S'HERTOGENBOSCH, Bois-le-Duc, Diocese of. – A city and diocese in Holland. The city is the capital of North Brabant, situated a little to the south of the lower Meuse; the diocese comprises the eastern part of the province of North Brabant and the southern part of the province of Gelderland.
It has an area of 6,000 sq. km. with a population of 1,215,000, of whom 980,400 are Catholics, distributed in 358 parishes, served by 791 diocesan priests and 1,370 regular clergy; it has a major seminary at St Michielsgestel and a minor one at Haaren; it counts 126 male and 327 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 376).
The diocese was erected by Paul IV on 12 May 1559 as a suffragan of Mechelen, with Franciscus Sonnius as its first bishop. Up to 1637 seven bishops governed it under difficult circumstances: Protestantism and the war against Spain. Catholicism flourished again when, in 1629, the city was captured by the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, which suppressed the Catholic religion. From 1657 until 1853 the diocese was administered by vicars apostolic. In the Concordat of 1827 between Pope Leo XII and King William I it was agreed that new dioceses would be restored in the Netherlands, including Bois-le-Duc; the execution was delayed because of the revolutionary movements of 1830, and on 4 March 1853 Pius IX restored the diocese as a suffragan of Utrecht. Msgr. Johannes Zwijsen, apostolic vicar of Bois-le-Duc, was elevated to the archbishopric of Utrecht, from which he resigned in 1868 and was appointed bishop of Bois-le-Duc. In 1865 the first provincial synod was held in the diocese. Notable is the Gothic cathedral dedicated to St John the Evangelist, formerly a collegiate church since 1360; the first Romanesque building dates back to 1210, the Gothic structure was begun in 1280, but after being devastated by fire in 1419 it was rebuilt in its present form between 1419 and 1520 with touches added in 1530; it measures 109.50 m. x 28.55 m. The building suffered greatly in 1566 and during the Calvinist period from 1629 to 1810; it was through the initiative of Msgr. Zwijsen, reorganiser of the diocese, that restoration was achieved with the aid of the State, the province, the city and the faithful of the diocese. Inside, the miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin is greatly venerated. The diocesan museum is also of great value.
At Nijmegen (v.) is the Catholic University founded in 1923, and at Tilburg the Catholic School of Higher Commercial Studies.