The rivalry of Scandinavian countries continues in a very happy way. This is from a reader:
Dear Father,
As you recently posted about Finland, I thought I´d let your readers know what is happening in Sweden, the largest Northern country. (Finland, by the way, was long a part of Sweden.)
For 3 ½ years, the Institute of Christ the King has been visiting Sweden, with the blessing of the Bishop of Stockholm, H.E. Anders Arborelius, OCD. Msgr Schmitz, Vicar General of the Institute, has met with His Lordship twice. Most of the time, it is Father Marcus Künkel who comes for Mass. There have already been weddings and baptisms in the "usus antiquior". In Rome, one the the Swedish diocesan seminarians helps serving the Institute´s mass on Sundays and feasts.
Beside these visits, there are now, thanks to "Summorum pontificum", three diocesan priests and two Religious (a Franciscan and a young Dominican) who regularly celebrate holy Mass in the classical rite. Mass in the traditional rite is presently being celebrated regularly in Stockholm, Göteborg (Gothenburg), Jonsered and Lund.
One may visit the website of the Association to the Memory of Cardinal Dante (at http://www.kristkonung.se/ ), where a certain amount of information and Mass schedules are given also in English and French. The Association is working torwards a renaissance of the Gregorian liturgy and Gregorian chant in Sweden.
The Association also keeps a blog at http://dantesnyheter.kristkonung.se/
With many greetings and prayers,
___
P.-S. The Society of Saint Pius X visits Scandinavia each month. Since 1998, I believe.
They have three Swedish seminarians of which two are to be ordained next summer.
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A small, yet vibrant Church in Sweden?
@David:
yes, but there is still a lot of work to be done. We currently have an excess of vernacular masses in immigrant languages, which splits up the already small parishes in many even smaller language groups. And somehow these masses – that were originally ment only to be transitional for the once many (now very few) immigrants that didn’t know Swedish – have become a permanent institution that inexplicably takes precedence over the extraordinary form. That, in turn, provided that the PP allows the EF Mass at all, leads to one of two things: either the EF mass gets placed at an inconvenient time (since the whole sunday already is occupied by immigrant language masses) or it is only celebrated once or twice a month, and/or not on the sunday.
So, while we are very happy to have come this far (which itself is far beyond wat I expected june 7 -07), the situation is still far from ideal.
I ment *july* 7 -07, obviously :)
I have often heard that the Catholic Church is the largest religion in Sweeden, is this true? How are things going on the matter of re-evangelization in Sweeden?