A new study predicts a dramatic decline in German church membership over the next several decades with major financial and cultural implications.

The Catholic German Bishops Conference joined with the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) to commission a study on church membership, which offered the dismal prediction that if current trends hold, the churches will suffer a combined drop in membership of over 22 million people by the year 2060.

The estimate offered by Thursday’s study signifies a 50 percent drop from present combined membership of approximately 45 million.

Conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Freiburg, the study found that — among other factors — fewer baptisms, adults leaving the church, and an aging population are contributing to the rapid decrease in church membership.

According to reports, the study does not delve into the reasons behind so many defections and the declining interest in the church.

In point of fact, the German Catholic Church, known for its progressive positions on a broad range of issues, has been hemorrhaging members for a number of years.

In a 2015 article titled “The Bleeding German Church,” Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti theorized that the close alliance between church and state, with believers paying the special church tax, has contributed significantly to the problem.

The Church in Germany is the second largest employer in the country after the State. Many Church employees are non-believers, and the Church’s considerable institutional presence affects people’s rapport with it, tending to create more formal, and sometimes utilitarian, relationships.

In his analysis, Tosatti said that a second cause of German defection from the Church has been an ongoing trend away from traditional Christian belief toward a liberal position often associated with mainline Protestantism.

As a body, the German Church has become known as one of the most progressive in the world, a trend that has made the Church ever more irrelevant for many, the journalist proposed.

A 2016 academic study found that churches that uphold more traditional Christian theology tend to draw more adherents than those that have fallen into liberalism.

The Canadian study, published in the Review of Religious Research, found that successful churches “held more firmly to the traditional beliefs of Christianity and were more diligent in things like prayer and Bible reading.”

In 2015, Pope Francis sharply criticized the German bishops, taking them to task for the decline of the Catholic faith in the country.

Noting the “drastic drop in Sunday Mass attendance” as well as a comparable decline in vocations to the priesthood, church marriages and sacramental confession, Francis said that the situation of the faith in Germany is dire.

“When we take all these facts into account,” Francis said, “we can speak of a true erosion of the Catholic faith in Germany.”

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