More than 500,000 members left Catholic Church in Germany in 2022: Study

BERLIN

A record 522,821 people left the German Catholic Church in 2022, according to figures released Wednesday.

There are currently more than 20.9 million church members in Germany, comprising 24.8% of the population, compared to 26% in 2022, according to a study by the German Bishops' Conference (DBK).

The number who left reached its highest ever, said DBK, with 359,000 leaving the church in 2021 while the number was 221,000 in 2020.

Thomas Schuller, an expert in Catholic canonic law, told German media agency, DPA, that the church "is dying an agonizing death" before the eyes of the public.

DBK’s chairman, Bishop Georg Batzing, said the figures are "alarming."

"We cannot and will not close our eyes to this development," he said.