The Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination in Germany, is being abandoned by the faithful: in 2022, a record number of believers left the ranks of the Church - 522,821 men and women.
Last time, the abandonment record was broken in 2021, when about 360,000 people left the church. If you add the number of those who leave the Church to the number of members of the German Catholic Church who died in 2022 (about a quarter of a million) and subtract the number of beneficiaries (144,000) and people who joined the Church (1,445), then the German Catholic Church lost about 600,000 members last year. The number of members of the Catholic Church in Germany stands at 21 million, about a quarter of the total population of Germany.
Scandals in the Catholic Church in Germany | Reuters
The main reason for the mass abandonment is the numerous revelations about the sexual exploitation of minors by church officials and the continuing disregard by its officials – in Germany and the Vatican – for the accumulated complaints about the affairs. The latest recent resting scandal has to do with the cardinal of the city of Cologne, Reiner-Maria Volki.
Cardinal Wolki. At the center of an investigation, a photo: AFP
The cardinal is suspected of lying when he claimed he did not know about sexual abuse allegations against two priests from his church whom he promoted to higher positions. On Wednesday morning, Cologne police carried out a raid on the church's headquarters complex in Cologne in search of incriminating documents.
Senior prosecutor Olaf Wilhoun updates journalists on the investigation, Photo: GettyImages
"The Catholic Church is dying in front of the entire public," said Thomas Schiller, a lawyer representing the church. In light of the alarming figures, church officials called for a sweeping reform of the centuries-old institution as soon as possible.
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