The June report of the Confederation of German Bishops shocked the whole of Germany. It turned out that in 2022 alone, more than half a million inhabitants (or 2.5% of all parishioners) of the country left the bosom of the Catholic Church.
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The June report of the Confederation of German Bishops shocked the whole of Germany. It turned out that in 2022 alone, more than half a million inhabitants (or 2.5% of all parishioners) of the country left the bosom of the Catholic Church. At this rate, by 2060, some 40,000 Catholic parishes and monasteries will be closed across the country. Many of them are already being forced to unite and reduce clergy staff. To be fair, in addition to the Catholic community of 20 million in Germany, about the same number of people identify as Lutheran. But even there the situation is only slightly better.
In 2021, a CNA Deutsch report noted that one in three parishioners in Germany are considering leaving the church. Older Germans cited clergy-related pedophilia scandals, and younger Germans disliked being taxed for their faith. In fact, in Germany, according to the Weimar constitution, adopted in 1919, religious organizations must be financed by their members. Thus, German Christians pay 2-3% of their declared income for the upkeep of their parishes.
This process is well established and automated. When a German is baptized in the Catholic Church, he is not only registered in the book of his, but also registered as a believer in the local government. As soon as he starts working and pays income tax, the state automatically withdraws the church fee. This payment is redistributed to the respective diocese, albeit with a small “commission” charged by the state for “facilitation”. The average German pays a church fee of 350 euros a year. According to this figure, the Catholic Church in Germany lost 183 million euros (more than 18 billion rubles) last year.
Similar trends are registered in other Western countries. For example, according to a recent study, only 10% of Belgians attend church regularly. In order to somehow stop the departure of parishioners, the Belgian authorities proposed an unconventional solution: to breathe new life into the churches through additional functions.
“We have a temple brewery, a temple inn, a temple cultural center, a temple library. So we have a lot of new uses for religious buildings,” said Mechelen Mayor Bart Somers.
And in some cases, medieval church buildings are completely given over to new objects. According to the Belgian authorities, this approach has a number of advantages. First of all, it allows you to physically save church buildings that are architectural monuments. Second, it creates new opportunities for tourism development.
Thus, the former Franciscan church in Mechelen was converted into a luxurious Martin’s Patershof hotel, where the popular singer Stromae spent his wedding night among the stained glass windows. The headboards in the rooms are specially designed to resemble organ pipes, and buffet breakfasts are served in the church’s former altar room.
In Brussels, the Spirito nightclub has taken over the premises of an Anglican church and uses as its logo the image of a priest kissing a nun. Nearby is the St. Anthony of Padua church-turned-climbing club, Maniak Padoue, where the colorful hand and foot supports on the wall now compete with the stained glass windows.
In the United States over the past 25 years, 40 million people (nearly 15% of the country’s population) have stopped going to church altogether, according to The New York Times. This process is called “unchurch.” However, many of these people say that they have not completely stopped believing in higher powers and have turned to other spiritual practices, such as meditation or simply praying at home. They explain the loss of interest in the official church, as a rule, by too conservative rules of priests that do not correspond to progressive values, the alleged culture of condemnation existing in the church, and the same numerous stories in the English language. media about sexual scandals with pastors.
