Sex scandal dents Catholic numbers
2011-07-29 22:13
Berlin -
Nearly twice as many Germans left the Roman Catholic Church in 2010 as the year
before, as the country faced a spate of cases of priests allegedly sexually
abusing minors.
Official
numbers released on Thursday by Germany's Roman Catholic Church show a jump of
46.5% in 2010 of the number of people quitting the church as compared with
2009.
Around 181 000
people quit their memberships, with the dioceses of Munich and Freising,
Augsburg and Freiburg recording the highest loss of members.
Germans are
not required to say why they want to strike their church membership, but many
have blamed the reports of sexual and physical abuse of hundreds of children by
clergy that surfaced last year.
The news
comes ahead of a planned visit by German-born Pope Benedict XVI from 22 to 25
September.
- AP
