Between meetings it is the secretary general, currently Sister Anna Mirijam Kaschner, CPS, who coordinates the work and the contacts between the bishops.

Jan O. Smit: 1883-1972) discussed themes of common interest such as the best way of dealing with the congregations of women religious, how to foster the spiritual life of their priests, but above all how to prepare for the announced Scandinavian tour of the Cardinal Prefect of the Roman Congregation Propaganda Fide, Willem Marinus van Rossum, the first such dignitary to enter Scandinavia since the Reformation.

The only recorded subject for discussion during the following day's meeting was the Cardinal Prefect's earnest call for the founding of a minor seminary in Scandinavia, a matter which the bishops decided to take very seriously in spite of the obvious difficulties involved.

[citation needed] The third meeting took place in Copenhagen in February 1924 where, in addition to the above-mentioned prelates, the Local Ordinary of the newly erected Prefecture Apostolic of Iceland, Rev.

In August 1932 the announced Internordic Catholic rally finally took place in Copenhagen in the form of a Eucharistic Congress.

[citation needed] The matters discussed were to re-emerge during later Conference Plenaries: the fostering of vocations both to the priesthood and the religious life, as well as the spiritual and material well-being of candidates; the image of the Roman Catholic Church in the mass media of the day; basic principles for pastoral care; the production of fitting literature for Catholics, etc.

[citation needed] The prehistory of this informal conference activity came to a close when in 1959 Pope John XXIII decided to send a permanent Apostolic Visitor to the five Nordic Countries (Archbishop M.H.

Convoked by the Apostolic Delegate, the entire hierarchy of the five countries met in Bergen (South Norway) on May 1, 1960, with the prime purpose of founding a proper bishops' conference.

The meeting, which lasted a full week, bore most of the marks of proper Episcopal Conferences developed as a result of the Second Vatican Council.

Agreement was reached on several issues, such as common days of fasting and abstinence, clerical clothing, Internordic jurisdiction for hearing confessions, a common Catholic Directory, the canonical form for marriage, altar boys' societies, a yearly vocations Sunday, and other items of mutual interest and uncertainty.

Rome, though praising the Scandinavian initiative by sending a high-level congratulatory telegram, did not formally recognise this or any of the existing conferences.

A hurried establishment of such entities, willed by the Holy See to be ad hoc, was effected for the sole purpose of facilitating the working out of common stands on the Council documents.

It was also clear that the Holy See, which traditionally had had to deal with individual dioceses, liked the idea of sharing some of the burden of labour and responsibility with these much larger units.

After long discussions and several attempts at formulating practical guidelines, the Council could finally lay down a framework for such conferences in its Decree Christus Dominus (about the Pastoral Responsibility of Bishops), promulgated on October 28, 1965.

[3] Although there was now a set of guidelines common to all bishops' conferences, each is obliged to work out its own statutes, which, however, need the subsequent approval of the Holy See.

And so the newly updated statutes of the Nordic Episcopal Conference, approved by the bishops in its Plenary Session in Stella Maris near Helsinki on September 27, 1984, were duly transmitted to Rome and received unqualified approbation on January 19, 1985.