Decline in Religious Observance among Catholics and Protestants (1960-1989) Indicators of religious observance declined noticeably in the period 1960 to 1989. The Protestant Church lost 3.5 million members, and the number of Protestant baptisms and weddings was cut in half. The Catholic Church was able to ward off a similar reduction in membership, but the number of Catholic baptisms and weddings still declined steeply, as did mass attendance.
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page 1 of 1 I. Catholic Church At the end of 1989, about 26.7 million Catholics were living in West Germany. They made up about 43 percent of the total population. This share has remained virtually unchanged since 1950. The number of Catholics declined from 1974 to 1988, but has been rising again since 1988. Until that point, the influx of Catholic foreigners into Germany – mostly guest workers and their families – had more than compensated for declining baptism figures and the growing number of people who left the Church at the beginning of the 1970s (1970: 69,000). In 1989, 93,010 people left the Church. The Catholic Church in West Germany is divided into twenty-two dioceses (five archdioceses and seventeen dioceses). In 1989, there were 12,436 parishes and other places of spiritual guidance. About 12,200 diocesan priests and religious priests worked in pastoral care in 1979; there was one pastoral caregiver, on average, for every 2,200 believers. An acute shortage of priests, however, meant that not all parishes could have their own. Another 7,300 priests were active in other fields of work. Basic information on church life is shown in the table below. Between 1960 and 1989 participation in Sunday Communion dropped by about 5.8 million churchgoers, or 49 percent. In 1989, an average of 23 percent of all Catholics attended Sunday Mass. Far more participate in the Eucharist on holidays or the Church’s main feast days The Catholic Church in West Germany Year Catholics Baptisms Marriages Church Funerals  Participants in Sunday Communion in thousands 1960 24,710 473 214 262 11,895 1970 27,192 370 164 296 10,159 1980 26,720 258 125 288 7,769 1985 26,308 254 113 286 6,800 1987 26,306 270 114 278 6,430 1989 26,746 282 113 281 6,092 [Figures from the secretariat of the German Bishops’ Conference, Statistics Department, Bonn] II. The Protestant Church The Protestant Church in Germany [Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland] had 25.1 million members in late 1989; this represents roughly 40 percent of the total population and about 44 percent of the German population. In the 1950 census, these percentages were still around 51 percent each. Protestant Church in West Germany Year Members Baptisms Marriages Funerals  Participants in Sunday Eucharist in thousands 1963 28,796 476 204 335 7,727 1970 28,480 346 156 369 6,813 1980 26,104 222 94 347 9,056 1987 25,413 239 97 324 9,669 1989 25,132 252 101 321 9,319 [Figures from the Protestant Church in Germany (EKG), Hanover, not including the Protestant Free Churches (Freikirchen)] Source: Federal Office of Statistics [Statistisches Bundesamt], ed., Datenreport 1992. Zahlen und Fakten über die Bundesrepublik Deutschland [Data Report 1992. Numbers and Facts about the Federal Republic of Germany]. Bonn, 1992, pp. 190-91. Translation: Allison Brown
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