Roman Catholicism in Sweden

The Roman Catholic Church in Sweden or simply the Catholic Church in Sweden, is a relatively small but growing branch of the Catholic Church, constituting 2% ^{[http://www.culturalcatholic.com/CatholicFunFacts.htm]} of the population of the predominantly Lutheran country of Sweden. It is one of the fastest growing Catholic Churches in Europe, despite the wide-spread secularism in Sweden.

History

The Catholic Church was the established church of Sweden from the Middle Ages until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, when King Gustav I broke off relations.

He established the Church of Sweden, based on the teachings of Martin Luther. That was the only legal church in Sweden until the middle of the 19th century, when other churches were allowed. However, it remained a state church until it was disestablished in 2000.

Prior to this, the Catholic Church had only existed in the form of independent congregations in Sweden, for example, the Diocese of Stockholm which was founded in 1953. However, the changes in 2000 made it possible to become officially registered and recognized by the government of Sweden.

Membership

Members of the Swedish Catholic Church can be divided in six main groups, in order from largest to smallest:
*Poles,
*Croats from the former Yugoslavia,
*Spanish language speakers,
*Syriac language speakers,
*Ethnic Swedes, and
*Others.

The Polish members are most numerous, and in most parishes people of Polish descent can be found. In the larger towns they have their own masses, and in Stockholm one of the Protestant churches is used twice on Sunday since the Catholic churches are too small. Approximately one in three priests (42 of 150) are born in Poland, and several others are Swedish-born but of Polish descent.

The believers Croats from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina also typically have their own priests, a number which increased during the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Spanish speakers typically come from South America, mainly Chile, and most were political refugees who never fully integrated. Since most of the Chilean exiles were Marxists or secular liberals, they generally are not active church members. Their number has been increased with immigrants from Central America.

Since the 1980s an increasing number of people of Middle Eastern descent have arrived in Sweden, and in Greater Stockholm each Sunday there are several Divine Liturgies in the Melkite, Maronite, Chaldean, Armenian and Syrian Eastern Rites. Swedish-born priests from these groups also exist, and the first Swedish-born Maronite priest was ordained in August 2002 in Beirut. (The Armenian Roman Catholics are primarily from Poland, and not from the older Armenian Catholic Church.)

Of the roughly 200,000 Catholics, very few are actually ethnically Swedish. In fact, the current Bishop of Stockholm, Anders Arborelius, is the first ethnically Scandinavian Catholic bishop in Europe since the Reformation. However, ethnic Swedes, most of which are converts from Lutheranism, do form a majority of the traditionalist Catholics in the country.

Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad

In 2000 the Swedish woman Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad was beatified: she founded the Swedish chapter of the revived Catholic order of the Bridgettines.

See also

*Saint Birgitta

External links

* [http://www.katolskakyrkan.se/ Catholic Church in Sweden (in Swedish)]