Return to the family” “

A significant drop in the number of apostasies and a growth in those who return to the Church: that is the encouraging finding of the latest statistics on the Austrian Catholic Church. The Church statistics relating to 2005, subdivided by dioceses, were published on 10 January. They reveal a trend more or less common to all the parish communities in Austria, and one that inspires hope in a new spiritual revival for the Austrian Church. The Viennese theologian Paul Zulehner has commented positively on the findings, placing them in the wider context of the return to spirituality. POSITIVE TENDENCIES. 7,876 apostates less – 15.2% – than in 2004: the drop of apostasies in Austria is a development confirmed in virtually all dioceses, particularly in the archdiocese of Vienna, which registered the second largest reduction since 1985, complemented by the growth of those re-admitted to the Viennese Catholic community in the year that has just ended: they number 1,300, over 700 more than in 2004. In the archdiocese of Salzburg, too, apostasies have registered a significant decline (-16.3%), with the simultaneous increase of those returning to the Catholic Church (24%). The relevant statistics are also positive for the diocese of Graz-Seckau: 15.42% less apostasies and a 19,3% increase of faithful rejoining the Church. In Carinthia, some 77% of the population confess their membership of the Catholic Church. There were 12.18% apostasies less than in 2004 also in the diocese of Linz, where a slight increase of persons rejoining Catholic communities was registered. The drop in apostasies is also confirmed in the diocese of Innsbruck and in that of Feldkirch; particularly significant is the drop in apostasies registered in the diocese of St.Pölten, recently thrown into disarray by the well-known scandal in the local seminary; in fact the faithful returning to the Church slightly increased in St.Pölten last year. The opposite trend however was registered in the diocese of Eisenstadt: there a slight increase of apostasies over the figure for 2004 was registered. THERE’S ROOM FOR YOU. The most substantial drop in apostasies was that registered in the archdiocese of Vienna itself, one of the largest European dioceses, comprising not only the Land of Vienna, but also the eastern part of the Land of Lower Austria. In 2005, the decline in apostasies was equivalent to a third of the record registered in 1995 with 20,847 Catholics publicly abjuring their faith. The trend is also confirmed at the level of the city’s vicariate and has been welcomed by the spokesman of the archdiocese, Erich Leitenberger: “When a Catholic leaves the community, it’s like someone abandoning his family”. The interest of the Catholic community in knowing the motivations that lead the faithful to abjure their faith is testified by an initiative taken by the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, who has sent all apostates a personal letter with a questionnaire attached, specifying the motivations for apostasy, which they are invited to fill in and return to the archdiocese. Some 20% of the recipients of the letter have completed the questionnaire and returned it. Some of them expressed their willingness to receive a further letter of reply from the cardinal touching on the problems they had adverted to in their answers to the questionnaire. Similar actions have been taken in other dioceses: in Graz and in Gurk, the bishops write to apostates, while in Linz and in Innsbruck parish priests enter into contact with those who have abandoned the community. In the archdiocese of Salzburg the initiative is handled by Catholic Action. A GROWING CHURCH. A general tendency to spirituality and the overcoming of the crises inside the Church: these, according to the theologian PAUL Zulehner, are the main reasons for the drop in apostasies in Austria in 2005. Interviewed by the Austrian Catholic press agency Kathpress, the theologian emphasized that not least the “far-sighted policy of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn” has contributed to ensuring “that the great crises of the Church in the years of ‘turbulence’ between 1985 and 2004 have now been overcome. The period of aggressive anti-clericalism has ended. People are beginning to feel affection for the Church”. “With the mass participation of people in the death of John Paul II or in WYD in Cologne”, he adds, “the growing nostalgia for God has become clear”; nonetheless, “the Church must turn this new opportunity to yet better account. The Church needs to bring its spiritual offer closer to people”, and make greater use of “spiritual places and significant spiritual personalities”. This “new phase of re-spiritualization especially involves the urban areas and the better educated classes”, explains the theologian, who notes on the contrary that a strong tendency to apostasy can still be felt in rural areas. Zulehner says he is “really optimistic” about the future of the Church: “After the storms of the past, the Church has at least reached calmer waters, even though the real beginning has not yet come and must still be tackled”.