The numbers are dramatic: more than half a million people left the Catholic Church last year – more than ever before in the history of the Federal Republic. A total of 522,821 Catholics turned their backs on the Church last year, the German Bishops’ Conference announced on Wednesday in Bonn. In the previous record year of 2021, there were 359,338 people.
If you include deaths, the Catholic Church has lost 763,000 members across Germany. On the credit side there are around 160,239 entries through baptism, conversion or readmission. This means that 20.9 million people still belong to the Catholic Church, which corresponds to 24.8 percent of the population.
The causes of the exodus are complex, so-called sociological megatrends such as individualization and secularization have left their mark on the church. The Protestant churches also lost 380,000 people last year, and belief in one God is declining noticeably. Overall, large institutions are losing their binding force. However, the Catholic Church in particular has not been able to get out of the negative headlines for years – they act like a catalyst for the already declining church loyalty.
Already at the beginning of 2022, there were indications of an explosive increase in resignations after the Munich law firm Westpfahl, Spilker, Wastl had published the abuse report for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The report threw Benedict XVI. Misconduct in dealing with abusers, the Pope Emeritus, in turn, had to correct an incorrect statement. In the days after the report was presented, the number of people wanting to leave the union doubled in the city of Munich alone, with a total of 49,000 people leaving in Munich-Freising.
The ongoing crisis of confidence is having an effect in the Archdiocese of Cologne
Calculated in terms of the total number of members, the archdioceses of Hamburg, Berlin and Munich-Freising are the frontrunners in the wave of resignations, with more than three percent of the members resigning from each.
The permanent Catholic trouble spot Cologne lost 51,345 members, that is 2.84 percent of the Catholics there. The crisis of confidence in Cologne, which was sparked by the rejection of an abuse report, has now been going on for two and a half years. The Pope has left Archbishop Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki’s resignation request untouched for more than a year. Only on Tuesday did investigators from the police and the public prosecutor’s office search the archbishop’s residence of Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki because he was being investigated on suspicion of perjury.
Woelki belongs – and this is the Catholic Church’s third major construction site in Germany – to a small group of determined opponents of the “Synodal Way” church reform debate. Last week, Woelki, together with the bishops of Regensburg, Passau and Eichstätt, turned off the money tap to continue the synodal path. The bishops consider the desired reforms – for example on sexual morals, celibacy, more separation of powers in the church, more responsibility for women – to be partially incompatible with Catholic teaching.
The blockade of the reform movement also plays a role
They feel encouraged by Rome, where the critics of the German synodal path are numerous, right up to the Pope. The Vatican has so far rejected every reform proposal made by Germany. The number of resignations is “an indication of the many ordeals and tensions that we are currently going through,” said Bishop Franz Jung of Würzburg in response to the numbers and also named the tensions “between Rome and the Church in Germany, which is trying to a path of renewal and always hearing a ‘no’.”
In the dioceses of Passau, Regensburg and Eichstätt, whose bishops are among the most outspoken critics of the synodal path, the percentage of people leaving has increased significantly: In Passau, 9,338 people left, which is compared to the previous year, in which 5,703 left, an increase of 63.7 percent. In Regensburg, 23,868 believers left (up 70.3 percent), in Eichstätt 8,637 (up 69.5 percent).
And the exodus is probably far from over: According to the Bertelsmann Religion Monitor 2023, every fourth church member – Protestant and Catholic – has considered leaving in the past year. Among 16 to 24 year olds, as many as 41 percent are determined to leave the church.
The Limburg bishop and chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, warned against resignation and addressed the full-time and voluntary workers in parishes, daycare centers, schools and Caritas: “Don’t be discouraged. I believe that we have good news, which our society urgently needs and which is sustainable.”