page_title: Catholic Church in Germany
section_title: The present situation of Catholicism in Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic Church in Germany / The present situation of Catholicism in Germany
caption_attribution_description: Corpus Christi Day (Fronleichnam) procession in Moosburg, Germany (2005).
context_page_description: The Catholic Church in Germany or Roman-Catholic Church in Germany is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope, assisted by the Roman Curia, and with the German bishops. The current "speaker" of the episcopal conference is Cardinal Reinhard Marx, metropolitan Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. It is divided into 27 dioceses, 7 of them with the rank of metropolitan sees. All the archbishops and bishops are members of the Conference of German Bishops. Due to a church tax compulsory for those who register civilly as Catholics, it is the wealthiest part of the Catholic Church in Europe.
  Secularization has had its impact in Germany as elsewhere in Europe; nevertheless, 27.2% of the total population is Catholic, down 5% compared to the year 2000. Before the 1990 unification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, Catholics were 42% of the population of West Germany. What makes it easier to know religious statistics in Germany is that Christian taxpayers must declare their religious affiliation as church tax is deducted by the state to be passed on to the relevant church in the state where the taxpayer lives.
context_section_description: 27.2% of the total population is Catholic (22.6 million people as of December 2019). Only one of Germany's Bundesländer (federal states), the Saarland has a Catholic absolute majority: Catholicism is also the largest religious group in Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg.
  The German state supports both the Catholic and Protestant churches; it collects taxes for the churches and there is religious education in the schools, taught by teachers who have to be approved by the churches. Church taxes are "automatic paycheck deductions" taken from all registered church members, "regardless of" whether, and if yes, "how often members attend services."
  Catholicism in Germany today faces several challenges:
  Traditionally, there were localities with Catholic majorities and cities of Protestant majorities; however, the mobility of modern society began to mix the population. Interconfessional married couples face the problem of not being able to share the same communion. Because of continuing secularization, most states have neither a Catholic nor a Protestant absolute majority. (In addition to the ones with Catholic majorities mentioned above, the only Protestant absolute majority is found in the northern Schleswig-Holstein, 53.1%.)
  Modern society is changing old structures. Exclusively Catholic environments are disintegrating, even in traditional areas like the state of Bavaria where the Catholic majority was lost in the archdiocese of Munich (including the City of Munich and large parts of Upper Bavaria) as recently as in 2010.
  The number of Catholics who attend Sunday Mass has decreased (from 22% in 1990 to 13% in 2009).
  One of the biggest challenges facing the church is to retain the registered, tax-paying members (regardless of how often they attend services) to fund parishes and church agencies, especially its international relief organizations like Adveniat. German Catholics, however, are divided over the issue of a compulsory Church tax. Under the tax an additional 8 percent to 9 percent of personal income tax is deducted at source by the German state from registered churchgoers (of Catholic and Protestant communities).  Although the tax provides the Catholic and Lutheran churches with an exact membership count and a net income of 5.6 billion euros (in 2008) which has helped make the German Catholic Church one of the wealthiest in the world.
  In 2019 it was reported that the Catholic church had a net loss of 216,078 members the previous year. The Protestant churches in Germany had a similar net loss of membership, about 220,000 members left. While church membership is currently at 45 million or 53%, demographers predict that it will fall to 23 million by 2060 based on the current trends. In 2020 it was reported that the Catholic church in Germany had a 402,000 loss in membership, the largest ever single year decrease up to that point. The Protestant churches in Germany also had a large drop in membership of about 440,000.
caption: Catholic procession in Moosburg, Bavaria, 2005
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