More than half a million people left the German Catholic Church last year. A record for this institution affected by an unprecedented crisis of confidence due to cases of sexual abuse of minors. In all, 552,821 Catholics turned their backs on the church, up from 359,338 the year before, the assembly of bishops revealed in its annual report.
The president of the assembly, Georg Batzing, acknowledged that the figures are “alarming” and asked “not to be discouraged” and to continue working on the path of change. Despite these figures, Catholicism remains the country’s main religion, with some 20.9 million followers, ahead of Protestants (19.1 million, who lost some 380,000 people in one year).
Since 2010, when cases of sexual abuse of minors in the institution became known, around 3.7 million Catholics have left the church. In 2018, a university investigation revealed that 3,677 minors suffered sexual violence perpetrated by members of the clergy between 1946 and 2014.
The actual number of victims is considered higher because the authors of the report did not have access to all of the institution’s files. After officially apologizing, the church works on a compensation system, which the victims consider insufficient.
Source: TSF
