ABSTRACT
What has caused the weak identity of Dutch Catholicism after the era of pillarization? Is theological liberalism within the Church following the Second Vatican Council responsible for this and therefore for its diminishing market share in the long run? Chapter 2 suggests that this scenario exaggerates the role of church leaders. Rational choice theory predicts high levels of commitment to a church for plural religious markets. In contrast, European Values Studies show higher levels for religiously homogenous countries. In a religiously heterogeneous country such as the Netherlands (secular, Protestant, Catholic, spiritual, and Muslim), the Catholic Church cannot be much more than a marginal phenomenon unless it becomes associated with larger social issues, such as the fight against Islamic extremism or capitalism. Both liberal and conservative church leaders have probably stimulated the alienation between church and Catholics by falling out of touch with popular religiosity, thereby losing part of the symbolic capital they had. Church renewal, backed up by sociologists of religion, tended to focus on modernization of church polity. In both the liberal disregard for devotional practices, fraternities, and the veneration of Our Lady, and the conservative rejection of the familiar faith, a common trait is displayed: an affinity with the formally organized Church, which corresponds with a systematized theology. The official Church has been, and still is, very much at home in solid modernity.
