Participation in parish council elections continues to fall
religion
The parish council election at the weekend in the Archdiocese of Salzburg resulted in an even lower turnout than in 2017. More than 380,000 Catholics in 210 parishes were called upon to elect their representatives. Just under 14 percent cast their votes.
Participation has dropped by an additional four percent this year – compared to the last parish council election in 2017. At that time there was not an astronomically high participation of 18 percent, but on the other hand you can see a few strong outliers in a positive sense in the overall result this year – such as the small one Pastor Eschenau near Taxenbach (Pinzgau): voter turnout a whopping 82 percent. Unken (Pinzgau) is also alone in the top field with 55 percent.
Higher turnout in committed parishes
Michaela Hessenberger prepared the parish council elections for the archdiocese in the past few weeks. In general, participation in small communities is significantly greater than in metropolitan areas, says the expert. And the CoV lockdowns of the last two years are probably a cause of the situation.
“In those parishes in which efforts have been made to care for the people and have approached the faithful in the last two years, the turnout was significantly higher,” says Hessenberger.
Average age is falling, proportion of women is increasing
And the archdiocese’s specialist noticed another simple trend. The newly elected parish councilors are now on average ten years younger than the most beautiful. The average age is now just under 50 years. The country’s youngest council members now has the pastor Uttendorf in Oberpinzgau. Average age: almost 33 years. From the point of view of the church leadership, it is also gratifying that more than half of all council members are women – namely 60 percent.
There are a total of 210 parishes in the Archdiocese of Salzburg – the vast majority on Salzburg territory. In addition, there are the parishes in the Tyrolean lowlands close to the border, all the way into the Zillertal.