Munich, 28 June, 2023 / 7:50 pm (ACI Africa).
The Catholic Church in Germany is facing an unprecedented crisis, with more than half a million baptized Catholics leaving the Church in 2022, according to figures released by the German Bishops’ Conference on June 28.
This marks the highest number of departures ever recorded, with 522,821 people choosing to leave the Church, according to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language partner news agency.
The total number of departures, including deaths, exceeded 708,000, a stark contrast to the 155,173 baptisms and 1,447 new members recorded during the same period. The figures reveal a historic negative trend, with the number of departures doubling from over 270,000 in 2020 to the current record.
Despite these departures, Church statistics for 2022 show that nearly 21 million people in Germany remained officially Catholic by the end of the year, representing 24.8% of the country’s resident population of 84.4 million.
Several German bishops expressed dismay over the figures. Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau described the numbers as “frighteningly high,” while Bishop Bertram Meier of Augsburg acknowledged the Church’s need to regain trust with “patience and credibility.”
