ABSTRACT
The history of the Christian and Catholic parties in the Netherlands offers a characteristic example of the historical detour that was made in the twentieth century by the Christian democratic parties, before reaching the crossroads they faced at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The situation changed significantly after the first half of the last century. At that time Protestants and Catholics had lived in the same country for centuries, albeit next to, rather than with one another. A gradual change was brought about by party political developments that began at the end of the nineteenth century. The main thesis of this chapter is, therefore, ore, that the path of the Rooms Katholieke Staats Partij or Roman Catholic State Party (RKSP) to Christian democracy was decisively determined by the religious relationships and conflicts in the history of the Netherlandsnot primarily in the inter-war period, but rather in its confessional prehistory, not only in the long nineteenth century, but essentially since the time of the Reformation.1 Against this background, some key themes in the history of the formation of the Catholic Party in the Netherlands need to be analysed: the dynamic dialectic of emancipation and coalition, the ‘being spoilt for choice’ between the Scylla of a Church party and the Charybdis of Catholic unity, and connected to this the even more agonizing search for a middle course in view of the social contrasts in its own ranks; and lastly, the efforts of the RKSP to develop into a socially and nationally united party despite these contrasts and tensions. The RKSP wanted to make its contribution to the building up of a ‘Christian state of the future’.2
