The Society’s “boat chapel” in The Hague, Our Lady of the Rosary.
It is 170 feet long and permanently docked in the quay not far from the center of the city. The priest has his own room, kitchen, and shower.
The sanctuary lamp constantly dances because of the gentle lapping of the waves.  It comfortably seats 88 people, but 100 or more come each Sunday.

This is the reason why the Society of Saint Pius X is considered dangerous in Holland and is monitored by the state secret service. You can choose what you want, but you cannot announce your choice to everybody. In Holland, proselytism is a form of terrorism against the freedom of conscience. I can choose Catholicism, but I cannot impose it on anybody. I can choose a soccer team, but I cannot impose it on anybody. The god you c

hoose doesn’t choos

e you just as the soccer team doesn’t choose you. If you believe that God has chosen you, that is a “game” you’re playing. But, please notice, it is only your “game.” If you forget tha

t it is a “game,” and think that God really exists, you are dangerous. That’s the opinion of a modernist and liberal.

The chapel-boat view of the roof

This is far removed from the supernatural faith in a real God who chooses for us indeed. That we choose is true for those elements of human culture such as science, art, entertainment, sports, etc. These change because nothing that is human is perfect. And there is a certain consideration and respect to be had for other cultures, but the respect of error itself is the big exception. There is only one true religion because this religion is not human but comes from God; therefore, it is divine and perfect for all persons of all places and times.

The stable handmade by faithful

Liberalism has penetrated so deeply into Holland that, without inciting total chaos, its people have free access to all things–drugs, sex, and Satanism, etc. Few police patrol the streets because the Dutch believe too many police constitutes a fascist or “rightist” state. The result is that people are attacked, wounded, and killed in the streets without motive. Most crimes are committed by immigrants. The police arrive two hours later. “What’s the use?” they say, “If we arrest these criminals, the judge will set them free the next day because it is considered ‘racist’ to punish poor strangers.”

In one celebrated case, a man was keeping a house thief at bay with a samurai sword until police arrived. The police set the thief free because he was “a poor boy.” But the homeowner was incarcerated because he was “traumatizing the poor boy with a sword.”

Holland now officially recognizes marriages between homosexuals. Neighboring Belgium, entirely Catholic for 16 centuries, is falling into apostasy because of the modernism of its clergy, and is following Holland closely in decadency. It is the second country in the world where this abomination of “homosexual marriages” is possible. [Since this report, the U.S. has made itself another country to do so, at least partially, by the vote of the Massachusetts state legislature to recognize such unions. It is the undeniable precedent for the rest of the nation that “marriage” be redefined as any consensual group arrangement.–Ed.]

Of course, this independence of the Dutch from God results in big problems accepting authority. This affects our faithful, not only in Holland. In many Mass centers, people claim the right to criticize, control, and even condemn each other, including the priests and superiors of Catholic Tradition. When the priest in charge, having the right and duty to correct his sheep, makes one little friendly remark to these same critical people about a serious disorder, they do not accept it, become very angry, and even prefer to quit Catholic Tradition forever. This is one of the most difficult things with which I deal. On one hand, this continual criticism systematically destroys our reputation and, on the other hand, the prideful people undermine our authority. How can we function seriously without reputation or authority? The fight against the modernists is ferocious, we are in the most serious crisis in the history of the Church, and we want to count 110% on our faithful–brothers in the fight–and not be attacked in some way by them also. I think that only the devil can be happy about such a situation, because he wants to divide and conquer us.

Holland has also some remarkable qualities, but the work and its problems have been extremely heavy for any priest assigned here. Bishop Fellay reassigned the exhausted, good Fr. Grün to Germany and appointed me superior of Holland to be assisted by Fr. Robert Schmitt, a little, but strong, young German.

It appears impossible to increase the number of faithful in this country rotted by immorality. Fr. Grün told me that, in Holland, the Society of St. Pius X can only expect to undertake Sterbensbegleitung, that is, its priests should plan to accompany the faithful to their tomb and then close its missions. As a newly ordained priest, these words of Father made me sad enough that I refused to accept them and decided to work as hard as I could to save what could be saved. I tried to bring into Catholic Tradition a number of members of other conservative groups. For a time, we served nine Mass centers. But, after five years, I exhausted myself and Bishop Fellay sent me for a year to the chaplaincy at the monastery of Carmel in South Belgium (Quievrain). At that point, I considered that Fr. Grün might have been right.

But no, God has the last word. Our main mission in Holland is miraculously going forward. Two hundred faithful continue to keep the traditional Faith despite this rotten situation. Humanly speaking, it isn’t possible. It is a great miracle of grace! This is another proof that God only allows an evil in view of a higher good! The higher good is, amongst others, the virtue of these heroic people.

The merit of these people must be great because the preservation of Tradition in Holland is proportionately more difficult than elsewhere. As their spiritual director, I can certify that many of them are in a higher stage of mystical union with God than anywhere I’ve been. If the evil in Holland is the greatest, the good must also be the greatest! It is pure theological logic and hard reality. Let me give you a smattering of examples to support my point.

It is no longer morally possible for Catholics to perform in certain professions or to hold certain jobs. One of our faithful is a pharmacist who left her field because she was obliged by law to give clients contraceptives. She quit her position and began to work full time for the Society. By the way, one of the requirements for graduating from nursing school is to assist at an abortion.

Families with members with sicknesses justifying hospitalization are heroic in their charity. But hospitals in Holland are no longer places of healing. They are fearsome places where euthanasia is practiced nearly automatically. Doctors have invented a new kind of euthanasia called “mortification” where food and water are denied patients making them die of hunger and thirst, that is, they are starved to death. A 1997 report revealed that 55% of nursing home patients are dying from this lack of care called “mortification.”

I’ve had experience with this. One Saturday evening, I was called by a faithful parishioner from North Holland:

OK, I understood. This was euthanasia and the nurse was “good” enough to relay this information so that the person could receive the last sacraments. I came to give the last sacraments. The woman was lying in the bed unable to move her hands because she was paralyzed. On the table was a cup of water. I gave her a drink and she drank voraciously. It was clear–she was dying from hunger and thirst. Nobody was there to feed her; this was the so-called mortification. And indeed, some days later, she died. I could do absolutely nothing to stop it because the entire social and political system has been organized this way. The only thing I could have done was put the woman in the trunk of a car and drive off to a normal country, but this was a crazy thought. There was nothing I could do but pray.

When I was in Holland, I was aware of three cases amongst our faithful caring for an ill family member because they did not want to give them over to these criminal medical facilities. Two men were each taking care of their mothers, and an elderly woman was taking care of her sister in the most difficult situation you can imagine. The woman ruined her back permanently; she will have terrible pains for the rest of her life because she damaged her back carrying her sister. Though he tended to his mother for years, one man was called a sadist by the nurses because he refused “mortification” for her. The other man was questioned for hours by ten doctors because he refused “mortification” for his mother.

                    “Mortification” has been generalized : suicide and murder

The general situations in the Church and State are so corrupted that normal persons suffer dire mental stress, anxiety, a constant tension from them and have been “maddened” in various ways. I would give them regularly the “Blessing of the Sick” because God knows better than we what these “chaotical” souls suffer and need. Poor people! They are in some way real victims (martyrs?) of liberalism.

Normally, a priest’s baptisms are mostly of children. Not in Holland because there are few children. My first baptism after my ordination was of a man 35 years of age in the slums of Amsterdam, suffering from AIDS, and converted by the imposition of the Miraculous Medal. He died six days later. What a country!

What problems there are for Tradition to survive! Let me give an example:

Una Voce of Holland is a conservative association of laymen who try to collaborate with the conciliar Church to secure the celebration of the Tridentine Mass. They asked the most conservative bishop in the country, Bishop Bomers, to allow them the use of a church once a year to celebrate the Mass of Pope St. Pius V. Bishop Bomers replied that he wants to allow it, but that it’s not possible because he would have too many problems with the progressives who do not want any concessions given to the conservatives. Bishop Bomers advised Una Voce to approach the schismatic Syrian Orthodox in Amsterdam because the Catholic Church entered into agreements with the Orthodox stipulating, among other things, that the Uniates [i.e., those officially in union with Rome–Ed.] in Holland must receive the sacrament of Confirmation from the Orthodox (schismatic) bishops.

Una Voce authorities went to the Syrian deacon of Amsterdam in charge of the Orthodox properties and asked to get a church for one Mass during one afternoon. This schismatic deacon agreed to open a church if Una Voce was willing to pay for it. But in the same Orthodox church every Sunday Opus Dei was celebrating the New Mass. Opus Dei was also refused a Catholic church in Holland from Bishop Bomers because they were too conservative also. These Opus Dei members were paying the Orthodox deacon for the weekly use of the church. Hearing about the new agreement, they told the deacon they did not want Una Voce to celebrate the Latin Mass in the same church and they gave him an ultimatum: “Opus Dei or Una Voce but not both together.” Because the deacon received rent every Sunday from the Opus Dei priests, he refused Una Voce. Una Voce is again in the street without any chance of getting a church anywhere in the whole country. They are persecuted by their own “conservative” brethren–Opus Dei–who were themselves in the church of schismatics to whom they had to pay rent, in this “most conservative” Catholic diocese in Holland. One of the members of Una Voce, a lawyer with many children, now assists at Mass in one of our missions because he now sees us as the only reasonable solution.

The so-called “conservative” primate of the Netherlands, Cardinal Simonis of Utrecht, celebrated a pontifical High Mass in a carnival tent. The carnival lights hung over the altar and the participating nuns were sitting in bumper cars. We did not know if we should laugh or cry.

A newspaper recently published an interview with Bishop Muskens of Breda reporting that after visiting the Kennedy Space Center, he is convinced there is no heaven and no hell. He said his mother was euthanized by a morphine injection; that he read pornographic books with interest; that women should become cardinals, even pope; that he respects the homosexual lifestyle; and that people should be given free contraceptives. I have the original newspaper in my office.

The bishop of Limburg honored the choice of the Moslims for the largest Catholic church in Maastricht, St. Mary’s, to be converted into a mosque. They preferred a church with a dome in order that the transformation would be more convenient. Primate Cardinal Bishop Simonis told journalists that Holland must financially support Moslims to build mosques in the country. (This is a logical statement for prelates convinced of religious liberty.) But the authorities of Maastricht refused to give us permission to buy a house in which to celebrate the Traditional Mass. In this same (once upon a time) very Catholic city, an investor was allowed to buy a Catholic church to turn it into a cultural center used for rock concerts.

In 1971, the bishop of North Holland dynamited to the ground the largest, most beautiful neo-Gothic church in the country–St. Willibrord’s in Amsterdam, a splendid example of the architect-genius Cuypers. Why? because, before Vatican II, the Catholic Church was advancing rapidly and this church became the symbol of Catholic “triumphalism” in Holland. The spirit of ecumenism has practical consequences, said the modernists, so down it came. Last year alone in Holland, 650 Catholic churches were closed.

                                  Saint Willibrordus church in Amsterdam,

                                                destroyed by bishop in 1971

The neighborhood parish priest near our priory argues that he never wants to lead a procession of the Most Holy Sacrament “like those Lefebvrists do…because it makes no sense to walk behind a piece of bread.” Ninety percent of Holland’s clerical and lay workers don’t believe in transubstantiation.

A Cistercian brother complained to me that Buddhist monks were invited to his monastery to share spiritual experiences. They received Holy Communion without any conversion to Catholicism.

May the good God have mercy upon His Dutch people who, before the Second Vatican Council, converted tens of thousands of Protestants every year to Catholicism as a result of the beautiful Catholic liturgy. This fervent country had then the highest percentage of Catholic missionaries in the world! Now, there are virtually no Catholic bishops in this country and, in a very short time, Catholicism will be totally exterminated. Thank the good Lord for the 200 at our priory!

Let us pray that our Lord Jesus Christ may come soon. We need Him.

Veni Jesu per Mariam!

Fr. Eric Jacqmin, a Belgian, was ordained for the Society of Saint Pius X in 1995 in Econe, Switzerland. He has worked in Holland and Lithuania.