"Protecting the institution and the perpetrators was always the most important factor for the Church. (Protecting) the victims, on the other hand, simply did not occur," said the 60-year-old head of the northern German Diocese of Hildesheim.

Bishop Wilmer, who is reportedly close to Pope Francis, made his remarks to some 200 representatives of religious, social and political groups. They were gathered for an annual diocesan-sponsored reception in Hannover.

In his speech the bishop commented, "Nowadays, people trust a used car salesman more than they do a bishop".

Wilmer, whose address was titled "SOS - It is no less a matter of saving our souls", warned that the Catholic Church would no longer be able to play a dominant role in society.

"The Church as an institution will shrink and will be far more modest. It will just be one voice among many offering to explain the sense of life on earth," he said.

"While it will be smaller, it will be ecumenical. Our faith will cover a smaller area but will grow in-depth and in its Biblical roots," he predicted.

The bishop concentrated on three key questions during his address in Hannover: How much say do bishops still have today? What are people looking for? And are the Churches still of any use today?

Bishop Wilmer said the times when bishops could treat people condescendingly "from above" in a patronizing way, "let alone consider themselves above the law", are now over.

The bishop went on to insist that the distribution of power within the Church must change.

"There must be an end to above and below in the usual clerical manner," Wilmer emphasized.

He argued people are more than ever looking for orientation and stability. He said the coronavirus pandemic and climate change had exacerbated this feeling of being lost.

But the bishop lamented that at the very moment people were looking for a point of reference, the Catholic Church was facing a pile of ruins.

However, he acknowledged there was still a demand for the Church to act as a mediator and bridge-builder when interests clashed on ecological or social matters.

"A new view of sexuality is called for. We must think again about the role of the priesthood," he said. "We need gender-just participation in the Church."

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Last year, a record 272,771 Catholics in Germany formally left the Church.

While Wilmer is concerned there could be a further drop in church attendance due to the coronavirus crisis, his main concern is the Church's apparent irrelevance in today's world.

Phenomena like clerical sexual abuse, Church structures and Church tax are only ostensible causes for the decline of Catholicism, Wilmer believes.

In his view, what's really at the heart of reduction in the Church's relevance is that "We, as a Church, and therefore our interpretation of life, are becoming less important," he said.

In today's societies, the Catholic Church is only one "provider" among many other alternatives that gives meaning to people's lives, he noted.

A change in structure is needed to put the Church back into the running, he suggests.

Instead of classical parishes with their claim to exclusivity, the Church needs more vibrant "power centers" that radiate presence and charisma.

Committed lay Christians, rather than priests, should run these centers, in Wilmar's opinion. These people could be found, for example, within universities or house communities.

"I don't want to talk down classical parishes, but we need alternatives to the proclamation of the Gospel message," Wilmer says.

At the same time, these people need to be physically present, if they are to be useful as witnesses to the Christian faith. They must learn how to live and proclaim the Gospel message and not flee into cyberspace, he says.

"It is a case of being together, walking through life shoulder to shoulder and sitting opposite one another at the kitchen table, at the workplace, where people are growing old, where they are sick and frail, laughing and weeping together, face to face, and really being present physically."

Over 8,000 Catholics officially left the Church in Wilmer's Hildesheim Diocese in 2019 - an increase of more than 1,000 from the previous year.

The overall number of Catholics in the diocese has reduced from 593,360 in 2018 to 581,460 in 2019.

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By gathering for scripture services, people will gain new experiences with new and familiar forms of praying together, says Wilmer.

"I am convinced that these new and familiar forms of prayer will carry and strengthen us just as they have done over the past weeks," he says.

"Gradually and very carefully, we can get back to celebrating the Eucharist at our own discretion," he wrote in a letter he sent last week to Catholics of his diocese in the north of Germany.

Wilmer, who is the former international superior general of the Priests of the Sacred Heart ("Dehonians"), underlined the need for extreme caution to those planning public church gatherings or celebrations.

His diocese of Hildesheim is one of the last of Germany's twenty-seven Catholic dioceses to end a liturgical lockdown that went into effect on 16 March.

During the lockdown Wilmer made headlines in a widely-published interview by expressing his "uneasiness" about live-streamed Masses and what he called an unhealthy "fixation on the Eucharist."

"At the moment people are behaving as if their entire faith will break down if they cannot go to Mass and receive communion," he said in the interview.

There have always been times when people could not celebrate the Eucharistic, but belief in God did not cease just because of that.

"Of course it is important, but the reaction of some of the faithful (to the coronavirus crisis) is to overestimate the Eucharist (and behave as if) there was nothing else," he said.

The Second Vatican Council said the Lord is not only present in the Eucharist. He is also present in the Scriptures and the Bible, Wilmer says.

"We should take seriously Christ's words, 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst'."

While he has nothing against people praying together "over the internet and with the help of the modern media", Wilmer does not think having a Eucharistic celebration in this way is appropriate.

He acknowledges, however, that Catholics miss being together and worshiping as a community more than anything.

"No-one believes alone. Our faith is based on community. Someone or some others are with me on the way. We need others. We human beings are ordered towards our fellow human beings and that is what has been taken from us at the moment," he says.

Reflecting on the past couple of months, he says: "It has never been so important to be alone together."

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"We still haven't fully realised that the crisis of confidence is charging into the Church's timberwork with unmitigated force," Bishop Heiner Wilmer says.

He has already drawn criticism from the establishment when, three months after his appointment as Bishop of Hildesheim, he told a newspaper that abuse of power was in the Church's DNA.

"I had reckoned with criticism, but not that so many people would be quite so distressed," he says.

Wilmer thinks the Church has forgotten abuse of power is as old as the Gospels. The way the disciples quarreled over who was first among them is an example.

He notes that the Church's reaction to the abuse crisis up to now has been to apply discipline and canon law, improve prevention and communications and work together with the judiciary and state authorities.

In his view, the Church must ask itself what the power abuse crisis means for "the way we speak about God, the Church and the way we proclaim the Gospel."

Hushing up clerical sexual abuse occurred because it was seen as something that sullied the holiness of the Church - so it had to be covered up, he says.

"We must come down from there and see the Church's sinfulness but also tackle the problem theologically."

"We were far too interested in polishing the Church's image and failed to see the human being. I find that truly terrible!" he says.

Over the past century, we "allowed the Church to deteriorate into a moral institution focused on what may or may not take place beneath the sheets," he says.

The sixth commandment is not the only commandment, he notes.

Wilmer says Christ's message is both moral and aimed at liberating and redeeming human beings.

He thinks the Church must become a community that uplifts people, where the Gospel is proclaimed in a way that fascinates people and that those who are only interested in the Church's survival "have already lost."

Although he says the German bishops' synodal procedures are engaging the laity in discussions about issues like clerical power, the Church's sexual morality and the priestly lifestyle may not be easy, but he is convinced they will be successful.

Nonetheless, it will take a lot of courage on the bishops' part "to walk shoulder to shoulder" with the laity and discuss priestly ordination, celibacy and the place of women in the Church.

While he says he is "passionately" committed to celibacy, "it must be made to shine more radiantly" by being voluntary rather than mandatory.

He also believes it is crucial for women to be given leading positions and greater responsibility in the Church.

If the Church does not find a way of putting these reforms into practice, it will become marginal he says.

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