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2023 will probably be a record year: In many places, people are turning their backs on the church. A look into the communities.
Members of the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland are leaving in droves. Especially since the publication of an abuse study by the University of Zurich, which caused great horror in Switzerland in September. This is shown by a survey by the Keystone-SDA news agency three months after the publication of the report with over a thousand cases of abuse.
The wave of resignations seems particularly large in the Catholic parish, for example Lucerne to be. Since the abuse study was published, 270 people have resigned per month, according to an inquiry. In 2022 there were 65 in the same period.
In the neighboring community Adelgenswil There have been 45 resignations out of 5,500 residents since September. The church council there made headlines a few months ago when it decided to withhold church tax for the diocese until further notice due to the cases of abuse.
In the city Train With around 12,000 Catholics, resignations have probably doubled since September. For 2023, Church Council President Patrice Riedo expects 250 to 260 people to turn their backs on the Catholic Church.
There is also a real wave of resignations in the city Basel detectable. The number of resignations rose from 36 to 174 between August and September. And the numbers remained high in October (164) and November (115).
In the Roman Catholic parish Winterthur There were 486 resignations from the beginning of September to the beginning of December. In the previous two years there were 158 and 161 respectively.
Legend:
Believers in a church service as part of a bishops’ conference in St. Gallen.
KEYSTONE/Gian Ehrenzeller
In the pastoral room Bern and the surrounding area, the number of people leaving the church in 2023 is likely to be twice as high as in other years. After a significant increase in September, the numbers fell again in November to the level before the abuse figures were published.
However, the publication of the abuse study also marks Schwyz a turning point: since September, church departures have skyrocketed by over 500 percent to an average of 76 departures. Previously there had been an average of 12 resignations per month.
Legend:
Bernard Genoud at a media conference on February 1, 2008 in Freiburg.
Keystone/Sandro Campardo
Bernard Genoud, the former bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, who died in 2010, is accused of carrying out sexual acts on a 19-year-old woman. It is the first time that a figure of this rank has been targeted.
Bishop Charles Morerod, Genoud’s successor at the head of the diocese, invited the media to Freiburg to publicize a case. The victim, plagued by “great suffering,” wanted to remain anonymous, including the period in which the crimes occurred.
There are still a few people leaving the church in French-speaking Switzerland
What is striking about the annual church departures is the cantonal differences: Geneva, Valais, Neuchâtel and Vaud regularly record practically no departures. According to the Swiss Pastoral Sociological Institute of St. Gallen (SPI), this is due to the other organizational structures of the churches in these cantons.
As a rule, they do not know of any state church membership structure associated with church tax liability from which one could even withdraw. Leaving the church is therefore a symbolic act in these cantons and those affected do not save any church tax.
In Sarnen In the canton of Obwalden there have been 128 resignations since September. For the year as a whole, resignations are expected to rise to 205, compared to 90 in recent years.
In Altdorf Since September, 139 people have canceled their church membership. Normally there are around 100 per year.
The regional church of the canton Aargau According to its own information, it recorded a peak number of people leaving the church in September. The numbers have now reduced again. But 2023 will be a record year.