Roman Catholicism In Germany
The German Catholic Church, part of the worldwide Catholic Church, is under the leadership of the Pope, assisted by the Roman Curia, and of the German bishops. The current president of the episcopal conference is Robert Zollitsch, Archbishop of Freiburg, the country's second largest diocese with 2.07 million Catholics. The German church, thanks to a church tax compulsory for those who register civilly as Catholics, is the wealthiest Catholic Church in Europe. It is divided into 27 dioceses, 7 of them with the rank of metropolitan sees. All the archbishops and bishops are members of the Conference of German Bishops.
Secularisation has had its impact in Germany as elsewhere in Europe; nevertheless, 30.7% of the total population is Catholic (25.177 million people as of December 2008), down 0.3 percentage points from the previous year and down 2% compared to the year 2000. Before the 1990 unification of the Federal Republic of Germany (or West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (or East Germany), Catholics were 45% of the population of West Germany What makes it easier to know religious statistics in Germany is that Christian taxpayers must declare their religious affiliation as church tax is deducted by the State to be passed on to the relevant church in the state where the taxpayer lives.
Apart from its demographic weight, German Catholicism has a very old religious and cultural heritage, which reaches back to both St. Boniface, apostle of Germany and first archbishop of Mainz, and to Charlemagne, buried at Aachen Cathedral. Notable religious sites include Ettal Abbey, Maria Laach Abbey, and Oberammergau, famous for its performance of the Passion Play, which takes place every 10 years. (The last performance of the Passion Play was in 2010.)
The German church also boasts of one of the most recognizable landmarks in all of Germany, Cologne Cathedral. Other notable Catholic cathedrals are in Freising, Mainz, Fulda, Paderborn, Regensburg, Frankfurt, Munich (Frauenkirche), Worms, Berlin (St. Hedwig's Cathedral, with crypt of Bernhard Lichtenberg), Bamberg, and Trier.
Read more about Roman Catholicism In Germany: The Present Situation of Catholicism in Germany, German Popes, See Also
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