Bishop celebrates centenary of first Catholic Mass in Svalbard, Norway

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Catholic Mass being said in a church — Photo: Fredericknoronha / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

“For the sake of bringing Jesus’ sacrifice concretely to Svalbard, Bishop Smit came here in 1926 and celebrated the first Catholic Mass on the archipelago,” Bishop Varden said. “We do so by pouring out our lives, by bringing the message of reconciliation, healing and possible friendship to lonely, entrenched, anxious people,” the Bishop said.

The mentality of the world, Bishop Varden said, tells people that they are ultimately left to themselves and that the strongest will prevail. He found no local Catholics in Longyearbyen or Ny-Ålesund, but in Barentsburg he encountered Dutch Catholics working in the mining community of the Nederlandsche Spitsbergen Compagnie.

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The mentality of the world, Bishop Varden said, tells people that they are ultimately left to themselves and that the strongest will prevail.
“We do so by pouring out our lives, by bringing the message of reconciliation, healing and possible friendship to lonely, entrenched, anxious people,” the Bishop said.
“For the sake of bringing Jesus’ sacrifice concretely to Svalbard, Bishop Smit came here in 1926 and celebrated the first Catholic Mass on the archipelago,” Bishop Varden said.
He found no local Catholics in Longyearbyen or Ny-Ålesund, but in Barentsburg he encountered Dutch Catholics working in the mining community of the Nederlandsche Spitsbergen Compagnie .

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