Catholic Church Trend

It's a brief article in this weekend's local news for Hessen......a wave of people quitting the Catholic Church over the past year.

In Germany, membership of a religion is noted by an official paper that you sign with the local Rothaus (gov't of the local town), and you indicate you ARE a member of this religion, and this allows the government a form of taxation to pay from your pay situation.....direct to the regional church authority.  Church taxes?  Yeah.....that's how it all works in Germany.

I should note that there's a continual trend each year as German teens go through the Church process to join.....there is also a continual trend for Germans to get tired of the church tax and quit their religion.  Tens of thousands quit each year in Germany, that's a fact.

Over the past two or three years....since the Limburg episode of thirty-odd million Euro being thrown at some renovation project for the Catholic Church.....folks have had a stronger desire to quit....to send a message to the leadership of the church.

What the local news folks say is that Limburg lost around 7,900 members last year.  It's a pretty fair number of folks who quit.  In neighboring Fulda (population of 65,000 roughly).....they saw almost 3,400 Catholics quit.

The renovation project in Limburg stayed in the news for several months, and I think just about every single Hessen followed the news updates.  No charges were ever filed on the Bishop in charge.  The most you could say is that he's absolutely incompetent at project management and handling money.  The Limburg Catholic Church is stuck with a resort-like Bishop house and the project opinion is sour over the episode.

Long-term trend?   No one says anything.  Are we at some peak?  That remains unclear.  Germans settle around in groups and chat.  You might have four guys meeting at some pub one night, and they note they've quit the church in the past year.....with a dozen other guys around them asking questions.  So, eventually half of the dozen guys might agree it's a good idea, and they quit.  How this trend stops would be an interesting question to ask.