Posted on 07/20/2015 6:25:04 AM PDT by marshmallow
More than 200,000 Germans formally left the Catholic Church in 2014, accelerating the downward trend in the Catholic proportion of the countrys population.
Germans who are officially enrolled in congregation are subject to a church tax, and so disaffected Catholics have an incentive to drop their registration, rather than simply stop attending Mass. The number of Catholics taking that step has increased sharply in recent years.
In 2013, 178,805 Catholics formally dropped off the parish rolls in Germany. In 2014 that figure jumped by 22%, to 217,716, according to official statistic released by the German bishops conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
RE: Mass Exodus Continues from German Catholic Church
The article does not mention where these people are becoming.
Are they becoming Atheists? Buddhists? Protestants? Muslims?
That’s the important question I’d like answered.
This is one of the reasons those Bishops are pushing to embrace heresy. They think it will bring back the $$$$.
Catholics who renounce their church membership are barred from confession and communion, and from the anointing of the sick, unless they are on the point of death.Which begs the question; how does a priest know (in the confessional or the communion line or a large parish) that you have dropped membership? Does one have to wear a "666" tattooed on their foreheads?
Yep
I know these German Catholics are being devoured by wolves,
“white martyrs” is the term. But, for the sake of Holy Eucharist, can they endure? Or by taxation and apostasy should they stay home? I haven’t found much teaching on their response.
Since this is coming to a church near you we should know how to prepare ourselves.
Yes, I am very interested in that question, also. We need to know how to respond to apostasy but stay Catholic in so doing. Personally, I would surmise the departures are not going anywhere else, they are simply unable to go to the Mass, for reasons of taxation and apostasy.
Most of them surely understand the types of martyrdom and that they are lambs beset by wolves and have no alternative but to remove themselves from their clutches, taking to their prayer closet and fasting. Just my two cents.
I meant my reply in post 20 to your question.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3314158/posts?page=20#20
Everyone is subject to the German “church” tax, it’s a percentage of each person’s income and they simply check which category they prefer. Catholic is the biggest, then Lutheran, but there are also categories for atheists and some sort of greenie-gaia-transcendentalists, or maybe those are lumped into one category!
LOL... but are you confusing that with Ash Wednesday?
The government supplies a report of who is “registered”, I suppose that would be yearly, after tax time.
this dates from Prussian times
But my original question hoped to ask that if the Lutherans are also subject to the tax, are their numbers also declining at the same rate as the Catholics? If the Lutherans are not leaving in droves, then the decline amongst the Catholics has nothing to do with the church.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.