German Church ‘exits’ fall, Mass attendance rate rises
The number of German Catholics disaffiliating from the Church has fallen for the third year in a row.
The number of Catholics formally disaffiliating from the Church in Germany has fallen for the third year in a row, while the percentage of Catholics attending Mass has risen for the fourth consecutive year.
New German bishops’ conference chairman Bishop Heiner Wilmer welcomed preliminary figures released March 16 that showed a growth in the rate of Mass attendance, but he lamented that formal Church “exits” remained more than 300,000 per year.
He said: “It is a welcome sign that church attendance is once again showing a slight increase. And I see it as a positive sign that the numbers for First Communion and confirmation have remained stable. At the same time, I regret the continuing high number of people leaving the Church.”
“The reasons vary, and yet I say — because we are a community of believers through baptism and confirmation — that every departure from the Church pains us. There are fewer and fewer Christians in Germany, but that does not prevent us — despite all the necessary measures involved — from bearing witness to our faith with great personal dedication.”
According to the new statistics, the number of people leaving the Catholic Church in Germany fell to 307,117 in 2025, down from 321,659 in 2024, 402,694 in 2023, and 522,821 in 2022.
To formally leave the Church, a baptized Catholic must book an appointment at a local registry office or court, provide official documents, and pay a fee of $33-$66. They are given a certificate confirming they are no longer registered and therefore not liable for the country’s church tax.
They also receive a letter from local Church officials, informing them they can no longer receive the sacraments, hold Church posts, or serve as baptismal or confirmation sponsors.
The number of Church exits varied widely between dioceses in 2025. The eastern German Diocese of Görlitz recorded only 329, while the Archdiocese of Cologne registered 27,595. The disparity is explained by the difference in size between the two dioceses. The Görlitz diocese serves only 28,000 Catholics, while there are 1.6 million in the Cologne archdiocese.
The percentage of Church exits increased in five dioceses — Speyer (1.8%), Paderborn (2.3%), Magdeburg (3%), Görlitz (4.8%), and Passau (9.1%) — while the biggest decreases were in Eichstätt (-15%), Aachen (-9%), and Limburg (-9%).
Meanwhile, the percentage of baptized Catholics attending Mass in Germany has fallen from 10.4% in 2015 to 6.8% in 2025. The figure reached a low point in 2021, when Mass attendance was hit by COVID-19 restrictions, but has risen modestly each year since.
The percentage of Catholics attending Mass in 2025 remained well below the level before the pandemic, when around 10% attended.
The number of Catholics in Germany shrank in 2025 to 19.2 million, meaning that 23% of the total German population is now Catholic. Protestants comprise around 20%, Muslims approximately 7%, and those with no religious affiliation roughly 40-50%.
The total number of Catholics in Germany decreased by 549,636 last year, when deaths, baptisms, new admissions, and resumptions of church membership are accounted for.
In a development that is likely to worry the country’s diocesan bishops, Germany recorded a new record low for priestly ordinations in 2025. Only 25 new priests were ordained for Germany’s 27 dioceses last year, compared to 29 in 2024.
The number of ordinations to the diocesan priesthood has declined steadily in Germany since 1962, when there were 557. But the annual figure never fell below 30 before 2024.
There was mixed news regarding other sacraments. First Communions increased slightly from 151,702 in 2024 to 152,357 in 2025. Confirmations also rose from 105,041 to 105,334.
But baptisms declined again from 116,274 in 2024 to 109,028 in 2025. Church weddings also fell significantly, from 22,513 to 19,478. There were also fewer church funerals, with 213,046 in 2024, but only 203,496 last year.
The number of people joining the Church rose from 1,839 in 2024 to 2,269 in 2025. The number resuming their Church membership also grew, from 4,743 in 2024 to 5,443 in 2025.
According to the German Church’s official news site, katholisch.de, 87% of the new members previously belonged to the Protestant Church.
The Protestant Church in Germany — a federation of 20 Lutheran, Reformed, and United regional churches — announced March 16 that it lost around 350,000 members in 2025. That is roughly the same as in 2024, when there were 351,664 exits, but lower than in 2023, when there were around 380,000.
Commenting on the new Catholic statistics, Bishop Wilmer paid tribute to the volunteers who serve in the Church in Germany but do not feature in the annual figures.
“There are around 600,000 of them who ensure that the Church, with its diverse offerings, is even possible in society in the first place,” he said.
“Despite all the upheavals, I encourage us not to bury our heads in the sand, but to look ahead and seek ways together — including in ecumenical solidarity — to ensure that being a Christian today leads to greater acceptance in society.”
Can anyone answer whether or not churches in Germany have an offertory collection during mass? Just wondering because of the church tax already imposed…
These numbers have been, and continue to be, an absolute disaster for the Church in Germany.