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Holland's Catholics are confused, divided and deeply troubled. Polls show a majority of the membership has strayed from traditional doctrine and has little confidence in the bishops. At the same time, 84% said they were grateful for John Paul's personal intervention in summoning the bishops to Rome. Laments a schoolteacher in The Hague who joined 150 conservatives in a protest to the Pope: "Parents see that their children no longer understand what this church means."
The synod is scheduled to end Jan. 26.
No swift or easy solution is in sight. The eventual outcome has import far beyond The Netherlands; for the Dutch church is often regarded by liberals elsewhere as a "pluriform" pattern of the future. If so, it may be a future minus a priesthood. Opposition to celibacy and the Vatican runs so deep that only 15 seminarians sought ordination in Holland in 1978. There are only 2,900 active parish priests left, compared with 4,175 at the close of Vatican II.