German bishops brace for budgetary blow amid financial crisis
The Catholic Church in Germany is facing a cascading financial crisis as declining revenues force dioceses nationwide to implement drastic spending cuts, with one diocese projecting a staggering deficit of over 100 million euros (about $117 million) by 2035.
The Diocese of Limburg — led by the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing — recorded its first annual deficit of 810,000 euros (about $937,000) in 2024.
Only recently, however, the German Church was awash with cash. Church tax revenue peaked at 6.76 billion euros (about $7.92 billion) in 2019, up by more than 100 million euros on the previous year, despite a record exodus of 272,771 Catholics that same year.
The windfall reflected Germany’s robust pre-pandemic economy, which temporarily masked structural weaknesses now coming sharply into view.
The financial crisis increasingly reflects the reality in the pews, namely, a precipitous decline in German Catholic membership and practice.
For the first time, the number of Catholics in Germany has dropped below 20 million, with a total of 19,769,237 recorded in 2024 — a decrease of more than 576,000 from the previous year. Catholics now represent less than a quarter of Germany’s population of 83.6 million.
Even more striking is the collapse in active faith practice. Only 6.6% of German Catholics — just over 1.3 million people — regularly attend Sunday Mass, meaning less than 2% of the entire German population participates in weekly Catholic worship.
The Church in Germany recorded more than 321,000 formal resignations in 2024, compared with approximately 6,600 new members and readmissions.
The spending has proven particularly contentious, given that the Catholic Church in Germany is funded by both state payments and a mandatory church tax — 8% to 9% of income tax for registered Catholics — making it one of the world’s richest Catholic institutions.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/...etary-blow
The Catholic Church in Germany is facing a cascading financial crisis as declining revenues force dioceses nationwide to implement drastic spending cuts, with one diocese projecting a staggering deficit of over 100 million euros (about $117 million) by 2035.
The Diocese of Limburg — led by the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing — recorded its first annual deficit of 810,000 euros (about $937,000) in 2024.
Only recently, however, the German Church was awash with cash. Church tax revenue peaked at 6.76 billion euros (about $7.92 billion) in 2019, up by more than 100 million euros on the previous year, despite a record exodus of 272,771 Catholics that same year.
The windfall reflected Germany’s robust pre-pandemic economy, which temporarily masked structural weaknesses now coming sharply into view.
The financial crisis increasingly reflects the reality in the pews, namely, a precipitous decline in German Catholic membership and practice.
For the first time, the number of Catholics in Germany has dropped below 20 million, with a total of 19,769,237 recorded in 2024 — a decrease of more than 576,000 from the previous year. Catholics now represent less than a quarter of Germany’s population of 83.6 million.
Even more striking is the collapse in active faith practice. Only 6.6% of German Catholics — just over 1.3 million people — regularly attend Sunday Mass, meaning less than 2% of the entire German population participates in weekly Catholic worship.
The Church in Germany recorded more than 321,000 formal resignations in 2024, compared with approximately 6,600 new members and readmissions.
The spending has proven particularly contentious, given that the Catholic Church in Germany is funded by both state payments and a mandatory church tax — 8% to 9% of income tax for registered Catholics — making it one of the world’s richest Catholic institutions.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/...etary-blow
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
