Abuse scandal: twice as many people will leave the church in 2023 as in 2022
Published: Thursday, Nov 14th 2024, 18:30
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Twice as many people will have left the Catholic Church in Switzerland in 2023 than in 2022 and previous years. This confirms the forecast that reports of abuse will lead to mass resignations, as the Swiss Pastoral Sociological Institute (SPI) announced on Thursday.
The St. Gallen-based institute put the number of departures at 67,497. In 2022, there were 34,561 departures and roughly the same number in previous years. Across Switzerland as a whole, the resignation rate for the Roman Catholic Church last year was 2.6 percent.
The faithful remained loyal to their church in the cantons of Geneva, Valais, Neuchâtel and Vaud: the SPI counted practically no resignations there. However, this is due to the different organizational structure of the churches there: These cantons have no formal church membership and no church tax. This means that no one can leave the church.
Exit rate of 3.1 percent
If these cantons are excluded, the exit rate is 3.1 percent, compared to 1.6 percent in 2022. According to the data, the same trend of increased exits following the publication of abuse reports was also evident in Germany.
The cantons of Aargau and Solothurn had the highest proportion of leavers at 4.6 percent each, followed by Basel-Stadt with 4.5 percent. Overall, the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland still had around 2.8 million members at the end of 2023.
Last year, 39,517 members left the Protestant Reformed Church. According to the SPI, this figure was also higher than in the previous year (30,393) and previous years (2021: 28,798, 2020: 27,191 people). The membership of the Protestant Reformed Church thus stood at around 1.86 million people at the end of 2023.
©Keystone/SDA
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