Posted on 11/07/2013 8:06:41 AM PST by Alex Murphy
The number of Germans leaving the Catholic church as much as tripled in October. Trust among followers has plummeted after a major financial scandal, experts said on Thursday.
There has been a significant increase in people filling out paperwork at town halls to leave both the Catholic and Evangelical churches between September and October, new research suggested on Thursday.
The trend is, experts said, linked to the “bling Bishop” scandal, in which Catholic Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst was found to have spent millions of euros of church money on his own private house – including hundreds of thousands on cupboards alone.
Church officials are calling it the “Tebartz-effect”, with dioceses across the country reporting receiving letters from congregation members saying that they had lost faith in the church's handling of its finances. When a person leaves the church, they become exempt from church tax which is levied by the government.
A full, 65 percent of German Catholics consider their church less, or not at all, trustworthy, according to pollsters Forsa who recently conducted a survey.
In Cologne, 571 people officially left the Catholic church in October – twice the number who left in September. This was, city council spokesman Marcus Strunk said, the highest number in years.
Cologne's Evangelical church also saw an 80 percent rise in people leaving its pews in the same time frame – with 228 people unregistering. “People are queueing morning and evening,” at the council offices, said Strunk.
In Paderborn, also in North Rhine-Westphalia, the number of Catholics unregistering tripled on the month before. Osnabrück and Bremen also reported rising figures. As did councils across Bavaria, a largely Catholic state.
Bavariacapital Munich saw 1,250 people leave the Catholic church in October, more than twice the 602 who left in September. In Regensburg, Nuremberg and Passau the number tripled.
Religion sociologist Detlef Pollack from Münster University said this sudden jump was part of a trend that had been developing slowly for some time.
“The quality of living and level of education is so high [in Germany] that fewer people are turning to the spiritual support and social services of the church,” he said.
>>When a person leaves the church, they become exempt from church tax which is levied by the government.<<
.
Lived and worked in Germany in 1977 but I had to declare my religious affiliation for tax purposes.
I told them that I was an atheist (I am not), it was unacceptable. I still had to pay German taxes.
So these former Catholics continue their search for God.It's like searching for a way to quench your thirst, when you've turned your back on the only known body of water. Christ is living in the Eucharist; He's alive in the Blessed Sacrament. He patiently awaits.
Why don’t you find an article on islam or jews?
Where are the anti-christian articles then?
I don't know about German law, but what you state makes sense. Can't help smile on that one too! :-)
The Christ of the Bible didn’t wait patiently, he was the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to search for the one.
Eat some crackers and sup some wine but Catholicism has failed to meet the criteria Jesus gave and failed over and again.
"Our Hearts are Restless Until They Rest in You" ... St. Augustine
Jesus didn’t “give criteria”; he founded a Church. Would you prefer his own handiwork, or something built by men to fit, according to their own reckoning, Jesus’ “criteria”.
It’s a simple English word so there should be no difficulty understanding it, if there is just say so.
No doubt, but that avoids the issue.
If Catholics were eating crackers at Mass (instead of the Eucharist, the True Body of Christ), the Church would all but disappear.
Thank you for that link! Christ gives us His saints, so that we may continue to learn; it’s a shame non-Catholic faiths do not see that.
So very true. Even Martin Luther believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
I tried your Eucharist, a couple of times...There wasn't anything there...
And since a majority of Catholics do not believe in the real presence in the Eucharist, they know from personal experience that there is nothing there as well...
Your phrase, 'the only known body of water' is a deception...I know that from eating the wafer (1), and actually being indwelt with the Holy Spirit (2) without the wafer...But heh, good sales pitch...
Glad you admitted that you disregarded a Church teaching. Why are Protestants so disrespectful and intolerant?
There is no benefit in receiving the Eucharist, if the one receiving doesn’t believe. That’s why there are so many lukewarm Catholics, the scourge of the earth.
Nope. Jesus said wheat and weeds would grow together until the harvest.
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