Majority of German Catholics don’t like Church being against abortion, poll finds

AC Wimmer   By AC Wimmer for CNA

 

The 2021 March for Life in Berlin, Germany. / Rudolf Gehrig/CNA Deutsch.

CNA Newsroom, Aug 11, 2022 / 06:58 am (CNA).

According to a new representative poll, 58% of German Catholics do not like “the fact that the Pope and the Church speak out against abortions.”

The Catholic weekly newspaper Die Tagespost commissioned the survey from the opinion research institute INSA Consulere, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

“Among Lutheran respondents, the opinion picture is even clearer: 67% do not support the position of the pope and the church on the protection of life,” the Tagespost reported on Aug. 8.

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a grave evil and is never acceptable at any stage of pregnancy.

Pope Francis has repeatedly and strongly condemned abortion.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”

“Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.”

In July, a leading laywoman and co-president of the German “Synodal Way” demanded a “nationwide provision of abortion” across the European Union’s most populous country.

Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), acknowledged that abortion should not be considered a “regular medical service,” adding, however, that the committee advocated for “ethically responsible action on the part of all those involved.”

The Central Committee of German Catholics is the organizer of the controversial “Synodal Way,” together with the German Bishops’ Conference. As serving president of the lay committee, Stetter-Karp is also co-president of the German process.

In an open letter launched by the initiative “Maria 1.0,” several well-known German signatories criticize Stetter-Karp and call on the president of the German Bishops’ Conference to cut ties with her, reported CNA Deutsch on Aug. 11.

Germany currently permits abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with mandatory counseling at a state-approved center, as well as later abortions in certain circumstances.

The country of 83 million people recorded approximately 100,000 abortions in the pandemic year 2020.

Following the German federal government’s decision in March, the German bishops’ conference published a statement expressing cautious criticism of the government’s plans to lift the ban on abortion advertising.


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6 Comments

  1. No, the percentage is zero percent. If they’re pro-aborts, they’ve completely left the Church, which, incidentally applies to clerics as well.

    • The media lends legitimacy to the pro death cause by even reporting the figures in a neutral tone. The world must remember that the killing of innocent souls is, indeed, murder, regardless of circumstances, the committing of which has been the rallying cry of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, PolPot, Idi Amin and every other tyrannical maniac in history.

  2. 58% Catholic to 67% Lutheran indicates the inevitable Lutheranization of the German Catholic Church. As does the flaccid German bishops ‘cautious criticism’ of government sanctioned advertise of abortion. German Synodal Way mentality is really a precursor.
    Except by decisive and doctrinally convinced [the two go together weak response from the Vatican indication of its own waning of the faith] intervention by Pope Francis, an unfortunate unlikely expectation, will the slide toward apostasy be halted. Goings on at the this pontificate’s raped and humiliated John Paul II Pontifical Academy on Family and Life is the weathervane.
    What then for the faithful? Suffering and petition for the salvation of souls. A propitious indicator of our true practice and love of our savior is a burning desire for the salvation of souls.

    • I’m not sure how the German data works. Are the people identifying simply baptized, cultural Catholics or Mass attending?
      One of my children visited friends in Germany after high school graduation and they saw very little attendance at Mass or interest in doing that. In fact their hosts were puzzled why anyone would choose to go to church on Sunday instead of sightseeing.
      Germany doesn’t have a replacement level fertility rate so those statistics are going to look a little different in the future.

  3. “Toto, I have the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” It’s not only the Church; it’s the science, stupid…

    Too bad Galileo wasn’t German. The Italian used a telescope to display the outer universe and distinct planetary movements; today the illuminati prohibit the use of ultrasound to display the inner universe and a distinct child’s movements. It’s well known that part of Luther’s revulsion was toward the rational thought of the Renaissance. Today, with Luther exhumed and propped up in the saddle, we see a repeat. Just as Luther stirred up the Peasants’ Revolt and then later disavowed it, so now the illuminati speak of rights and then turn their backs on the unborn.

    By coincidence, the number of peasants wiped out in the one year of the Revolt (1524), and for which Luther was partly responsible, was 100,000; while the number of children aborted in a recent year was also 100,000 (in 2020).

  4. Unless these are Mass-attending Catholics, these statistics are fairly meaningless. (Maybe the same goes for the Lutherans).

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