On the 12th of May Pope John Paul II will arrive in Holland for his pastoral visit to the Dutch Church. What kind of Church will he meet? It will be a different Church from the Church that drew the attention of almost the whole western Christian world in the sixties. The bishops are very different, and because the Second Vatican Council changed in many ways the theology but not the organisation, the bishops still largely determine the policy. Changing the bishops still means changing the Church, in spite of all the talk about participation of the laity.

We must start with a little chronology. In the seven dioceses in Holland only two bishops may now be considered to be more or less sympathetic with the Church of the sixties, and both of these seem to be afraid to express their sympathy clearly and publicly. Since the restoration of the hierarchy in 1853 the chapter of a diocese where the bishop has died or resigned has had the right to propose, through the nuncio, three names to the Pope. The Pope has never been obliged to appoint any of those proposed, and sometimes he did not. However, since 1979 not one of the names of the appointed bishops has been on any of the lists of the chapters. In December 1970 a young conservative curate, A. Simonis, was made bishop of Rotterdam. Cardinal Alfrink and his colleagues hesitated for some time to ordain him, but after his promise to cooperate with the other bishops they decided to accept him.