Cardinal Koch, who was addressing a conference in Rome entitled "Evangelicals - Pentecostals - Charismatics - New Religious Movements as Challenge for the Catholic Church", hosted by the German bishops' conference, said that Evangelical and Pentecostal movements were now the second-largest Christian community in the world after the Catholic Church.
Their rapid expansion had "radically changed the geography of Christianity worldwide", he added, and said that they challenged the Catholic Church to ask itself: "What are we going wrong and why are the faithful deserting us?"