Strong decrease: believers return to the Church

The two large churches in the Rhein-Main Region, continue to lose massive members. According to a new statistics of the German bishops ' conference from Friday, the number of Hessian Catholics decreased in the past year, more than 31,000 well-1.36 million. Contributed to the negative development in especially the more than 19,000 Church exits. In the year 2018, there were roughly 16,000. In whole or in part on hessischem territory of the Catholic dioceses of Limburg, Mainz, and Fulda are.

Tobias Rösmann

editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

the situation is Similar in the Protestant churches of Hessen-Nassau and Kurhessen-Waldeck. Also, the members of which 2019 are decreased numbers significantly. The Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau with headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany lost, according to their own figures, last year more than 33,000 members, or 2.2 percent. The largest religious community in the Region falls under the symbolic mark of 1.5 million members, currently has 1,483 million members.

The Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck stated that she had lost within a year, almost 17,000 members (around two percent), and the count is still 784.000 people. In the Federal state of Hesse, there is the Evangelical Church in Germany, according to the overall good of 2.04 million Protestants. The number is smaller than the numbers of members of the two country churches, because some members live in other States. Cut-off date for all of the statistical data for the 31 was. December 2019.

Limburg especially

Particularly hard hit, it has hit the diocese of Limburg. There are so many people of the Catholic Church turned their backs as never before. According to the diocese, the number of departures 9439 fraud. In the worst ever year in 2013, there were nearly 8000. At that time, the diocese of scandals had rocked the former Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst. Overall, the number of Church members decreased from demographic reasons, around 15,000 to 593.000. The proportion of Church-goers has also declined from 8.9 to 8.6 percent.

"today presented the statistical Figures in 2019, there is nothing to whitewash," said the Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing, who is also Chairman of the German bishops ' conference. They showed that the Church many people could not motivate for the life of the Church. As a particularly burdensome he found the very high number of outlets. "We regret the exit of each Church, and we invite anyone who has gone or wants to go, to speak with us." Bätzing spoke of an "Erosion of personal Church commitment". Necessary bold changes "are". The Catholic Church has substantially lost credibility and had to try to recover it.

From the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau from occurred in the past year, more than 21,000 Protestants; in the previous year, it had been 18.400. Church President Volker Jung said: "Every Church a great loss outlet and hurts all of us." He can see in the new statistics major challenges.