A total of 90,975 (!) people turned their backs on the Roman Catholic Church in 2022 – a record in a negative sense. This comes from official church figures, which were published on Wednesday, and provisional figures. January Confirmed. At the end of 2022, there were 4.7 million Catholics in the country; Despite significant population growth, this is a decline of 1.96 percent. Income from church contributions remained stable at around 500 million euros.
Now the question arises: What is the Church doing wrong? The reason for many people’s departure is thought to be distance from the church, which has increased in recent years due to the pandemic. Many users on social media also criticized high church taxes and support for corona vaccination at a time of record inflation.
But the Catholic Church is not only in sharp decline in Austria: in Germany more than 500,000 people left the church – also a negative record. Especially the Chairman of the Central Committee of Catholics created a lot of uproar there recently. According to him, in future only leftist people will be allowed to work for the church.
In an interview with the magazine “Kirche und Leben” Irme Stetter-Karp actually said: “Xenophobia and Christian values: They do not go together. I therefore appeal to the state associations of the party that in the coming election campaigns Don’t involve yourself.
