There was a good piece on HR (my regional Hessen public TV network) which discussed the topic of 'church-quitters'.
For those who aren't aware....Germany has an official status of church membership. This basically revolves around a church tax. If you proclaim you are a Lutheran or a Catholic....the tax is taken from your salary on a monthly basis. However, you can quit. Once out.....there's no tax.
Well, the church folks are admitting that the decline is in effect and starting to become a noticeable problem. Here in Hessen for 2018....roughly 16k Catholics left the church. It's actually an increase over 2017. There's still around 1.4 million Catholics in Hessen right now but if the trend holds, and you look fifteen years into the future? You might be looking at almost a quarter of the membership gone by that point.
The Lutheran trend? It's slightly less, but they are decreasing as well.
Why? Folks will say that some of the Catholic trend goes to abuse by the priests. Added onto this....various little scandals that have occurred (which has touched both groups).
An evolving situation? Here's the thing, you can't point at anything and say that the peak has been hit or that it'll level off at some point. In fifty years, you could be looking at less than half-a-million Catholics in Hessen.
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