In a few years time, the Catholic Church in Germany won't be a Synodal Church because there will be no Church

520,000 resignations – the church is shrinking again like never before

Are there any rays of hope in the gloomy church statistics? A few numbers have risen: baptisms, weddings, church attendance. But a look at the figures, developments and trends shows that these values are at best a flash in the pan. The hoped-for trend reversal after the pandemic has not materialized.

The German Bishops' Conference no longer comments. She only announces figures for church statistics, and deep red ones at that. Unlike in previous years, there was no classification by the chairman or the general secretary for the presentation of the nationwide church statistics: the sober press release with many figures had to suffice. What else can one honestly say in view of these records? Any whitewashing of short-term, apparently positive trends would only be embarrassing. 522,821 people declared their withdrawal from the church in 2022. Together with the deaths, entries and relocations, this results in a decrease in the number of Catholic church members by 708,285 people. Individual bishops emphasize for their dioceses that they should not generally fall into resignation in the face of the exodus. But that's difficult: The previous record is now broken almost every year, only in 2020, in the first year of the corona pandemic, not so many people made it to the registry offices: At that time, only the second highest value was recorded up to this point.

The Corona year 2020 is a turning point in the statistics: Sacrament celebrations and Catholic funerals fell significantly, the already low church attendance was almost halved. In the following year, at least the massive increase in the number of people leaving from 220,000 to almost 360,000 could be embellished somewhat with increases in the sacraments - but even then it was clear that the increase from 2020 to 2021 did not compensate for the losses in 2020. The hope that all weddings, first communions and confirmations that were not possible due to the corona virus would only be postponed did not materialize.

Even with the current church statistics, the hope of an increase is deceptive. All church official acts, sacraments and funerals are behind 2019 and continue the negative trend that has been going on for years; At best, the catch-up effects of the Corona years mean that the descent is not quite as strong. In particular, there seems to be no real turnaround in sight for Catholics who still regularly attend church services: with 5.7 percent of church service visitors, the number has risen for the first time in a good ten years. However, this still lags behind the Corona year 2020, where despite massively restricted possibilities to celebrate church services in attendance at all, 5.9 percent were still recorded.

The number of confirmations shows the future

In the figures for the sacraments, confirmations are the big outlier: they fell from almost 126,000 in the previous year to almost 111,000. When it comes to baptisms – which have increased – in most cases it is the parents who decide. Young people have a say in confirmations. The decline, especially among young people, corresponds to the results of the Bertelsmann Religion Monitor, which was published in a compact version last December. According to this, 20 percent of Christians – Catholic and Protestant – have a firm intention to leave the church. For 16-24 year olds it is 41 percent. Even if the emphasis on leaving the church begins a little later, namely when the church tax appears on the first salary slip, the decision against confirmation is a harbinger of what will probably follow a few years later.

Everyone must die. But despite the aging population, even the Catholic funerals aren't happening anymore.

There is consistency above all in the number of funerals: for more than ten years they have been fluctuating between 240,000 and 250,000 per year. In view of a church that is shrinking due to people leaving and fewer baptisms, and a society that is aging rapidly at the same time, a constant absolute number means a clear relative increase in relation to the remaining church members.

A trend from recent years is continuing regionally: It is not the case that scandals primarily have a local effect. You meet everyone. With 51,000 resignations, the Archdiocese of Cologne is in absolute numbers as in the previous year at the top. In relative terms, however, it only occupies fourth place behind Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Freising. There are not necessarily many resignations in the places where the biggest scandals happen, but above all in the dioceses with particularly large cities, while dioceses with a more rural structure, with strong remnants of a traditional church structure or a strongly connected diaspora milieu relatively least have left the church. But even in Görlitz and Erfurt, the positive leaders, the numbers are increasing significantly. The exit rate, i.e. the number of exits in 2022 in relation to the number of members in 2021, exceeded the percentage mark in Görlitz at 1.42 percent for the first time, in Erfurt it is 1.72 percent. Overall, the exit rate for the church in Germany has risen to 2.42 percent.

Comparisons of the dioceses with large and well-regarded abuse studies at least suggest that scandals affect the whole church and not just regionally: dioceses are not necessarily at the top of the resignations if reports were presented there. Munich and Freising, where the report was presented in January 2022, are in the top group with a resignation rate of 3.14 percent, while Münster, which is still largely part of the Volkskirche, ranks sixth with 2.15 percent of the dioceses with the lowest percentage of resignations lies. However, this interpretation is limited by the point in time: the study was only published there in June, so it had half a year less impact than the one for Munich. However, the trend that variations can be better explained by the structure of social areas than by the merits and omissions of individual dioceses has been constant for years: the numbers leaving the church are rising everywhere like a water table, shaped by global scandals and revelations, the variations determine large cities and popular church . All dioceses, as different as they are, as controversial as their bishops treat each other, are in a community of liability.

The Catholic Church is shrinking faster than the Protestant

And yet another trend continues: the ecumenical comparison. There has been a trend reversal in relation to the number of members in the Protestant regional churches. For a long time the evangelical church shrank faster than the catholic one, but now it's the other way around. The 520,000 Catholics left the Church, while 380,000 left the Evangelical Church - it's hard to say "only" because this value also represents a new record for the regional churches. The reversal of the situation cannot be a consolation for Evangelical Christians: those who bleed out more slowly are at the end just as dead.

However, there are signs of a shift in the denominational situation in Germany, which for a long time and to this day has been characterized by a slight majority of Catholics. It is uncertain whether this plays any role at all beyond the numerical ratios in view of the ever-decreasing importance and influencing power of the denominations. The Bertelsmann Religion Monitor promises that this development will continue. According to figures from the end of 2022, among church members considering leaving, Catholics are significantly disproportionately represented at two-thirds. Among the people with a firm intention to leave, 57 percent are Catholics. "This suggests that the crisis of confidence in the Catholic Church, caused by abuse scandals and the Roman Curia's lack of willingness to reform, has an influence on the intention to leave," says the "Religionsmonitor compact".

The Religion Monitor also supports this assumption with numbers: 81 percent of the members who intend to leave said that they had lost confidence in religious institutions due to the many scandals. 92 percent of those inclined to leave agreed with the thesis that one can also be a Christian without a Church. 

Cathcon:  So much for the state of catechetics in Germany that Catholics can think this.

In the case of members with no intention of leaving, the figure was still 84 percent - even among those who will probably remain church members for a longer period of time, the relevance of the church as an institution decreases.

So no improvement is to be expected for the next church statistics without a plateau in sight, a shrunken size to which the church could already adjust today. In 2023, the devastating abuse reports for Mainz and Freiburg were published, Cologne is still in the headlines, and those who are still aware of internal church events should not be inspired by the quarrels surrounding the synodal committee to become more closely associated with the church. The meltdown, which also affects those who were once committed and highly connected, threatens to solidify into a self-reinforcing spiral – if the time has not come.

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