Dutch crown princess turns 18: “The Bible teaches life lessons”

"You don't have to take the Bible so literally. It's just like poetry from which you can learn life lessons." The Dutch crown princess says so in the book "Amalia", published on Tuesday about her.

Amalia turns eighteen on 7 December. As an adult, she will take a seat in the Council of State ("Raad van State"), a constitutionally established advisory body in the Netherlands to the government and Parliament. The Princess will be ready to succeed her father, King Willem-Alexander, should the need arise.

To introduce the Princess to the Dutch people, cabaret artist, singer, and writer Claudia de Breij (1975) wrote a book about her, titled Amalia. The Dutch Government Information Service gave De Breij complete freedom.

"Something after death"

Amalia calls herself "really not the most religious person", but she does feel that something is overarching "that I call God for convenience”, Dutch newspaper Reformatorisch Dagblad writes. But I can't put a name to it, and I don't feel the need to."

Sometimes she asks: Help me out. "Then I ask that of... I don't know. Something. And that something I call God," author Claudia de Breij records. "I don't have a man in the clouds like that," Amalia goes on to say. "It's more a feeling than an existing something. A point of light." The Princess does not really have an image of heaven. "But there has to be something after death.

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She gets angry when religion is "so often abused" in her eyes. The future queen seems to have little sympathy for people who appeal to their religious convictions when making choices. "You have to follow your strength. Don't come to me with "God wanted me to do it". You are responsible yourself."

"Uncle and uncle"

Amalia visits the church –mostly a Protestant one– occasionally, at Christmas and Easter. She lights candles there, four of them: one for uncle Friso, one for prince Claus, one for grandfather Zorreguieta and one for Inés, her deceased aunt. Prince Friso died on 12 August 2013 at 44 after months in a coma following a skiing accident on 17 February 2012. The latter, the younger sister of her mother Máxima, committed suicide in 2018.

De Breij –herself a lesbian– also asked the Princess whether it would have been a problem if she had discovered that she was not attracted to boys. Amalia does not think so. "In my family certainly not. My parents also have quite a few different friends, so I didn't just grow up with "uncle and aunt", but also with "uncle and uncle" and "aunt and aunt"."

Recently, the government announced that Amalia is allowed to marry a woman if she so wishes. It remained unclear how the succession would work.