However, in early 2015, the Bishop of Oslo was charged with fraud for reporting to the government as many as 65,000 names of people claimed as members of the church who had not actually signed up.

[5] The Catholic Church is the second largest religious community in Norway by number of registered members.

In 2007,[8] monks from the Abbey of Cîteaux dedicated a new monastery at Frol, near Levanger in Nord-Trøndelag, naming it Munkeby Mariakloster.

Trappistine nuns, likewise, bought land near the ruins of a pre-Reformation monastery on the island of Tautra in the Trondheimsfjord, moved to the site, and built a new cloister, workplace, guesthouse, and chapel, calling the new monastery Tautra Mariakloster.

[14] Fransiskushjelpen (St. Francis Aid), a charity established in 1956 and run by Franciscans, remains active;[15] Caritas Norway is a Catholic international relief and development organisation.

Largely the work of Anglo-Saxon missionaries, the Norwegian Church has been considered the only daughter of English Catholicism.

Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear, later Pope Adrian IV, established a church province in 1153, the Archdiocese of Nidaros (Trondheim).

In 1834, the Catholic missions in Norway became part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Sweden, seated in the Swedish capital of Stockholm.

[citation needed] The first parish after the Reformation was established in the capital in 1843; a few years later Catholic places of worship were opened in Alta (Finnmark), Tromsø and Bergen.

In 1897, the constitutional ban on religious orders was lifted, which in time led to the establishment of several communities and monasteries.

It was the culmination of a long process whereby Undset – raised as a nominal Lutheran and for many years an agnostic – had experienced a crisis of faith due to the horrors of the First World War combined with the failure of her marriage.

Likewise, there was just as much anti-Catholic scorn among the Norwegian intelligentsia,[citation needed] many of whom were adherents of socialism and communism.

[citation needed] The attacks against her faith and character were quite vicious at times, with the result that Undset's literary gifts were aroused in response.

The diocesan staff searched for the social security numbers of these people, entered them in the membership register and demanded state support for these alleged members.

[31] The County Governor of Oslo and later also the Ministry of Culture then demanded that the diocese return the funds that they had been wrongfully paid.