More people than ever have turned their backs on the big churches in Germany – women are particularly annoyed by the lack of reforms. At the same time, revenues are falling due to the corona crisis. But there is another reason why religious communities are heading for difficult times.
The Protestant and Catholic churches are fighting more and more for survival in Germany. In addition to many older believers who are dying, the two faith groups are losing just as many members as never before. A church lawyer is certain that women in particular no longer want to be part of the congregations.
More and more people are leaving the church in Germany – last year it was more than half a million. Among the Catholics, 272,771 people turned their backs on the church, 26 percent more than in 2018. About 270,000 people left the Church among the Protestants, around 22 percent more than in the previous year. There are now 22.6 million Catholics and 20.7 million Protestants in Germany. The figures were reported by the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) in Bonn and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) in Hanover.
Corona crisis reduces church tax
The chairman of the episcopal conference, Georg Bätzing, said that there was “nothing to complain about” in the figures. Sometimes “courageous changes” are necessary, and that is precisely why the German Catholics initiated the reform process Synodal Path. EKD Council Chairman Heinrich Bedford-Strohm says: “The current figures depress us.” He promises: “The Church wants to change and is already doing it.” In this way, new digitized formats emerged during the Corona crisis that would be well received. In general, Bedford-Strohm sees an opportunity in Corona: “Many people are now experiencing that the sudden interruption of life so far and the uncertainty of how it will go on are difficult to endure. Faith gives strength to this.”
However, due to the pandemic, the EKD expects church tax receipts to drop significantly by 10 to 25 percent this year, depending on economic developments. The Catholic Church also anticipates significantly less church tax revenue from Corona. The canon lawyer Thomas Schüller pointed out that the wave of withdrawals is independent of current events. Women in particular, who previously worked in parishes, are increasingly taking the consequences of their unwillingness to change.
Debate on payments from the state
Even without the negative record for leaving the company and the corona crisis, both churches are heading for difficult times: With the age-related loss of baby boomers, they will lose a disproportionate number of church taxpayers in the next few years. In addition, the churches must fear losing government benefits from general tax revenue in the long run.
The federal states support the two Christian religious communities, and in contrast to the economic church tax, the money flows reliably – more than half a billion euros in 2018 alone. Greens, Leftists and the FDP presented a bill in March to end these government grants – more than half a billion euros in 2018 alone. The opposition’s advance has so far had little chance of success, also because the responsible federal states are reluctant to pay the high transfer fees in order to be able to discontinue annual payments to the churches. But the falling number of members increases the pressure to act.
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