Reestablishment of the episcopal hierarchy in the Netherlands


On 4 March 1853, Pope Pius IX restored the episcopal hierarchy in the Netherlands with the papal bull Ex qua die arcano, after the Dutch Constitutional Reform of 1848 had made this possible. The re-establishment of the episcopal hierarchy led to the protest in 1853.

Disestablishment of the Catholic Church

After becoming head of state of the Spanish Empire, crusading Habsburg king Philip II of Spain reorganised the Dutch dioceses in 1559. Utrecht became an archdiocese and together with the suffragan dioceses of Haarlem, Middelburg, Deventer, Groningen and Leeuwarden, they would form the northern ecclesiastical province of Utrecht. Roermond and 's-Hertogenbosch became part of the southern ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Mechelen.
After the Dutch Revolt, the northern Netherlands formed the independent Dutch Republic, where Protestant Calvinism was privileged while Catholicism was severely restricted. The first Archbishop of Utrecht, Frederik V Schenck van Toutenburg, was removed from office, thereby ending the short-lived archdiocese. In 1592, Rome declared the province of Utrecht a mission area, the Dutch Mission 'Batavia', soon headed by an apostolic vicar. 's-Hertogenbosch later also became an apostolic vicariate when normal episcopal administration became impossible after the Westphalian Peace of Münster in 1648.
After initial persecution, Catholics were eventually tolerated, especially in the larger cities, as long as they would not openly profess Catholicism. In many cities, Catholics went to Mass in clandestine churches, which had exteriors that were not recognisable as churches.

Prelude to the re-establishment

The de jure position of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands improved when the Batavian Republic declared the separation of Church and State in 1796. The different denominations would have equal rights. Some of the Catholic church buildings, which the Protestants seized in the 16th century, were returned. The Catholic community began to organise itself again; newspapers, magazines and schools were created. State regulation remained however: wearing clerical clothing in public and ringing church bells were not allowed for example.
Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII solved a number of pending issues between church and state with the Concordat of 1801. New apostolic vicariates were set up to prepare for a future re-establishment of the dioceses. The Diocese of Antwerp was abolished and North Brabant, which used to be a part of it, became the Apostolic Vicariate of Breda. The Diocese of Roermond was also abolished and divided between the Dioceses of Liege and of Aachen. The last bishop of Roermond, Jan Baptist Robert baron van Velde tot Melroy en Sart-Bomal, was appointed vicar of the new Apostolic Vicariate of Grave-Nijmegen in 1801. The Vicariate of Ravenstein-Megen, then part of the Diocese of Liège, became the Apostolic Vicariate of Ravenstein-Megen.
The "Ministry of Roman Catholic Worship Affairs" was founded in the Kingdom of Holland. The king received certain rights to intervene in ecclesiastical organisation. From 1812 - at this point the Netherlands was a part of Napoleon I Bonaparte's empire France - the so-called "extinction acts" would prevent monasteries from accepting new members, its ultimate purpose being the elimination of monastic orders.

Restoration of the Catholic Church

Concordat of 1827

In 1827, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands reached an agreement with Pope Leo XII about the re-establishment of the dioceses in the Netherlands. This concordat established two dioceses in the northern Netherlands:
The concordat even contained complete plans for a cathedral on Nieuwmarkt square in Amsterdam, but these were not realised because of the Belgian Revolution, among other reasons.
King William I though, reaffirmed the restrictions that were imposed earlier on the monasteries. Protestant politicians were also not unanimously in favour of a restored Catholic hierarchy. However, in 1833 a suffragan bishop was appointed to the Dutch Mission. Although Bishop had no diocese, he had all the powers of a bishop, such as administering the sacrament of Confirmation, ordaining priests and consecrating churches.
When the Treaty of London established the border between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dutch Limburg became the Apostolic Vicariate of Limburg, led by, who was consecrated bishop in 1841. A real restoration of the dioceses in the Netherlands seemed too early and negotiations on the implementation of the Concordat of 1827 halted. As a compromise, vicars and, were consecrated as bishop in Breda and 's-Hertogenbosch respectively in 1842. That same year, Joannes Zwijsen was appointed bishop, and was given control over the vicariates Grave-Nijmegen and Ravenstein-Megen. The latter appointment was seemingly made after personal intervention by King William II. William II was more favorable towards the Catholics and put an end to restrictive legislation for the monasteries.

Complete restoration

In 1847, a number of prominent Roman Catholics called for a normalisation of the Dutch ecclesiastical administration. Bishop Wijckerslooth and the bishop of Liège, Cornelius Richard Anton van Bommel supported their request. The final restrictions on the Catholics were removed in the 1848 constitutional reform. The decision was during a meeting of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in December 1852. Pope Pius IX approved the plan, and in 1853 it was implemented. This was the end of the Dutch Mission in the north and the apostolic vicariates in the south.
Zwijsen was appointed archbishop of the re-established Dutch ecclesiastical province. The Roman Catholic Church was reorganised into one archdiocese and four suffragan dioceses. In honor of the missionary Willibrord, the archiepiscopal see was established in Utrecht. The dioceses of Groningen-Leeuwarden and of Rotterdam were founded later in 1956.