A record number of Swiss Catholics formally left the Church in 2021, according to new stati-stics.
The Swiss Institute of Pastoral Sociology (SPI) in St. Gallen said that 34,182 people left the Church last year, around 2,500 more than in the previous record-setting year of 2019.
Around 2.96 million people remained members of the Church at the end of 2021, out of a total Swiss population of roughly 8.7 million.
The Protestant Church in Swi-tzerland also reported a record number of departures in 2021, with 28,540 exits.
Switzerland is a federal re-public composed of 26 cantons. The latest Church departure figures do not include cantons where membership is not linked to the payment of church tax, such as Geneva, Valais, Neuchâtel, and Vaud, reported the Swiss Catholic Church website kath.ch.
The rate of departures varied from canton to canton. Basel-Stadt, Switzerland’s northernmost canton, recorded the highest exit rate of 3.6%, while the nearby cantons of Aargau and Solothurn also recorded relatively high figu-res of 2.4%.
Earlier this month, Pope Fra-ncis accepted the resignation of 59-year-old Bishop Valerio La-zzeri, who had led the Diocese of Lugano in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino, since 2013.