The fact that the church and many Catholic associations have been losing members for years is neither new nor surprising. Germany’s largest women’s association, the Katholische Frauengemeinschaft Deutschlands (kfd), is no exception. But a new wave can be observed in Baden: the “Südkurier” reported that only in the district deanery of Black Forest-Baar six parish groups have left the kfd. And all for twelve euros a year and because that would have made them real kfd at the federal level. What sounds confusing at first is the end of a decades-old local peculiarity.
The kfd is an association that has historically grown “from below”. In the second half of the 19th century, mothers’ associations were formed at the parish level, which only gradually merged and created transversal structures. Women only founded the first diocesan association in Paderborn in 1915, the federal association has existed since 1928. The local structures are therefore significantly older than the national ones.
Thus it happened that, especially in the decades following the founding of the federal association, not all kfd women were registered in it, but only in their community group. This was partly intentional. As in the archdiocese of Freiburg, which also includes the district deanery of Schwarzwald-Baar: “At that time there was a president who was of the opinion that the women of the diocese could do it themselves and did not need an association federal, ”says the diocesan president of Freiburg, Monika Bohn. The women were asked not to join the federal association: after all, Freiburg has its own magazine, so why do you need another one from the federal association?
You kept to yourself at first
Freiburg wasn’t the only one with this attitude. In other southern German dioceses such as Speyer or Munich and Freising, people kept to themselves at first. But over time the dual structures disappeared and soon all over Germany there were only women who were members of the kfd at all levels. Except in Freiburg. There, the topic was put off for a long time, almost 100 years. More recently, only 13,000 of the 45,000 diocesan members were also members of the federal association. “I’ve been in a management position in the association for 16 years and this multi-level membership has always been a problem and has taken up an incredible amount of energy,” says Bohn. Finally, things have become difficult for this special structure, also from a bureaucratic and fiscal point of view. Also because there were no named lists of members.
Image: ©Private
Monika Bohn is the Freiburg diocesan president of the kfd.
That is why the Freiburg diocesan assembly decided in 2019 to clean up – with the federal association membership project: “On October 1, 2022 there will be only kfd parish groups in the diocesan association kfd in Freiburg with only association members federal kfd”. Why: “Being a member of the kfd means being a member of a nationally organized association, being a member of the largest Catholic women’s association and this does not end at the diocesan level,” says the diocesan association’s website. “So what has long been a matter of course in other dioceses should also become a matter of course in our diocesan association.” Individual parish groups had to decide whether they wanted to join the federal association. Individual members were also asked to engage in association on a German level.
Not all parish groups have done so: Of the 22 parish groups in the Schwarzwald-Baar district deanery, six have left the kfd and two have disbanded. Some women saw the decision as “compulsory membership” and opposed the higher contribution, which, however, only increased by twelve euros a year. “It was clear that we would also have to deal with the loss of members,” explains Bohn. We took our time and offered many informational events. She sees more than one fundamental problem: “There were groups who didn’t really like the federal association and never really informed themselves about socio-political issues. They were self-sufficient, they did their thing and therefore worked locally.”
A debt of the volunteers
So the association paid little attention to parish groups? “I don’t want to be blamed for that,” Bohn says. Volunteers also have the duty of collection: anyone interested in the contents can obtain the materials. However, this cannot be forced.
The general situation will change for the groups that have now left. They are no longer a union group, just a group in a parish. As a result, some access points that were previously taken for granted, such as when it came to booking rooms, are no longer needed. In the “Südkurier”, the head of the rector’s office, Claudia Johannsen, wondered whether these structures could last in the long term.
Monika Bohn cannot yet say how many women are really left. Individual groups are very different which is why there have been responses by phone, email and post – with more than 600 church groups a huge amount of material. She gradually evaluates the answers. But she already has a first intuition: in some cases there were even more women. The reason is registration by name. “There are groups that previously only reported eight women to us, but now there are 50 of them on the federal registration forms. And every one of them has signed up for the federal association.”
Difficult to attract young women
But the trends of the whole church can also be seen in the Friburger kfd: some groups are too old and young women are difficult to recruit. With full-time jobs and families, many women no longer have the time to be elected to council on a voluntary basis. In addition, committed women are also increasingly considering whether they want to remain church members in light of the many scandals and the very unequal ratio between women and men. Association structures also have to react to this, says Bohn, “in order to survive, even if women are less willing to assume management positions”. There must be new management models for this. “We need to rethink known structures.”
In the coming weeks it will become clear how Freiburger kfd will change as a result of the restructuring. The women then got rid of their historic mortgage after nearly 100 years. The controversies show that major social developments are also felt at the grassroots level and require new responses.
By Christopher Paul Hartmann
