Posted on 06/29/2023 8:27:41 AM PDT by ebb tide
The Catholic Church in Germany is facing an unprecedented crisis, with more than half a million baptized Catholics leaving the Church in 2022, according to figures released by the German Bishops’ Conference on June 28.
This marks the highest number of departures ever recorded, with 522,821 people choosing to leave the Church, according to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language partner news agency.
The total number of departures, including deaths, exceeded 708,000, a stark contrast to the 155,173 baptisms and 1,447 new members recorded during the same period. The figures reveal a historic negative trend, with the number of departures doubling from over 270,000 in 2020 to the current record.
Despite these departures, Church statistics for 2022 show that nearly 21 million people in Germany remained officially Catholic by the end of the year, representing 24.8% of the country’s resident population of 84.4 million.
Several German bishops expressed dismay over the figures. Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau described the numbers as “frighteningly high,” while Bishop Bertram Meier of Augsburg acknowledged the Church’s need to regain trust with “patience and credibility.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Who does he think he's fooling?
Ping
He’s fooling himself.
If he wants to restore the Church, he needs to abandon the “Synodal Way (to Hell)” and carry out a cultural change back to authentic, traditional, orthodox Catholic belief and practice.
Talk about stuck on stupid. A symptom of insanity is to keep on doing the same thing and expect a different result. And these are the people that want to form the rest of the Church into their own image? No thanks.
Commie Pope, socialist doctrine.
and mainline churches in the US are losing members in large numbers. The denominational leaders are changing their doctrine to modern culture and people are bailing out. Go woke and go broke!!
Thankfully, many local churches refuse to follow suit and are doing OK.
Eventually, we will be offering the Latin Mass in the woods, on a rock, at night, with watchmen and guards all around.
When we built our house a few years ago, we joked that maybe we should include a few “priest holes”.
He’s not fooling himself. Typical leftist prepared to destroy any institution so long as they control whatever remnant is left
“The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and sacraments….Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony” (CCC 1113)
“Through the Church’s sacraments, Christ communicates his Holy and sanctifying Spirit to the members of his Body.” (CCC 739)
“The communion of the sacraments…unite us to God” (CCC 951)
“Sacraments are ‘powers that come forth’ from the Body of Christ” (CCC 1116)
“The ordained priesthood guarantees that it really is Christ who acts in the sacraments” (CCC 1120)
“The three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders confer, in addition to grace, a sacramental character or ‘seal’ by which the Christian shares in Christ’s priesthood and is made a member of the Church” (CCC 1121)
“the sacraments confers the grace they signify. They are efficacious” (CCC 1127)
“The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation.” (CCC 1129)
“The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful the partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in loving union with the only Son, the Savior” (CCC 1129) [Council of Trent in 1547]
“The New Law … uses the sacraments to communicate grace to us” (CCC 1983)
So what do the Bishops do? They close the Churches, kowtow to Governors, remove Holy Water, you can stream Mass, Confession is barred, no Annointing of the Sick...
Why are the faithful leaving? Some need any excuse to leave but many others are receiving the message "it doesn't really matter" only this life matters. Maybe the hierarchy doesn't have the courage of their convictions and are largely hypocrites.
Cultural change is what’s driving them away.
You’d have a tough time finding priests to populate them.
I recommend “The Long Walk: A Pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome.” Robert Muirhead visits small towns in Northern France and Belgium with five or six churches and not enough Catholics to fill one.
So, they are voting with their feet that German bishops are doing it wrong?
If he thinks that his present spiritual path leads anywhere other than HELL ... he’s fooling himself.
Yeah, more homosexuality and post-modern confusion. That’s the answer.
I really don’t know anything about this development, but is it just possible that this trend was caused by “cultural changes” they are trying to implement?
Why the dismay? Anyone with half a brain saw this coming; Vatican II doing its job and its job is only half finished.
Why don't they offer Confession more often, and why don't they talk about it much anymore?
As I explained to a non Catholic, who thought it was all about the priest wanting to hear your sins, (and why do you have to tell someone else about them?), I said that it is about you examining YOUR OWN CONSCIENCE, and realizing that you have sinned and need forgiveness from God.
It is not about the priest pointing out your sins (which is what the person I was talking to thought).
You confess what you know you did wrong, and ask for Reconciliation, which the priest has authority to grant to you.
That said, my church used to offer Confession twice a week. Now, it's only for an hour on Saturday, and they only really talk about Confession during Lent.
Another issue, I would like to see brought up, is Fridays.
You are supposed to be doing some sort of weekly penance, and if not, should at least abstain on Fridays (fish on Fridays).
I imagine a lot of Catholics have selective hearing, and only heard "You can have meat on Fridays", but may not heard the rest of it?
My 2 cents.
I agree with you.
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