(LifeSiteNews) — During a recent interview, Bishop Raimo Goyarrola of the Diocese of Helsinki, Finland, the country’s lone diocese, reported that despite the lack of churches, clergy, and funding, the Finnish Catholic Church has grown substantially.
In an August 6 interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) UK, Goyarrola emphasized that despite the fact that Catholics make up just 0.2 percent of Finland’s religious population, and having just 28 priests and a mere eight parishes, as well as not meeting the criteria for government funding, the number of faithful entering the Finnish Church has risen overwhelmingly over the last 20 years due to both conversion and immigration.
In 2023, the bishop had said that about 500 Catholics were entering the country’s Church each year.
As of 2018, there were 15,000 registered and 10,000 unregistered Catholics living in Finland, including 6,000 families.
Finnish Catholics are grossly outnumbered by Lutherans (67.79 percent) and slightly outnumbered by the Orthodox (one percent). Because of the shortage of Catholic churches in the Nordic country, Catholics often have to use Lutheran and Orthodox churches for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Finland: Extraordinary ecumenism
The small Catholic community in Finland is growing, and it enjoys good relations with its Orthodox and Lutheran neighbors.#Catholic #CatholicChurch #Catholicism #CatholicNews #CatholicWorld #Catholics #CatholicFacebookhttps://t.co/YdudUzTlaO pic.twitter.com/xDLqC9gtGR
— ChurchInNeed (@churchinneed) August 12, 2025
Still, Bishop Goyarrola underscored that these statistics haven’t stopped the Catholic population from evangelizing.
“In Finland, a Catholic will often find himself the only one in his school or place of work,” the bishop said. “Despite this, Catholics don’t hide and are not afraid to let the people around them know that they are Catholics, or to speak to them about Christ.”
READ: Vatican orders Finland’s only Latin Mass to be moved from historic cathedral to modern church
“They speak naturally about the Eucharist and about Jesus. They are missionaries and apostles everywhere they go and are an example to the rest of the world,” he added.
Bishop Goyarrola also noted that many fallen-away traditional Lutherans have been drawn to Catholicism.
Another major factor the bishop attributed to the uptick in Catholic converts in his country is Catholic migrants and refugees from predominantly Catholic areas like Latin America and the Philippines, as well as war-torn countries like Ukraine and Sudan, stressing that the hardship they have endured has strengthened their faith. Immigrants make up about half of the Finnish Catholic population.
“Carrying 30kg (66lb) rucksacks and walking together in the rain or snow in breathtaking countryside creates deep friendships, conversions and a strengthened faith,” he said.
Some new challenges, the bishop said, Finnish Catholics face due to their rapid growth are the low number of churches and the difficulty the limited number of clergy have in accommodating all the faithful each week.
“Every weekend we cover thousands of kilometers to bring the heavenly food to our faithful,” he said. “There are many families who ask to have tabernacles in the village, but there is no church.”
It’s worth noting that Bishop Goyarrola, a member of Opus Dei, has faced criticism for some comments about ecumenism with the Lutheran and Orthodox leadership of his country.
READ: France sees record number of adult converts to the Catholic faith this year
Several European countries have seen similar surges in their Catholic populations. In April, the Conference of Bishops in France (CEF) announced that the “eldest daughter of the Church” had recorded the largest number of catechumens to be received or baptized into the Church since records began some 20 years ago. In the U.K., a recent study found that the country’s Generation Z Catholics now outnumber Anglicans 2 to 1.
