Thousands of Catholics in Belgium have demanded to be “debaptised” amid fury over the long history of clerical sex abuse and cover-ups in the church.

Between July 1 2023 and June 30 this year, 14,251 people asked to be removed from the baptismal registers, a sharp rise on the average number from previous years of about 1,200.

No reasons are given for the requests but the Church told local media it believed that disgust at the abuse and the cover-ups of it was decisive.

The figure was revealed in the Church’s annual report, which also revealed there were 218 reports of sexual abuse recorded during the 12 months.

That was almost five times higher than the year-earlier period, when 47 reports were made.