Willem Jacobus "Wim" Eijk (born 22 June 1953) is a Dutch prelate of the Catholic Church, a cardinal since 2012.

Before his clerical career he worked as a doctor; as a priest he made medical ethics the focus of his academic studies.

[4] In 1990 he completed a PhD in philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum)[3] with a dissertation entitled The ethical problems of genetic engineering of human beings.

[citation needed] Eijk also earned a master's degree and doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

[1] He chose the motto Noli recusare laborem ("Do not reject the work"), taken from the last words of Martin of Tours.

[14] As Archbishop of Utrecht, he has recommended a restructuring of the diocese's 326 parishes into 48 territories, following a pattern throughout Europe in the face of shrinking church attendance.

[16][17] In 2015 Eijk was elected to represent the Episcopal Conference of the Netherlands at the Synod Bishops on the Family in October.

[18] In advance of the Synod he published an essay stating that couples entering into a civil remarriage without having received annulments of earlier marriages represent "a form of structured and institutionalized adultery.

[20] In May 2018, after Pope Francis failed to reject a draft proposal on the part of the German Bishops' Conference to allow Protestants to receive the Eucharist in Catholic churches in certain cases, Eijk wrote that Francis was failing to defend "the clear doctrine and practice of the Church" and that this represented "a drift towards apostasy from the Truth".