Friday, July 17, 2015
The Numbers Leaving the Church in Germany Are Climbing
The German Bishops' Conference has published the number of people leaving the Church in 2014. After 178,805 in 2013, 217,716 people have left the church in the following year. An increase of 20 percent! This is topped by the Protestant Church
Munich (kath.net/pm) The German Bishops' Conference (DBK) are in the midst of silly season this Friday and the dioceses have reported the Church statistics in 2014 and again this is explosive, because the number of leaving the Church has risen significantly again. After 178,805 people left in 2013, 217,716 people have left the church in 2014. That's an increase of about 20 percent. Church attendance has risen with an increase of 0.1 percent to 10.9 percent. The total number of priests is 12,219 (2013 12,336). The number of pastoral assistants is at 3,171 (2013: 3,140) which increased slightly as did the number of community workers at 4,526 (4,470 in 2013). Cardinal Reinhard Marx commented in a press release: "The statistics released today show that church is multiform and is a missionary force, even if we are made painfully aware of the high number of people leaving the Church, that we do not reach people with our message, there are personal life decisions behind the number of leaving the Church that in each case we profoundly regret but also respect the freedom of choice. We will strive to continue our mission credibly to gather so that we can proclaim the joy of the Gospel and many people will find a home in the community of church. The faith joy and momentum of Pope Francis has given us a great help. We want to be on the move with him 'raising' the church in Germany, to actively bring the people for God's sake in community and gives testimony of the great message of the Gospel."
The numbers leaving the Catholic Church are still comfortably topped by the Protestant church. There 410,000 people have left. According to the EPD deaths are also here included, however. They do not wish to publish exact numbers at present. Thus, the Catholic German Bishops' Conference counted 23.9 million members at the end of 2014, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) approximately 22.63 million.
Link to Kath.net...
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG
Even if they allow divorced/remarried to have Communion, it will not staunch the flow out of the unfaithful Church. Only the Truth will draw and it is late to draw souls steeped in the worldly cesspool.
ReplyDeleteAmazing that the Cardinal "respects freedom of choice" to leave the Catholic Church. He could have remarked that he prays for them to return to the Church.
ReplyDeleteTo put the demographics in perspective, WIKI reports, based on government accounts, that the population of Germany is a tad over 81 million, of which 4.3 millions are Moslem and 55% are atheist/agnostic. Obviously the numbers don't add up, but I'll leave it to the reader to make the appropriate adjustments.
ReplyDeleteAnd I would bet that the Moslem population is underreported by a factor of at least 3, just like in the USA and France. Can someone confirm that the Prottie/Catholic counts and the Atheist/agnostic percentage are sourced from overlapping data sets?
It seems one circus is flaming out, and the other is dwindling to a faithful remnant that believes in the Truth. Msgr. Benson could not have predicted the stupid improbability of the camel and whirling dervish acts that are now becoming profitable.
Never mind, got back to WIKI. Missed this gem: "According to organizational reportings [sic] based on projections in 2008 about 34.1% Germans have no registered religious denomination. According to a poll by Der Spiegel magazine, 45% believe in God, and just a quarter in Jesus Christ". Still conflicting data sets, and maybe I'll get around to verifying numbers tomorrow, but this last datum is more reasonable.
DeleteWHAAaaaaaaa.....and yet, like a bad boil, you keep coming back.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ
oh man...I meant that for the Gaybtroll, not you Barnum.
DeleteI'MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM BAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!
DeleteNo problem, Susan! ;)
If only the Church would ditch all of its antiquated sexual morality, we just *know* that all those departing Catholics would come streaming back through the doors. Right?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, doing that has worked wonders for the churches of the EKD. Never mind that they're losing members even faster than the Catholic Church.
If Vatican II was dumped definetely and that they would be back to the traditional faith and rituals...the population would increase in more than the double of people leaving...and they would have more vocations...
DeleteWhat planet is Cardinal Reinhard Marx from? The whole of Western Europe is rapidly being islamified, not by accident but by deliberate intent, and the Church leadership either sit on the fence or applaud.
ReplyDeleteG.
There are two main reasons for the decline of the Catholic Church in Germany, materialism/secularism, and the reforms of Vatican II and the abuses which sprang from them, including the bad leadership and outright heresy of bishops,cardinals and priests.
ReplyDeleteThe Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany is a dead church. So is Lutheranism throughout Europe, especially in Sweden,Denmark, Norway and Estonia, which embraced the Lutheran heresy in the 16th century and which made it the State Church in several of those countries.
I don't know if Lutheranism is the official State Church of any of them now. But the fact remains that less than 2% in Sweden go to the Lutheran Church, and although the Catholic Church there is small, it was growing before Vatican II, and has close to 250,000+ members,
No one really goes to the Lutheran Church anymore in Germany, except for some elderly. That is why it is so ridiculous for the Catholic Church to engage in ecumenical ties with Lutheranism. Rather, we should be taking advantage of the collapse of the "churches" of the Reformation and attempting to bring them back to the Truth of the Catholic Faith. Not the Vatican II Catholic Faith however, but the CATHOLIC FAITH of all time.
Pope Francis, as well as dissident thugs associated with him such as Cardinals Kasper, Lehmann, and Marx share responsibility along with their radical priests for this decline of the Catholic Faith in Germany.
Old habits like nosepicking and ecumenism die hard.
DeleteBut, 'wann das gelde klingt', said some black monk 500 years ago......many of them go away to spare the kirchensstauer......in northern Europe they're all heathens, back to the origins. God bless.+
ReplyDeleteBehold Germany, one of the epicenters of the New Theology.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am thrilled to read of the decline of the Protestant "church" in Germany (Evangelical Lutherans). That branch of Christianity is practically dead. Protestants now no longer represent the largest religious block in Germany. Atheism (the worship of nothing...LOL), is #1 in Germany. Following is the Catholic Church woith roughly 25% of the total German population. Before WW I, Protestantism in Germany counted for a heafty 55% of the church going faithful...today, it's less than 5%. HAHAHAHA.
ReplyDeleteCalvinism, the other major Protestant group from the disaster of the Reformation in Europe, is also for all intents and purposes dead. It used to be strong in some parts of German speaking countries, and in the German cantons of Switzerland....as well as the Netherlands. But in all the mentioned places, it is functionally extinct.
Had Vatican II never happened, and had we a true Catholic Pope, the Catholic Faith could take advantage of this Protestant malaise and collapse and re-convert to the Church vast parts of Europe. It was done before, at the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
But now we have a dissident radical Pope, and a Catholic Church infected with Vatican II....we can't realize the opportunities that are being lost.
I know it's a fantasy, but too bad our Church has fallen into the same path as the protestants with Vatican II and Pope Francis. Were the Church strong like it was under Pius XII, and other Pontiffs of holy memory, St. Pius X, Saint Pius V, think of what Catholics could accomplish.
Now, we're just following down the same path as the protestants, and that's a tragedy.
"Had Vatican II never happened, and had we a true Catholic Pope, the Catholic Faith could take advantage of this Protestant malaise and collapse..."
DeleteVatican II was catastrophic in its effects, but let's not pretend that the rot was not already far advanced, especially in the German and Northern European churches. Vatican II did not happen out of thin air, after all. There was already an accelerating push for more ecumenical efforts, more liberalization of the liturgy, and academic autonomy, working hand in hand with secularization, and even a Pope Siri would have had his hands (more than) full trying to rein in these forces.
If I thought they in Germany were the Catholic Church, I would leave too.
ReplyDeleteIt's not because of Vat2, IMO Europe is a continent destined to loose herself, a civilization on the edge of a massive suicide, no roots, no religion, no bounds, have you ever read the book of German philosopher Oswald Spengler 'The sunset of Western world'? He wrote it in the 20ies of past century, I think we're at the redde rationem, we cannot know the future, only God can. God bless+.
ReplyDeleteThe world-wide decline of the Roman Catholic Church began at and was triggered by the reforms and abuses of these so called reforms of Vatican II.. The massive defections form the priesthood and religious life, the collapse of Mass attendance and the closing of thousands of monasteries,convents,cloisters and seminaries began immediately after Vatican II, and has continued for 50 years.
ReplyDeleteA small (very small), upswing in SOME religious vocations, principally those of traditionalist/traditional Orders and seminaries was noted in Europe during the last years of JPII, and all through the great reign of Benedict XVI.
This small light of hope is in danger with the election of Pope Francis the dissident, and the radical supporters of his. There has been noted since his election an accelerated decline in seminary enrollment.....especially in the USA, and a decline in enrollment at Pontifical seminaries in Rome...notably the USA's North American College.
Francis is accelerating the collapse of the Catholic Church.....even Bishops (particularly in Eastern Europe), have said as much.
IF Vatican II had never happened, and we had had strong Catholic Popes like Pope Pius XII, and even Benedict XVI, our Church would have been in a much better position to resist the encroachment of secularism,materialism and the decadence that has infected Western Europe, making it ripe for bizarre cults, neo-paganism(now openly practiced in Scandinavia), and also the encroachment of Islam.
Protestantism in Euope will die out, if it is not already dead. That is no loss, because it had contributed nothing of value to the Christian identity of Europe. But it is unfortunate that the Catholic Church chose over the last 50 years to follow the bad example of liberal Protestantism and to copy their forms and worship services. It has spiritually bankrupted out Church in Europe, and Catholicism survives only among the small pockets were the traditional Faith is fostered, and among the SSPX apostolates in Europe.
It is tragic that we now hahve a radical dissenting Pope and his advisors, who are doing more to destroy the Catholic Faith now, than Vatican II did in 50 years.
The reaction in much of Europe, especially Poland , to the Pope's Latin American tour and his praise of the "hammer and sickle crucifix", has been shock, disgust, and anger.
If you don't believe me, read the web.
This Pope Francis is anything but loved in much of Europe.
The Church fell into irreversible decline under JP II. Most Catholics thought of him as nothing more than an apple-cheeked, avuncular Old World personage. His World Youth Days seemed nothing more than Catholic Woodstock with wretched music and irreverent liturgy. I do believe he was personally holy, but it did not inflame others to holiness.
DeleteWith the ascendancy of Benedict, embers of hope were visible. He nourished the intellect and inflamed the Faith in many. He was like a shot of super-concentrated Vitamin B-12 to the perniciously anaemic Church.
Now the vineyard is fetid with rotten fruit. God will have to perform a radical pruning to set things aright. I imagine bare roots may offer the only hope because most branches above ground are diseased.
We need a miracle.
The miracle will be the election of a new Pope very shortly......a "youngish" man who is orthodox and even strongly traditionally minded, He will be someone from a well known ,major archdiocese in Europe which has produced popes in the past. His election will be a stunner, because it will be historic in that he may not be a cardinal, yet will be chosen because the majority of the Cardinals (still from the reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI) consider him the right man for the position to help rebuild the Church after the devastation of Francis and company.
ReplyDeleteIt will be a news event for weeks......and the reaction of the liberals-who are now dancing in the streets with joy over Francis, the gays and lesbians who hail him as their savior, the liberation theologians and leftist Catholics, the dissident USA nuns who cheered Francis and thumbed their noses at Benedict XVI etc. will all be crying uncontrollably.
In very short order, the new Pope, a man with youth and energy to tackle the disaster of Francis and clean up the rot of his reign and sack all of the Francis associates and advisors will bring order to the Church, and pride and a sense of the sacred back to the office of the Papacy. Castel Gandolfo will be used again.
This is a very bad time for the Church. We have a bad Pope who has outraged many people in places he doesn't even know about over his "Commie crucifix".
Many, many Cardinals who voted for Francis (even if reluctantly some of them), very much regret it. Francis will not last much longer. He isn't as well as the Vatican claims, and will probably be dead exactly around the time he prophesied afew months ago...an a year or two.
The new Pope elected may be a wonderful surprise for traditional Catholics. The Lord will not allow trash to be followed by more trash. Sooner or later, a brave man who restores the Church will come. It may be sooner than we (and Francis) thinks.
Where doe this prophecy come from?
DeleteExactly! Where indeed. It is just wishful thinking.
DeleteThank you Anonymous @12:56. You seem prudently optimistic. What you wrote is heartening. I wonder, if there are still so many good and holy Cardinsls who will have the wherewithal to elect a young, orthodox bishop, why do we hear so little of them and why is there so much devastation of the Faith worldwide? The role of a Cardinal is not to sit silently on his duff week in and week out. I hear very little in the way of teaching from these seats of the princes of the Church. Paprocki, Cordelione, Samples, Burke, Pell, Schneider are a few brave men on the world stage, but I don't know of others.
ReplyDeleteo.O
DeleteThere are many more....more than Francis thinks, or his associates hope. They will appear at the Synod. Pell and Burke are among the bravest. Pell just stood up and criticized Francis for his ridiculous global warming/environmentalist encyclical. Pell's thesis was that global warming is a great danger....but is it the Catholic Churchs' job to warn of it? Isn't it instead for the governments or science? The answer of course, is yes.
ReplyDeleteBut because Francis is a Vatican II Pope, and the Vatican II Catholic Church is spiritually bankrupt and has nothing of a spiritual value to offer, he resorts to totally secular babble.
Benedict XVI was a true Pope, a scholar and first class theologian. He has a true sense of the Papacy, how to present himself as Pope, how to speak, teach, act. He is a Pope in the classic sense...much more than John Paul II was, who was more of a showman....like Francis....but he was less uncouth and crass. And he has a sense of the Papacy. Francis has no sense of it for he has no real respect for it at all.
But that will change. Like I said, there are many who will start to counter Francis. He will be enraged, but he will be on the loosing end of the arguments. He will look like a fool.
And like I said, very shortly, there will be a new Pope, very much in the Benedict XVI mold both in style, substance, and sense of the Papacy and the Church. The persecution of tradition will be over....it will be strongly resurgent. Francis will be gone and his people will retreat back into the shadows. They won't be able to launch a return again.
I'm very skeptic, I think that Benedict XVI was the last great Pope, now there's none on the throne of St.Peter, just an insignificant bishop in white wrinkled cassock, who came from the other world in any sense of the words, I don't expect another pope, it's game over and that's what all of us deserve, cauz we are all sinners. May God have mercy on us.
ReplyDeleteIn a manner, I am like her. I am very flattered.
ReplyDelete