Catholicism is growing fast in Norway

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Catholicism is growing fast in Norway
by Associated Press
posted Friday, 25 Nov 2016

The Church has welcomed tens of thousands of new faithful in the last four years

Norway’s official statistics agency says the country’s Catholic community has added tens of thousands of members in recent years while the state Lutheran Church is declining.

Statistics Norway said on Friday that the number of Catholics had jumped 42 percent since 2012, to 145,000 this year.

Membership in Islamic groups also rose by 32 per cent to 148,000 in the same period.

The statistics showed Norway’s tiny Jewish community had just 770 members at the start of 2016.

The changes reflect Norway’s growing diversity amid migration from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The Lutheran Church’s own statistics show it lost nearly 37,000 members in 2015. It remains Norway’s biggest religious group, with 3.8 million members, about 73 per cent of the population.

Christianity arrived in Norway in the year 900 with Anglo-Saxon missionaries.
 
My understanding is that the Church in Norway has been by a large majority immigrants (I would guess Poles?). Do you know if the recent growth has only been due to immigration or if it includes conversions?

Though, we should also keep in mind the bishop of Norway was charged with fraud for inflating the numbers of Catholics in order to get larger state subsidies. That only happened last year, so I don’t know if that’s taken into account in this report.
 
Christianity returns to its roots when faced with outside adversity, is it really a surprise

Catholicism is growing?
 
Also Islam definitely will grow faster than Catholicism with the bigger families ( I assume they do have bigger families that is).

MJ
 
So…about those church buildings that were appropriated during the Reformation…I think that applies here.
 
Randy_Carson said:
Catholicism is growing fast in Norway
by Associated Press
posted Friday, 25 Nov 2016

The Church has welcomed tens of thousands of new faithful in the last four years

Norway’s official statistics agency says the country’s Catholic community has added tens of thousands of members in recent years while the state Lutheran Church is declining.

Statistics Norway said on Friday that the number of Catholics had jumped 42 percent since 2012, to 145,000 this year.

Membership in Islamic groups also rose by 32 per cent to 148,000 in the same period.

The statistics showed Norway’s tiny Jewish community had just 770 members at the start of 2016.

The changes reflect Norway’s growing diversity amid migration from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The Lutheran Church’s own statistics show it lost nearly 37,000 members in 2015. It remains Norway’s biggest religious group, with 3.8 million members, about 73 per cent of the population.

Christianity arrived in Norway in the year 900 with Anglo-Saxon missionaries.
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Good to see that number grows especially in an era where religions have become less and less relevant among the young people.
 
Reuben_J said:
Good to see that number grows especially in an era where religions have become less and less relevant among the young people.
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Not to you specifically,Reuben, but hasn’t anyone read the link in the Guardian that Dave Noonan provided? I guess not.

The Catholics in Norway inflated the numbers in order to get more governmental monies. They picked out random Catholic-sounding names in the phone book and turned them in. The church got caught and has to repay the tax money, as well as a 1m kroner fine. If they don’t repay, they will be taken to court.

Not a very good way to grow your census.
 
ComplineSanFran said:
Not to you specifically,Reuben, but hasn’t anyone read the link in the Guardian that Dave Noonan provided? I guess not.

The Catholics in Norway inflated the numbers in order to get more governmental monies. They picked out random Catholic-sounding names in the phone book and turned them in. The church got caught and has to repay the tax money, as well as a 1m kroner fine. If they don’t repay, they will be taken to court.

Not a very good way to grow your census.
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I did.

And the reason cases go to court is to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. So, we’ll have to wait for the outcome of that trial.

In the interim, are we assuming that the Church in Norway is growing ONLY by false pretense? 🤷
 
Randy_Carson said:
I did.

And the reason cases go to court is to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. So, we’ll have to wait for the outcome of that trial.

In the interim, are we assuming that the Church in Norway is growing ONLY by false pretense? 🤷
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I believe that the person in charge within the church has already admitted to padding the census via the phone book. The court case would be to collect the monies.
 
Randy_Carson said:
I did.

And the reason cases go to court is to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. So, we’ll have to wait for the outcome of that trial.

In the interim, are we assuming that the Church in Norway is growing ONLY by false pretense? 🤷
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Well, there continues to be Polish immigration to Norway, so presumably there is still some growth. But the overestimated were large, as even reported in 2015 (see the article I posted originally). Of course, you might wonder if there are lots of Poles who aren’t bothering to register with the Church in Norway, but are still Catholic. I imagine that going through the phone book to pick ‘Catholic sounding’ names means picking out the Polish ones and Poles are almost entirely Catholic even if non-practicing.
 
ComplineSanFran said:
Not to you specifically,Reuben, but hasn’t anyone read the link in the Guardian that Dave Noonan provided? I guess not.

The Catholics in Norway inflated the numbers in order to get more governmental monies. They picked out random Catholic-sounding names in the phone book and turned them in. The church got caught and has to repay the tax money, as well as a 1m kroner fine. If they don’t repay, they will be taken to court.

Not a very good way to grow your census.
Click to expand...
No, it isn’t. It also isn’t very considerate of the rest of us Catholics, inasmuch as it reflects badly on us … but that’s an old story.
 
ComplineSanFran said:
I believe that the person in charge within the church has already admitted to padding the census via the phone book. The court case would be to collect the monies.
Click to expand...
Oh?
Its chief administrative officer, Thuan cong Pham, has been charged with aggravated fraud, the prosecution said.
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If the diocese refuses to pay the fine it will have to face trial.
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“We’ve never done anything illegal or received too much money,” the Catholic church said in a statement.
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“We have always recognised that we have made mistakes and had an unfortunate practice in parts of our registration. This was cleaned up a long [time] ago,” it added.
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In its defence, the church argued that from 2004, Norway experienced a large wave of immigration from Catholic countries, especially Poland.
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These members were not registered, leading to an increase in spending without corresponding public support.
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A Vietnamese priest living in Norway is accused of overcounting Poles. 😛

But Church claims it has not “done anything illegal or received too much money.”
 
Whether the Catholics in Norway have done anything nefarious or not, this thread shows the folly of public financing of churches.
 
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