Catholic priest leaves Denmark because he feels “watched by the government”

Catholic priest Peter Fleetwood leaves his parish in Denmark. He is tired of the rigid rules and the feeling that he is constantly being watched by Danish authorities who distrust foreign religious leaders. "It is a silent but powerful statement that Denmark is no longer Christian."

Fleetwood has served as a Catholic parish priest at Mariukirkjan on the Faroe Islands since 2020. However, he decided that he is leaving his parish, which will be left without a permanent priest, Kristeligt Dagblad writes.

The main reason for his departure is the Danish law on foreign religious workers, Fleetwood tells Pillar in an interview. The parish priest experienced the strict rules as suffocating. Every time he left the country, for example, he had to submit a request for a re-entry permit a month before his departure. "Twice, the permission had not been granted, and I was on tenterhooks until literally five minutes before the police station closed when an e-mail mysteriously appeared and granted me permission to re-enter the Faroes", he says. If he missed his re-entry application deadline, the police told him, he would need to go to the Danish embassy in London for a new application. "I couldn't do it in Copenhagen."

Danish Bible Society welcomes ban on Quran burning, but with reservation

29-08-2023

In addition to the tedious entry requirements, Fleetwood had the constant feeling that the Danish authorities were watching his movements. He sees it as a strong distrust of the Danish regime towards foreign religious leaders. On the website of the Danish immigration service, for example, there is a list with names and photos of foreign preachers who are forbidden to enter the country. "The faces and names on the exclusion list all belong to Muslim clerics whom the Danish state regards as a threat to their national security. But by implication, they told me over and over again that I, too, merited surveillance and control in case anything I said incited non-Danish feelings or actions."

He perceives the "clear message" of the Danish government that it "sees all religions as potentially dangerous, in the sense that they may sow confusion or encourage practices unacceptable in Danish society."

Translation

Quite recently, the Danish government was looking at a proposal that would make it mandatory to provide a Danish translation of all religious services performed in a foreign language. Fleetwood is clear: "It stresses, once again, that all religions are seen as ideologies and consequently as potentially unsettling for the poor, innocent, pure-minded citizens of the Kingdom", he tells Pillar.