. Despite the Vatican interventions, in July 1968 the Dutch Catechism appeared in French translation; in 1969, in Italian translation. The Dutch Catechism was even adopted as a manual of theology in numerous seminaries. Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise, who banned Communion in the hand in his Diocese of San Luis, Argentina, had this to say about the Dutch Catechism: “… we must remember the case of Nieuwe Katechismus (New Catechism) which was published in Holland in 1966 (a country where, already in 1965, Communion was given in the hand without complying with the express prohibitions of Rome). This Catechism, made by request of the Dutch Episcopate, was presented to the faithful by means of a “Collective Pastoral” of the same. Soon afterwards, the Holy See demanded the correction of 14 main points and 45 minor ones. A first attempt of arriving at a new formulation of those points so they would not endanger the integrity of the faith resulted in a failure, since the three theologians who were appointed by the Dutch Episcopate did not accept the suggestions of their representative colleagues of the Holy See. Paul VI then appointed a Commission of six Cardinals that was to solve the issue. This Commission then appointed a mixed commission formed by two theologians named by the Cardinal Commission and two named by the Dutch Episcopate. But one of the latter refused to cooperate before he attended any meeting. That commission elaborated a text that mended the ambiguities and omissions of the Catechism. Those corrections, in spite of having been rejected up front by the writers of the original text, were obligatorially incorporated into the new editions of the Dutch Catechism. The Cardinal Commission, on its part, wrote up a Declaration that was published in the A.A.S. 60 (1968), pp. 685-691 (Ench. Vat., 668-684). The following year (1969), the Catechetical Institute of Nijmegen, responsible for the writing of the Catechism, published the White Book on the Dutch Catechism, on whose cover is found the following explanatory phrase: “Why the corrections made by Rome on the Catechism are unacceptable.” (Communion in the Hand: Documents and History, Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise, p. 41) Unknown source 

  I have copy of the Dutch Catechism that I keep on my library shelves. I will never lend it to anyone, as much of its contents are entirely repugnant to the Catholic Faith. I read it about once a year. Too unpleasant for further words.