The abuse report by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising is still making waves – and many Catholics seem to be drawing their conclusions from it. Because the number of people leaving the church in Bavarian cities literally exploded after the report was presented a month ago. This was the result of a survey by the German Press Agency among several cities in the Free State.
In Munich, the number of people leaving the church has doubled, as a spokesman for the district administration department (KVR) reported: “In the first half of January, i.e. before the report, we had around 80 people leaving the church per working day in Munich. Since January 20th, i.e. since the According to reports, there are around 150 to 160 people leaving the church every working day. So about twice as many.” And there could be even more.
“The demand is certainly three times as high as at the beginning of the year,” said the spokesman. But that was not manageable: “The limit here is our capacity limit, especially in terms of staff.” And that although the KVR has extended the opening hours and deployed more people. “Despite the extended opening hours and staff redeployment, it will probably not be possible to serve all exit requests promptly due to the very high demand.” Statistics in Munich do not record whether people are leaving the Catholic or the Evangelical Church.
The religious educator Ulrich Riegel, who led a widely acclaimed study on church exits in the diocese of Essen, expects a new exit record this year. He can only speculate about the reasons why so many people reacted so promptly to the report: “On the one hand, the said report was much clearer than the previous ones, because it named specific people. On the other hand, Joseph Ratzinger was one of the people addressed , who, as papa emeritus, has a greater public impact than, for example, the bishops of Cologne and Munich,” he says. “Moreover, Ratzinger’s reaction to the report may well have confirmed many of the accusations that are being made about the church’s handling of the abuse.”
Other cities in Bavaria confirm the trend that is so clearly evident in Munich: Between the day the abuse report was presented on January 20 and February 14, the Nuremberg registry office reported 617 people leaving the church, 381 from the Catholic church and 234 from the Protestant church and two others. Two years ago – in the comparison year 2020 – the registry office had only 372 resignations in this period, of which 200 were Catholic, 165 Protestant and seven others.
The report by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), presented on January 20 and commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising itself, came to the conclusion that cases of sexual abuse in the diocese had not been dealt with appropriately for decades. The experts assume at least 497 victims and 235 alleged perpetrators, but at the same time from a significantly larger number of unreported cases. They raise serious allegations against, among others, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, whom they accuse of fourfold misconduct in dealing with cases of abuse.
In Regensburg, the city where Ratzinger lived and worked as a theology professor and where he visited his brother Georg shortly before his death in 2020, the registry office has counted around 550 people leaving the church since the beginning of the year – compared to 269 in the previous year.
From January 20 to February 17, 254 people in Ingolstadt declared their resignation from the church – in the same period last year there were 84. “The registry office reports that there is still great demand for exit dates,” said a spokesman for the city and in Würzburg after the presentation of the report, 320 requests to leave were received, 230 more than in 2021 at the same time. Between January 1 and February 17, 366 people took this step there. In the same period last year there were 208.
A total of 221,390 people left the Catholic Church in Germany in 2020, and 220,000 from the Protestant. The numbers were not as high as feared – probably because of the Corona crisis.
According to the Munich report, the religious educator Riegel does not see a new quality, despite the figures from the Bavarian municipalities – rather the confirmation of a trend. All studies on the reasons for leaving in the past decades have shown a relatively constant picture. However, the actions of the church are likely to be more important as a reason for leaving.
“Where I see a new quality is the discussion within the church. It’s only speculation, but many resolutions of the last assembly of the synodal path would hardly have been so clear if this report hadn’t existed.” As part of the synodal path, the current reform process within the Catholic Churches in Germany, surprisingly liberal resolutions were recently made on women as deacons, married priests, the blessing of homosexual couples and the participation of believers in the election of bishops.