AUSTRIA
Austrian Independent
The number of people leaving the Catholic Church has decreased dramatically.
Official figures show that Austria’s dioceses recorded a 32 per cent decline in membership cancellations from 2010 to 2011. The year 2010 was dominated by intense public discussions about education practices at boarding schools run by the Church as hundreds of people came forward to say they were abused in a physical or sexual manner. Most of the incidents occurred in the 1960s and 1970s – too long ago to file charges against the offenders, according to Austria’s controversial legal regulations.
Calls for financial compensation and a decrease of paying members caused immense financial pressure on the Roman Catholic Church of Austria which is, at 5.4 million members, still the country’s strongest denomination. Overall, 58,603 left the Church last year. The number of annual membership cancellations climbed from 26,380 in 1981 to 44,304 in 1995 and 52,177 in 2004.
The strongest decline of membership cancellations was recorded by the Diocese of St. Pölten as 4,969 Lower Austrians left the Church in 2011, 36 per cent fewer than in the previous year. Tyrol’s Innsbruck Diocese and the Vorarlberg Diocese of Feldkirch recorded a 35 per cent decline each. Gurk-Klagenfurt Diocese in Carinthia and Linz Diocese in Upper Austria followed with 34 per cent each. The number of Catholic Church membership annulations dropped in all nine provinces of the country. Salzburg Diocese recorded the smallest decrease (minus 14 per cent).
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