Roman Catholic Switzerland
The slightly different part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church
A special feature of the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland is that as a state church it is subject to both a constitutional legal system and an ecclesiastical legal system, which means members of the Church are also members of a public-law administrative unit at the same time. Their authority is limited to administrative financial matters, however, so that one speaks of the “parish” when referring to the life of the Church at local level. The public-law cantonal corporate bodies are organised at national level within the Roman Catholic Central Conference. The hierarchical structure of the Church comprises six dioceses (Basel, Chur, St. Gallen, Sitten, Lugano and Lausanne, Geneva, Fribourg), and two territorial abbacies (Einsiedeln and St. Maurice); these are organised within the Swiss Bishop’s Conference (SBK).