More than 26,000 Munich residents left the church this year – almost 4,000 more than last year. The reason for this is likely to be the abuse report, which made headlines around the world.
More and more people are turning their backs on the church. In Munich, the district administration department recorded a total of 26,008 people leaving the church up to December 15, 2022. That’s almost 4,000 more than in the entire previous year. The respective denomination was not recorded.
One reason for the increase is likely to be the report on cases of abuse in the Catholic archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which was presented at the end of January and made headlines around the world. Especially at the beginning of the year, the numbers had skyrocketed. In the first half of January, i.e. before the report, about 80 people had left the church every working day in Munich; after January 20, the day the report was presented, there were sometimes up to 160 people leaving the church per working day. In the rest of the Free State, significantly more people have left the church since the beginning of the year than in previous years.