Number of people leaving Catholic Church in Austria fell in 2020

January 14, 2021 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

The high altar of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria. Credit: Bwag via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

CNA Staff, Jan 14, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Fewer people left the Catholic Church in Austria in 2020 than in the previous year, according to official figures released on Wednesday.

New statistics, published on Jan. 13, showed that 58,535 people formally left the Church in 2020, compared to 67,794 in 2019 — a drop of 13.7%.

All Austrian dioceses recorded a decline in the number of people leaving, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, defying expectations in a year dominated by the coronavirus crisis.

Overall, the number of Catholics in Austria fell by around 1.5%, from 4.98 million in 2019 to 4.91 million in 2020.

Church authorities said that 3,807 people rejoined the Church or joined for the first time in 2020 — 28.7% fewer than in 2019, when 4,898 people joined or rejoined.

In addition, 461 people made use of their “right of withdrawal” in 2020. People invoking this right — known as “Recht auf Widerruf” in German — initially declared their intention to leave the Church but decided not to take the step after contacting Church officials within a three-month period.

“In any case, the decisive factors for the slight decline in the number of Catholics are not only the ratio of resignations to Church admissions but above all also the ratio of baptisms to deaths and of arrivals to departures,” said the bishops’ conference.

Other areas of the Austrian Church are defying the downward trend.

In November, the archdiocese of Vienna announced a rise in the number of men training for the priesthood.

Fourteen new candidates entered the archdiocese’s three seminaries this autumn. Eleven of them are from Vienna archdiocese and the remaining three are from the dioceses of Eisenstadt and St. Pölten.

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Children who faced abortion baptized in Spain

October 8, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).-  

Fourteen children whose mothers considered abortion were baptized last month in Madrid by the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Carlos Osoro.

The newly baptized are children of women in vulnerable situations who considered abortion during their pregnancies. They were aided by the Más Futuro Association, a Catholic organization that offers support to expectant mothers and mothers in need.

Baptized Sept. 27 were a 6-year-old girl, two four-year-old boys and 11 babies less than a year old.

Nine more children were scheduled to be baptized at the same time, but were unable to be present because they were waiting for the results of coronavirus tests.

Cardinal Osoro honored the children’s mothers during the baptismal rite, telling them: “You have chosen life, we know that death will come, but you have chosen life.”

Some of the women had previously undergone abortions.

Present at the baptism were volunteers of the Más Futuro Association, who pray at abortion clinics in Madrid, and offer alternatives to women at the clinics who are considering abortion.

 

A version of this reported was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.


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