[Alex Murphy]

How out of whack are the 170,000 Catholic baptisms with the birth rate of ethnic Germans? I read that there are only about 600,000 new Germans born every year.

I would say what's "out of whack" is the measure of moral and religious influence that the Catholic Church has in Germany, compared to the number of adherents reported. 170,000 out of 600,000 is more than one out of four Germans!

"Roman Catholics, the largest U.S. church with a reported 69 million members, start counting baptized infants as members and often don’t remove people until they die. Most membership surveys don’t actually count who’s in the pews on Sunday. To be disenrolled, Catholics must write a bishop to ask that their baptisms be revoked..."
....it is possible, for example, to be born Catholic, married Methodist, die Lutheran and still be listed as a member of the 1 billion-member Roman Catholic Church....
"...The Catholic understanding of membership is that a person becomes a member upon baptism and remains a member for life," Gautier said. "Whether you show up at church or not is not what determines whether you're a member."
-- from the thread When It Comes to Church Membership Numbers, the Devil's in the Details

Related threads:
Sign Me “Off” For the Christian Jubilee: On the Disturbing trend of “De-Baptisms” in Europe
Sign Me “Off” For the Christian Jubilee: On the Disturbing Trend of “De-Baptisms” in Europe [duplicate thread]
‘De-baptism’ trend spreads in Belgium
Austrian Catholic church exits increase to a record high since 1945
Irish service offering defection from Catholic Church is suspended ["no longer possible to defect"]
Why I left the Catholic Church
Actus Formalis Defectionis ab Ecclesia Catholica

[Natural Law]

I hate to be the one to burst your celebratory bubble (I actually rather enjoy it), but you quoting yourself in previous threads is hardly authoritative or credible. Selectively chosen news snippets, following the time honored practice of editorial by omission so favored by those who wish to distort the truth, are a red flag to anyone actually desiring to know the truth. Whether practiced by the New York Times front page or Jean Calvin selective use of Scripture, the result is the same....eventually the truth will out.

The decline of religious membership Germany and Europe is not a singular or isolated phenomenon or isolated to the Catholic Church. It is a combination a decline in the Christian population along with an overall cultural decay. The losses in the numbers of Protestants exhibiting an even sharper decline. I find this an entirely sad situation and not a cause to rejoice.

It is not confined to Germany. Across Europe the decline is similar. Since 1969, Anglicans in England have sold over 10% of all of the 1,600 the once possessed. The number increases by 20 to 25 each year.

In Holland, more than 600 places of worship, mostly belonging to Lutherans, Reformed Protestants and other evangelicals, have been closed down in the last decade.

It is bad enough that 500 years ago much of Europe lost its mind. It is tragic to watch it lose its soul.

[RnMomof7]

Exactly..as we are told here.."once a Catholic always a Catholic"...more to the point though most of those infants will not darken the door of a RC church till 1st communion.. and then not again til they want a church wedding...and then to get their babies baptized..

The churches are empty...

[Salvation]

There is no such thing as a de-baptism — in any church. Once a person is baptized, God knows they are baptized, and that fact does not change.