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

Lutheran Church: "Homosexuality is Part of Creation"

Edit: despite the fact that there are quite a few German Catholic Bishops pushing for  the legalization of aberrosexual marriage, it's going to be very difficult to justify the upcoming ecumenical celebrations celebrating the Protestant Revolt. Here's the translation from Junge Freiheit:

[Darmstadt] The Synod of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN) has largely assimilated the blessing of homosexual couples with the traditional marriage of a man and woman. As the EKHN announced on Saturday, the Synod decided to upgrade the blessing of same-sex partnerships.

The intention of the Church Parliament for such blessings are to be certified in the future church records. It will also consider whether the ceremony can also be called a marriage.

"Homosexuality can be seen as part of creation"

Delivered up by a large majority in the regulations of the Synod, it is described by Hessian Broadcasting, among other things: "Today, it is assumed that the same-sex orientation belongs to the natural conditions of life. Homosexuality can be seen as part of creation. "

Church President Volker Jung praised the decision of the Synod for the blessing: "Here the current practice of the blessings of registered partnerships which is consistently integrated into the portion of the ceremony," he said. The Protestant understanding are both acts of blessing and not [yet] sacraments. (Krk)

Link to Junge Freiheit [One of Germany's conservative political weeklies.]...