Preach humility, fly first class.

Last year the Catholic Church in Germany lost almost 180,000 people, significantly more than in 2012; reason for this may be especially the financial affair of the Bishop of Limburg the dismissed Tebartz van Elst..

Bonn / Limburg – The affair around the Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter van Elst Tebartz has apparently prompted tens of thousands of Catholics in Germany for leaving the church. 178 805 members left in the past year from the Catholic Church – in 2012 there were 118 335. This is evident from the statistics published by the German Bishops’ Conference in Bonn. This means that almost the record level of 2010 was reached when after the abuse scandal 181 193 people left the Catholic Church.

The Limburg affair to the financial management of Tebartz van Elst and the cost explosion at the new bishopric had the Catholic Church in Germany plunged into a new crisis. This has made ​​itself felt especially in the Diocese of Limburg: In the past year there, the number of Catholics who turned their backs on their church, by almost 80 percent to 7980 people.
The current figures are painful, said the chairman of the Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx. The second half of 2013 – in this financial scandal broke – have apparently led to a loss of trust and credibility. However, the Church does not ask for the reasons for the decision in leaving the church.

Nearly 24.2 million Catholics in Germany

“The high exit number we may encounter by trying again and again, at all levels to build trust through good and convincing work,” Marx said. Not all of the spillage would lose contact with the church. Many wanted to stay in their own way Christians. With which the call is to be sought.

According to the statistics there were in the church the previous year just 24.2 million Catholics in Germany. Your share of the population declined from 30.2 percent (2012) to 29.9 percent. There was a decline in the number of donated by Catholic priests, sacraments: There were therefore still about 165,000 baptisms, about 3,000 less than the year before. The number of marriages fell by around 3400 to less than 44,000.
Little is changed with 6980, the number of readmissions in the Catholic Church over the previous year (7193). This also applies to the admissions. In 2013 it was 3062, the year before 3083rd

In Limburg, the diocese put under its first open his fortune. The total assets of the diocese is around 909 million euros (more about it here)

READ ORIGINAL IN GERMAN HERE: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/katholische-kirche-mehr-austritte-nach-skandal-in-limburg-a-981800.html