Significantly fewer people will leave the churches in 2024
Keystone-SDA
The Catholic Church in Switzerland has stemmed the tide of leavers with fewer people abandoning the pews in 2024 than the previous year.
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In 2023, the publication of a study on sexual abuse in the Church led to a wave of departures.
A year later, the Swiss Catholic Church recorded 36,782 departures, the Swiss Institute for Pastoral Sociology (SPI) announced on Friday. This represents a 46% reduction on 2023, when 67,497 members left the Catholic Church.
+ Why Switzerland is losing its religion
Despite this drop, the number of departures remains high, concluded the St Gallen-based research institute, which is supported by the Swiss Catholic Church. A comparison over several years shows “a slowly rising trend in departures”.
+ Deserted churches: Swiss abandon God
In addition to departures, a high number of deaths and fewer baptisms are contributing to the decline in membership. Last year, 2.73 million people still belonged to the Catholic Church in Switzerland.
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