A German bishop has questioned the policy that bars people from the sacraments if they formally remove their names from the rolls of registered Catholics.
The German bishops’ conference has set a policy that classifies Catholics who ask to be removed from the rolls as having defected. Thus they cannot receive Communion, marry in the Church, or serve in parish or diocesan offices.
Bishop Ansgar Puff, an auxiliary of the Cologne archdiocese, recently questioned that policy, asking: “Is it right to no longer invite them to our table?” The question is pertinent particularly in German dioceses where Protestants are invited to Communion, as are Catholics who are divorced and remarried, and active homosexuals.
The parish rolls are particularly crucial in Germany, where the government assesses a surcharge on the taxes of registered believers, handing those funds over to the churches. As a result the German Catholic Church is extremely wealthy. However, lapsed Catholics have an incentive to end their registration, and every year many thousands do so. In 2021 (the most recent year for which accurate figures are available), a stunnion 359,338 people formally left the Church.
In 2006, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts—the Vatican body charged with the interpretation of canon law—stated that “the juridical-administrative act of abandoning the Church does not per se constitute a formal act of defection as understood in the Code, given that there could still be the will to remain in the communion of the faith.” The German bishops’ policy appears to conflict with that ruling.