Catholic Church in Switzerland

The Catholic Church in Switzerland is organised into six dioceses and two territorial abbeys, comprising approximately 3 million Catholics, about 38.6% of the Swiss population.

The dioceses are:

The two territorial abbeys, which do not belong to any bishopric, are

In contrast to most Catholic dioceses, Swiss bishoprics are exempt, i.e. immediately subject to the jurisdiction of the Holy See, without any Metropolitan see. The bishops and the two territorial abbots are organised within the Swiss Bishops Conference whose chairman is the current Bishop of Sion, Norbert Brunner.

In the last thirty years, mainly during the conflict over the appointment of Wolfgang Haas as Bishop of Chur, there have been discussions to make a major reform of the structure of the Catholic Church in Switzerland, which would probably also lead to the establishment of a metropolitan see (probably in Lucerne). However, discussions remain unresolved especially about the status of the Canton of Zürich as part of the Diocesis of Chur, the large but splinted extend of the Diocesis of Basel and the lack of a Metropolitan see stay unresolved.

The status of Catholicism in Switzerland is complicated further by the existence of Landeskirchen (Roman Catholic cantonal churches), imposed by anti-clerical cantonal governments in the 19th century and organised along democratic lines and control the application of funds collected through church taxes. Most cantonally delineated Roman Catholic church bodies are members in their umbrella Roman Catholic Central Conference of Switzerland (RKZ, official names in German: Römisch-Katholische Zentralkonferenz der Schweiz, French: Conférence centrale catholique romaine de Suisse, Italian: Conferenza centrale cattolica romana della Svizzera, Romansh: Conferenza centrala catolica romana da la Svizra).

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