Heidelberg Elite Study 04/05
The Heidelberg Elite Study 2005 is the second part of an overall study of the leading elites in Germany and is therefore a follow-up project to the Heidelberg Elite Study 2004 (political elite in Germany) carried out the previous year. The focus of the investigation is the church elite of the Federal Republic. These include the bishops , the archbishops or auxiliary bishops and the regional bishops in the official churches .
Although the churches have been in the focus of public interest since the election of the Pope in 2005 at the latest , the church elites have not been the subject of scientific research, although here too the crisis of the subsystem of society is obvious: 30 percent of all churches will soon have to be closed, in In West Germany, the Evangelical Church alone lost three million members between 1970 and 1990, the influence of the Catholic Church is declining sharply and the competitive offers are gaining ground, for example Islam , Buddhism , New Age , Feng Shui and esotericism .
The Heidelberg Elite Study 2005 asked questions such as: Do you count yourself among the elite? How do you rate other elites? How satisfied are you with the design options in your organizations and in other areas of society? to the top elite of the Protestant and Catholic Church and gives the answers. The response was 35.48 percent.