The Catholic Church in Sweden

Introduction

The Roman Catholic Church in Sweden today has just over 130,000 registered members, worldwide there are about 1.3 billion Catholics.

The Catholic Diocese of Stockholm covers the whole country with 44 parishes from Ystad in the south to Luelå in the north. Services are celebrated in their own churches, chapels or borrowed premises, in addition to parishes, there are also national missions that celebrate the Mass and conduct teaching in their respective languages.

The history of the Catholic Church in Sweden:

• In the beginning of the 800's the Catholic Mission in Sweden started,
• At the beginning of 1100, Sweden can be counted as a Christian
• In the meantime, Sweden was a Catholic country
• In 1520, Lutheranism began to spread in Sweden
• 1527 At the Västerås parliament, it was decided that all church property should be withdrawn to the crown, which meant that the connection with Rome was severed. Gustav Vasa took over as head of the church, and Evangelical Lutheran was transformed into the national church in Sweden.
• At the church councils in Örebro in 1529 and Uppsala in 1536, the ecclesiastical reforms were implemented
• In 1593, it was finally established that Sweden was an Orthodox Evangelical Lutheran confessional church in Uppsala.
• The last Catholic institutions were forced to cease their activities.
• 1595 The Birgitta sisters from Vadstena were expelled from Sweden
• From 1617, Swedish citizens were forbidden to belong to the Catholic Church under the penalty of death.
• The Church Act of 1686 stipulated that all Swedish citizens should profess the Evangelical Lutheran faith and those who apostatized from the country's #rätta# religion should be expelled from the kingdom, the only exception being foreign Catholics living in Sweden, mainly staff at embassies from Catholic countries.
• 1781 Foreign Catholics who moved to Sweden were allowed to openly display their religion, the so-called Tolleranse Edict
• On July 24, 1783, the French abbot Nicolaus Oster arrives as the first apostolic vicar appointed by Pope Pius VI to build up the Kosal ministry in Sweden.
• It was still forbidden for Swedish fellow mothers to belong to the Catholic Church.
• Oster fell out of favor with Gustav III after he admitted a Protestant woman, and during a trip to France to collect money for the ministry in Sweden, he disagreed with Rome and was dismissed as apostolic vicar.
• He was succeeded by the German Carmelite monk Rafael d'Ossery, who had been a priest since 1784, he was apostolic vicar during the years 1790-1795
• His successor was the Italian Paolo Moretti from 1795 to 1804
• Frenchman Jean Baptiste Gridaine 1505-1833
• The 1700s and 1800s were not a success story in Sweden.
• In 1833, the apostolic vicar Jacob Studachs arrives in Sweden as chaplain to the Crown Prince's consort Josefina.
• His words: "Again church, again school, no teacher, no prayer book, no catechism — only an ever-shrinking congregation and 26 poor children to support"
• Studach built the first Catholic church since the Reformation, Sankt Eugenia Church on Norra Smedjegatan, near Brunkebergstorg in Stockholm
• A catechism and prayer book were translated from German into Swedish, a mäsbok in Latin and Swedish were published.
• In 1862, Studach was consecrated as bishop and became the first Catholic bishop in Sweden
• In 1873, Studach dies after 50 years of service in Sweden
• 1873 Johan Georg Huber from Germany, who succeeds Studach, was active in Sweden until his death in 1886
• 1886 Albert Bitter Germany, who had been active as a priest at Söder in Stockholm for 12 years, succeeds Hubes as apostolic vicar
• In 1893 Bitter is consecrated bishop and appointed tenth bishop of Doliche
• In 1900 at the turn of the century, there were 2,500 registered Catholics in Sweden
• Catholic churches existed in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Gävle.
• A new church is consecrated at the bishop's house in Södermalm and Sankt Erik's parish is established as an annex parish to St. Eugenia parish.
• 1922 Bishop Bitter resigns as apostolic vicar
• 1923 Bitter is appointed by the Pope as titular bishop of Sultania (Persia) and leaves Sweden.
• 1923 Bitter was succeeded by Bishop Johannes Erik Müller from Germany
• There are now five Catholic parishioners and eleven priests in the country
• New churches were built in Oskarström, Örebro, Helsingborg, Norrköping, Gothenburg (Christ the King's church at the moor) and Marie Beannelse church in Stockholm
• 1953 The Catholic Diocese of Stockholm is now a separate diocese from previously being an apostolic vicariate and under the pope.
• Bishop Müller was appointed by Pope Pius XII as Stockholm's first diocesan bishop with St. Erik as the cathedral church. He resigned, with age, in 1957 and returned to southern Germany, where he died in 1965.
• In 1957 he was succeeded by his auxiliary bishop, the Danish-born Knut Ansgar Nelson, the same year he was consecrated bishop and thus became the diocesan bishop of Stockholm.
• 1962 Bishop Nelson resigns
• In 1962, the Oblate priest John Taylor is succeeded by the United States Bishop. the same year by Bruno Bernard Heim in the Blue Hall in Stockholm City Hall, was televised.
• Taylor was marked by the Second Vatican Council, which began in 1962.
• Bishop Taylor dies in 1976
• In 1977, after a year and a half of vacancy, Bishop Hubertus Brandeburg of Germany was born.
• With the rapidly increasing number of members due to the increasing immigration from Pålen, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Latin America and the Middle East, and later in the 1990s from the war-torn Balkans, Brandenburg became the task of originating and building up the church.
• In 1987 he was helped by the English Passionist priest, Bishop William Kenney, Kenney was chairman of Caritas Sweden and Justitia et Pax.
• 1989 June Pope John Paul II visits Sweden
• 1998 Brandenburg retired,
• In 1998 Anders Arborelius was succeeded as bishop consecration on December 29 the same year, he is the first Swedish-born bishop since the days of Olaus Magnus (died in Rome in 1557)
• 2006 Auxiliary Bishop Kenney leaves the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm and becomes Regional Bishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham in England.
• 2009 Bishop Hubertus Brandenburg died.
• June 28, 2017 Bishop Anders Arborelius is appointed cardinal of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and he is awarded Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri as his titular church in Rome.
• Cardinal Arborelius is a member of the Dicastery of Clergy of the Holy See, the Dicastery of the Oriental Churches, and the Dicastery of the Promotion of the Unity of Christians. Since 2020, he is also a member of the Vatican Council of Finance. In July 2022, the Pope appointed Cardinal Arborelius as a member of the Dicastery of Bishops.
• On June 6 2022, Cardinal Arborrlius was awarded H.M. The King's Medal,12 the size of the ribbon of the Order of Seafimer, for "significant contributions in Swedish and international church life".