A Catholic in Denmark is one of the lonely few

National Catholic Reporter, March 31, 1995 by Patricia Lefevere

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- When Knud Kluge was a child here in the 1950s, he had to live his Catholicism in secret. But Kluge -- now editor of a Catholic newspaper -- couldn't keep his mouth shut, so he was often beaten up by schoolmates.

Today his 12-year-old daughter frequently asks Danes riding the city buses: "Are you Catholic?" When they look surprised and answer no, she retorts: "Well, you ought to be."

Such evangelical tendencies are rare here. While tolerant toward religion, Danes are private people who are not comfortable talking about faith or spiritual matters. One thing a Christian never says to a Dane -- unless one knows the person extremely well -- is "I'll keep you in my prayers," said Sr. Evelyn Krepele, a German who came here from Hamburg eight years ago to become a Sister of St. Joseph. "You never utter that in Danish."

Now a pastoral associate at Sacred Heart, a Jesuit parish in the heart of the Danish capital, Krepele defines her work as "finding other people to do it. I try to build community, to get people involved. A parish is only living if its people are involved."

At Sacred Heart, almost 75 percent of those in church on any Sunday are nonmembers. Within a half-mile of the church are 50 hotels, the city's famed Tivoli Gardens, hundreds of cafes, nightclubs and the red-light area. In early March, some 20 participants at the U.N. Social Development Summit attended its 7:30 a.m. Mass daily.

Krepele, who works with adults and children, said that Danish children's greatest problems stem from divorce. Half of all Danish Catholics are divorced. Children often live with their mother and her boyfriend during the week and switch to father and his girlfriend on the weekend. Often the adult relationships end and children must soon adjust to a new person in their parent's home.

The fact that both parents generally work full time also poses difficulties, she said. Although there is state-run, after-school care for children, those between 12 and 14 seem most at risk, she said, and problems with drugs and violence sometimes emerge at this age.

Still, the nun said she is "astonished" how many parents who come to Sacred Heart "stay together" in the face of so many marital breakups. A Danish divorce is relatively cheap and easy to obtain, requiring only a year's separation.

Abortions are even easier to get than divorces. Last year, there were approximately 50,000 births and 25,000 abortions in the nation, said Sacred Heart pastor Gerhard Sanders. Sex before marriage and use of contraceptives by teens are the norm.

Both Krepele and Kluge, who edits the diocesan paper Katolsk Orientering, noted the shock Danish Catholics felt when they learned last year of the Vatican ruling that bars from the sacraments divorced and remarried Catholics who have not had their earlier marriage annulled.

"That's our daily life," Catholics wrote passionately in letters to the paper. Denmark's only bishop, Jesuit Hans Martensen, responded with an article in the newspaper upholding the ideal of permanence in marriage, but suggesting that primacy of conscience must be observed when dealing with such cases.

"We are such a small diocese -- the only one in all of Denmark, with 30,000 to 35,000 Catholics," Krepele said. "There are 50 in Greenland. ... Everyone knows everyone else. We can't sit in judgment, exclude and isolate people. We must, as the bishop wrote `have mercy,'" she said.

Martensen is not alone in questioning Rome's harshness toward divorced, remarried Catholics. At least three German bishops, including the chairman of the German bishops' conference, have objected.

Sanders, a Jesuit who sits on Denmark's marriage tribunal, which also serves as the appellate court for the Swedish Catholic church, said that few Danes seek annulments. On average he deals with 10 to 15 such cases per year, most brought by Protestant Danes who want to marry Catholics. In Sanders' study sit five briefcases of differing hues, age and leathers. "Those contain papers for the five or six jobs I have," he said. He nodded toward the corner where a violin rests next to the briefcases. "I play it after midnight."

Besides his tribunal chores and being pastor, he is a member of the diocesan economic council, administrator of the 15-man Jesuit community and a member of the Scandinavian bishops' council where he assists the seven Nordic prelates. In addition, Sanders is head of the board and director of administration and finance for Niels Steensen Gymnasium, the only Catholic high school in the five Nordic nations.

A German who was sent here 26 years ago, Sanders said the Danish church has been spoiled for 150 years. "To be a Danish Catholic you get everything -- priests, sisters and money" from abroad. Most of the money, nearly 70 percent of building and operating expenses, comes from German Catholic relief aid for the church in the diaspora.

Only 4,000 Danish Catholics contribute the recommended 2 percent of their taxable income to the church, he said. Not surprisingly, Sanders' would like to see Danes become more "self-conscious and self-confident" about their Catholicism.