the life and personality of Cardinal Willem Eijk, Archbishop of Utrecht, one of the outstanding members of the Sacred College, albeit currently little known in the English-speaking world. Through his work, we can gain a thorough insight into, and understanding of, the Church in Holland today.

The Netherlands is among the most de-Christianized countries of Europe and the West, where the once splendid Catholic Church became a standard bearer of compromise with the values of the modern world, and from the 1960s has experienced a dramatic decline. Few people know, however, that Catholicism here is being reborn from the rubble of this collapse, and it is of a completely different flavour from that of the recent past.

Cardinal Eijk's message is relevant for us all today, living in a culture dominated by ever-increasing secularization.