As Decline in Attendance Accelerates, Is the End Near for Christians in Germany?
In Germany, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical cults are losing more and more faithful, even if the proportion of those who call themselves “Christian” still represents more than half of the population.
The old post-conciliar masks – intercommunion, Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, female diaconate – are no longer enough to hide the sad reality: Christianity is in free-fall.
In 2017, the Catholic Church had nearly 244,000 burials and only about 170,000 baptisms and 9,332 new entries or returns to the Church. Still more alarming is the high number of departures: in 2017, 167,504 people left the Catholic Church.
The situation of the Evangelical Christians (EKD) is no better: in 2017, the EKD recorded the deaths of about 350,000 members, and about 180,000 baptisms and 25,000 entries. 200,000 faithful abandoned the Evangelical confession in the year.
This tendency continues to increase, as the German Bishops’ Conference admits. This will soon have an impact on the financial situation of the Church since in Germany the religious tax the clergy receive is in proportion to the number of people who declare themselves Christian.
Islam, on the other hand, has increased by about 1.6% every year, according to generalized data based on a study by the Pew Research Center on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe.
Sources: Pew Research Center / cath.ch / FSSPX.News
