Catholics in the Diocese of Stockholm call for an apostolic visitation amid reports of corruption
In Hamlet, Shakespeare gave the line “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” not to Hamlet the prince, nor to any man of power, but to Marcellus — an officer standing watch in the dark, perceiving a truth that those in authority could not or would not see. Today, across the water in Sweden, it is the lay faithful who are sounding the alarm, calling on Rome to investigate what they describe as corruption at the heart of the country’s only Catholic diocese.
The calls for an apostolic visitation to the Diocese of Stockholm follow the publication of a two-part investigation by Swedish Catholics. This journalist has both studied the report and independently corroborated its overall account, speaking with sources within the diocese not connected to the investigation. All confirm its portrayal of the diocese as “very accurate.” The diocese calls it “not serious.”
“We are desperate here,” said one priest, describing a climate of fear that exists particularly among diocesan clergy. The investigation describes a “power vacuum” at the top of the diocesan administration that has enabled an “axis of power” within the Chancery — one that, it alleges, has moved against those it perceives as disloyal or threatening. It is a dynamic Shakespeare understood well: when legitimate authority fails or is corrupted at the top, what rushes in to fill the vacuum is not order but its opposite.
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