Far too many good people walking away from churches

The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.

Michael Commane
The main headline in the Catholic newspaper in Berlin last week ran: "Fewer and fewer people in the pews".

The article goes on to point out how many people are leaving the church in Germany. Over the last ten years church numbers dropped by 200,000 every year. In 2013 there were 24.17 million Catholics in Germany. That works out at 29.9 per cent of the population. Last year 178,000 Catholics formally left the church, which means they no longer pay church tax.

The reason why they know exactly the Catholic population is because Germans pay extra tax if they belong to a recognised religion.

Church tax works out between eight and nine per cent of the tax you pay, depending in what Federal State you live. Say your State tax is €1,000 then you pay eight/nine per cent of that €1,000. So you pay €80/€90 church tax. In 2012 Catholics paid €5.2 billion and Protestant  €4.6 billion church tax.

Another interesting statistic: last year 2.6 million German Catholics went to Mass on Sunday. That works out at 10.8 per cent of the total numbers.

People leave the church for a myriad reasons. Yes, the clerical child abuse and how the institutional church behaved around the issue has been a reason for many leaving. But it would be misleading to think that is the main cause for such a drop off.

Nor, do I believe is secularisation the reason for such a dramatic fall-off. I certainly am delighted I live in a secular society. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Let's take a number of successful companies. Imagine if The Kerry Group, Siemens and  British Airways began to notice a fall off in business. Just say the numbers of people using their products and services took a nose dive and the share prices tumbled, what would happen? Would the companies draw up a statement and blame the customers/the public for not using Kerry Group ingredients, buying Siemens hospital equipment or flying British Airways?

Of course not and any such suggestion would be laughable.

What would happen is that the boards and management teams would meet and most likely new managers would be appointed. No doubt they would look for public opinion on why they were losing market share.

Of course when it comes to saying a word about God we are in a completely different sphere of operation. No one has a direct link to or with God.

But is it not an incredible arrogance for the Catholic Church even to suggest that all those who are leaving are the ones to blame, they are the ones who are erring?

I'm here in Berlin working as a chaplain in a hospital. It means I'm going from room to room saying hello to people, listening to their stories. How often have I heard in the last three weeks. "Yes, I believe in God but I don't go to church." I don't ask any questions. But I wonder how many of those people have been hurt, upset, annoyed by their priests/ministers of religion?

It is a scandal that the church is losing so many good people. And it could be so different. From all the signs to date, that too is what Pope Francis sees, knows and believes.

Hopefully his sense of purpose will help the church to relocate its sense of purpose in this liberal, secular, but troubled world.