The churches are thrown back to what they actually stand for.
That's the challenge these days, when one record release message follows another.
Of course, hardly anyone can remain indifferent when hundreds of thousands in a short space of time turn their backs on the churches into which, in most cases, they were born.
And you can understand it when a member, after careful examination, comes to the conclusion that after serious allegations of abuse, which hit the Catholic Church in particular and which some consider to be structural, even given the weak educational efforts, they can no longer be in this apparatus.
But often the - undoubtedly outrageous - abuse scandal acts as an opportunity to finally escape the church tax with a clear conscience and to be able to draw a line that you have long since internally drawn.
Those who have never had a real relationship to faith, who only needed the churches in times of need or as a fig leaf, should not weep for them.
You must, of course, always ask yourself whether you are still on the right path.
There are already enough moralistic clubs.
You don't need churches for drooling political advice or for ethical exercises.
Anyone who can visualize very old messages, in the sense of which many more people live than there are church members, will also find answers today.
This is the opportunity for the churches.