Catholic Church in Norway

Catholic Church in Norway
ClassificationCatholic Church
OrientationLatin
RegionNorway
Origin934 AD

The Catholic Church in Norway (Norwegian: Den katolske kirke i Norge) is part of the worldwide Catholic Church. As of May 2014, there were over 151,000 registered Catholics in Norway.[1] It is claimed there are many Catholics who are not registered with their personal identification number and who are not reported by the local church; the full number may be as high as 230,000, 70% of whom were born abroad.[2][3] That constitutes about 5% of the population, making Norway the most Catholic country in Nordic Europe.

However, in early 2015, the Bishop of Oslo was charged with fraud for reporting to the government as many as 65,000 names of people claimed as members of the church who had not actually signed up. As the government gives a subsidy to religious organizations according to the number of members, the diocese was ordered to repay the government.[4] The government reports for January 2015 that there were 95,655 registered Catholics, down from the 140,109 reported for January 2014.[5]

  1. ^ Tande, Claes (2 June 2014). "Hvor bor katolikkene?" [Where are Catholics?] (in Norwegian). Diocese of Oslo. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  2. ^ Hatlem, Bjørn Arild (14 December 2010). "Kolossal katolsk kyrkjevekst" [Colossal Catholic Church Growth]. Dagen. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  3. ^ "Trolig 200.000 katolikker i Norge" [Probably 200,000 Catholics in Norway]. Vårt Land. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  4. ^ Gaffey, Conor (2 July 2015). "Catholic Church accused of defrauding Norway of €5.7m". Newsweek. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  5. ^ "Members of Christian communities outside the Church of Norway. Per 1 January". Statistics Norway. Government of Norway. 25 November 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2016.

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