(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, Germany, said during an interview this week that the German church is seen as a “troublemaker” around the world, lamented the increased secularization in the country, and compared the German church with the numerous young Catholics around the world who are hungry for the authentic faith.
In the interview that aired May 19 on Katholisches Fernsehen (K-TV), Bishop Voderholzer bemoaned the results of a 2025 survey conducted by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research that found a dismal 28 percent of Germans believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, stressing that this is the result of secularization. The bishop also noted that members of the German hierarchy are viewed as “troublemakers” by the faithful across the globe and underscored that the German church can learn from the joyful, devout faith of young Catholics in other countries such as the United States, France, and Madagascar who crave the “authentic” and “unadulterated” faith.
The host, Father Thomas Maria Rimmel, opened the interview by asking the bishop about the Allensbach Institute’s shocking survey results that His Excellency attributed to secularization.
“(The survey) is not only referring to the question of the divine sonship of Jesus Christ and the question of who He is as the revealer but also, regarding the Resurrection, the Easter mystery, and derived from that, of course, many other beliefs are fading in the minds and hearts of people. This is a consequence of secularization, and it should actually be a cause for deep concern in all church circles,” he said.
Bishop Voderholzer, citing Bishop Johann Michael Sailer, the 19th-century bishop of Regensburg, stressed that “God in Christ — salvation for the sinful world,” must be the Church’s focus. Otherwise, all other expressions of the Christian life are weakly grounded.
Later in the interview, Fr. Rimmel asked Voderholzer about what the German church can learn from the universal Church on the transmission of faith.
His Excellency recalled his recent visit to Madagascar, describing the African country’s faithful as poor yet devout and joyful, especially the youth. He also emphasized the uptick in conversions, especially in young people clamoring for tradition in other countries such as Britain, France, and the United States, and said the German hierarchy can learn from the faithful in those countries.
READ: German bishop: Synodal Way created ‘pressure’ on bishops, risked ‘tearing the Church apart’
“Something you generally hear that in Germany we are perceived as the ‘troublemaker’ and the questioners of everything,” the bishop said. “If you look at France or England or even America … then you see that there is apparently a renewed longing, especially among the younger generation, for an authentic faith, for an unadulterated faith where one is no longer satisfied with sociology and a more horizontally oriented proclamation.”
“There is also a strong demand again for the beauty of the liturgy, and I see that coming (in Germany) as well, and we need to prepare for that,” he added.
Indeed, as reported extensively by LifeSiteNews, the German hierarchy has been heavily criticized for various heterodox actions in recent years, especially the heretical Synodal Way that seeks to change Church doctrine and the adoption of “blessings” for “couples of all gender identities.”
In April 2025, days after the death of Pope Francis, the German Bishops Conference (DBK) and the lay organization Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) announced that they had adopted the text of the guidelines during a joint conference.
The “blessings” are meant to be an offer for “divorced and remarried couples, couples of all (so-called) gender identities and sexual orientations, as well as couples who do not want to or cannot receive the sacrament of marriage for other reasons,” per the DBK.
Earlier this month, the Vatican published a November 2024 letter written by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), to German Bishop Stephan Ackermann that rejected the conference’s proposed “blessings” just months before the bishops had published their official guidelines.
On the other hand, as noted by Bishop Voderholzer, the number of Catholic converts, especially among young people, has surged dramatically in the United States, Britain, France, and many other countries worldwide. These converts, along with many of the young faithful in these countries, are also devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and other Catholic traditions.
READ: US Catholic converts are tuning out their liberal, heterodox bishops
Voderholzer has been one of the conservative German bishops who have spoken out against the heterodox Synodal Way and even disassociated themselves from the Synodal Committee.