"The only way for baptized Catholics to opt out of the system is to declare formally that they are leaving the Church, after which they are told they may no longer receive the sacraments [....]"
I don't understand this at all.
If someone leaves the Catholic Church in some formal way, say, by publicly converting to another faith, isn't it the case that the only thing the person has to do is go to confession to be back in full communion with the Church?
Isn't it the case that once a person is baptized, he/she is a Catholic forever?
If the answers are yes and yes, how can the Catholic Church in Germany inform people that they cannot partake of sacraments, especially the sacrament of Penance?
I have been to Germany many times and never paid a bean in Church Tax. No one has ever checked if I ought to have been paying before I took Communion. And I do not look un-German.
A very good point. I have seen people ferociously criticising the Church Tax as blatent Simony - asking payment for something sacred. Yet the Vatican seems unconcerned about it.... Especially as they are getting a rake off.
Support of the Church is a precept of the Church. If the local Church in Germany defines this as paying this tax, and someone isn't, then they're no longer a "practicing" Catholic, in the same way that someone who skips Sunday masses doesn't qualify as a practicing Catholic and wouldn't be able to access things like marriage or baptism for a child in the US. I'd imagine that just like in the US, there's a lot of leeway given for people who show up in a communion line or confessional line, but a lot less given if someone wants to be married in the Church.
My Dominican Fraternity asks for a letter of good standing from a potential member's parish; this seems pretty analogous to that.
The Church can define support any way they want, but if one can only receive a sacrament for a fee that is the grave matter of simony, and that's what this looks like.
One of the recent popes told the Germans they could not refuse to give people the sacraments unless they paid the Church tax. They politely ignored him.
My guess is the church officially considers it a tax imposed by a legitimate civil authority - you aren't excommunicated for paying the money, but rather for formally declaring you're no longer Catholic. It doesn't sit right with me either, but as a vaguely analogous situation, imagine a town split by a river. The town's civil authority decides to impose a toll on the bridge - so now residents from one side of the river have to pay (the civil authority) to attend Mass, but it's not simony. It wouldn't become simony even if the town gave some of the toll revenue to the parish, maybe to support the parish school.
Further thought: any input from the numerous US and UK military people who have served in Germany? Though they might mostly have their own on base chaplains.
Formal apostasy incurs automatic excommunication. When they are told they may not receive the Sacraments, the penalties of that excommunication are incurred. If they wish to receive the Sacraments, they have to get the excommunication lifted. The process typically starts in the Confessional, even if the priest is not authorized to lift that particular excommunication he can give instructions on who to talk to.
Of course, if the person is dying, any priest can lift the excommunication (contingent on them going through the normal process if they survive), give them absolution, Holy Communion and Anointing.
If you want to see a little of what 6 billion euros a year can buy you, I recommend a trip to Freising. It is very close to Munich Airport and at the terminus of an S-Bahn line from the city centre.
Exhibit A: St George's Church in the town centre. Old exterior. Incongruous ultra modern interior obviously inserted at huge cost. New statue of St George and the Dragon. The original, perfectly good statue has been moved up the hill to Exhibit C, the diocesan museum.
Exhibit B: The stunning cathedral.
Exhibit C: The eyepopping diocesan museum, next to the Cathedral. Stunning ultra modern interior inside old shell. The architects, engineers and interior designers must have loved it. It is spread over four floors. Admission ticket is nominal, considering the priceless contents. It contains elaborate church fittings, such as huge monstrances, each of which deserves its own guidebook. It has items which I did not know existed. Such as ceramic tiles with Biblical scenes and a collection of medals of all the Popes.
Who will fund all this once the tax gravy runs dry? How long will a disbelieving country consent to a Church Tax?
I was stationed in Germany for a total of 10 years with the US Army. We had our own Catholic Chaplains, although we were also free to attend the German services. If, however, I were to remain in Germany as a US expat, then I would be expected to pay German taxes, and that would include the Church Tax.
One has to understand the German way of life, and the fact that the State has a lot of power over individual Germans, and that they for the most part accept this. This is changing with the curse of relativism and modernism running rampant through the Western world (witness the departures from the Church), but Germans for the most part pay their taxes and receive support from the Socialist government.
I was in Berlin shortly after the wall fell, and saw the aftermath of the fall of East Germany. Of all the Communist countries, it tried the hardest to implement the Marxist ideals, and therefore it will take yet another generation or two for East and West Germans to fully accept each other.
Inevitably, cooperation with Socialism in Germany meant, for a while, cooperation with National Socialism. The 1933 Concordat is still in force. Yes, the Church Tax continued through Adolf's reign. See article 13 and the explanatory Supplement.
Not Socialism, but Christian Democracy. While the social systems in the Nordic countries was largely implemented and developed by the Socialist parties, in Germany, Austria and the Low Countries, it was Christian Democracy that enacted the various social programs according to their own designs.
Two points - a missing matter and a rare error by our esteemed author.
1. Almost all ceasing to pay the church tax stopped practicing Catholicism long ago, if they ever did. There certainly had been a desire by many people who did not practice the Catholic faith to preserve and maintain both the cultural institutions of the church (cathedrals, historic churches, monasteries, shrines, libraries, choirs, etc.) as well as the social services the Church provided. Today we have mostly a matter of secular people no longer being willing to do this. If Cologne Cathedral announces it is being converting to high end condos, there may be a snap back.
2. I think the author errs when he relates this to the practice of tithing. It is payment to the churches for the value of what the state confiscated from the Church. The ruling class seized the material possessions of the churches and offered them a state grant instead. With the proclamation of the Republic in 1919, since in a republic the people rule, the people are now also responsible for the state's obligations. Hence the church tax.
One could end the church tax and return to the Church all the rights and property the state has taken. I doubt there would be much support for that.
I'll also make one last point -- I think there is a case to be made that to become a "church of the poor", it would be more helpful for the bishops and pastors to stop sucking up to wealthy donors, as is the case in countries without a church tax.
good points! Many people don't realize that in Germany the bishops get their salary from the government in return for administering state-owned property!
"The only way for baptized Catholics to opt out of the system is to declare formally that they are leaving the Church, after which they are told they may no longer receive the sacraments [....]"
I don't understand this at all.
If someone leaves the Catholic Church in some formal way, say, by publicly converting to another faith, isn't it the case that the only thing the person has to do is go to confession to be back in full communion with the Church?
Isn't it the case that once a person is baptized, he/she is a Catholic forever?
If the answers are yes and yes, how can the Catholic Church in Germany inform people that they cannot partake of sacraments, especially the sacrament of Penance?
I have been to Germany many times and never paid a bean in Church Tax. No one has ever checked if I ought to have been paying before I took Communion. And I do not look un-German.
I guess I was thinking of a German who wants to reconcile with the Church on his or her deathbed. The person might think it would not be possible.
A very good point. I have seen people ferociously criticising the Church Tax as blatent Simony - asking payment for something sacred. Yet the Vatican seems unconcerned about it.... Especially as they are getting a rake off.
Support of the Church is a precept of the Church. If the local Church in Germany defines this as paying this tax, and someone isn't, then they're no longer a "practicing" Catholic, in the same way that someone who skips Sunday masses doesn't qualify as a practicing Catholic and wouldn't be able to access things like marriage or baptism for a child in the US. I'd imagine that just like in the US, there's a lot of leeway given for people who show up in a communion line or confessional line, but a lot less given if someone wants to be married in the Church.
My Dominican Fraternity asks for a letter of good standing from a potential member's parish; this seems pretty analogous to that.
The Church can define support any way they want, but if one can only receive a sacrament for a fee that is the grave matter of simony, and that's what this looks like.
If the Church understood this as simony, it would not be in place. It's not a matter of someone paying Father $20 for absolution.
One of the recent popes told the Germans they could not refuse to give people the sacraments unless they paid the Church tax. They politely ignored him.
My guess is the church officially considers it a tax imposed by a legitimate civil authority - you aren't excommunicated for paying the money, but rather for formally declaring you're no longer Catholic. It doesn't sit right with me either, but as a vaguely analogous situation, imagine a town split by a river. The town's civil authority decides to impose a toll on the bridge - so now residents from one side of the river have to pay (the civil authority) to attend Mass, but it's not simony. It wouldn't become simony even if the town gave some of the toll revenue to the parish, maybe to support the parish school.
Further thought: any input from the numerous US and UK military people who have served in Germany? Though they might mostly have their own on base chaplains.
Formal apostasy incurs automatic excommunication. When they are told they may not receive the Sacraments, the penalties of that excommunication are incurred. If they wish to receive the Sacraments, they have to get the excommunication lifted. The process typically starts in the Confessional, even if the priest is not authorized to lift that particular excommunication he can give instructions on who to talk to.
Of course, if the person is dying, any priest can lift the excommunication (contingent on them going through the normal process if they survive), give them absolution, Holy Communion and Anointing.
If you want to see a little of what 6 billion euros a year can buy you, I recommend a trip to Freising. It is very close to Munich Airport and at the terminus of an S-Bahn line from the city centre.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freising
Exhibit A: St George's Church in the town centre. Old exterior. Incongruous ultra modern interior obviously inserted at huge cost. New statue of St George and the Dragon. The original, perfectly good statue has been moved up the hill to Exhibit C, the diocesan museum.
Exhibit B: The stunning cathedral.
Exhibit C: The eyepopping diocesan museum, next to the Cathedral. Stunning ultra modern interior inside old shell. The architects, engineers and interior designers must have loved it. It is spread over four floors. Admission ticket is nominal, considering the priceless contents. It contains elaborate church fittings, such as huge monstrances, each of which deserves its own guidebook. It has items which I did not know existed. Such as ceramic tiles with Biblical scenes and a collection of medals of all the Popes.
Who will fund all this once the tax gravy runs dry? How long will a disbelieving country consent to a Church Tax?
I was stationed in Germany for a total of 10 years with the US Army. We had our own Catholic Chaplains, although we were also free to attend the German services. If, however, I were to remain in Germany as a US expat, then I would be expected to pay German taxes, and that would include the Church Tax.
One has to understand the German way of life, and the fact that the State has a lot of power over individual Germans, and that they for the most part accept this. This is changing with the curse of relativism and modernism running rampant through the Western world (witness the departures from the Church), but Germans for the most part pay their taxes and receive support from the Socialist government.
I was in Berlin shortly after the wall fell, and saw the aftermath of the fall of East Germany. Of all the Communist countries, it tried the hardest to implement the Marxist ideals, and therefore it will take yet another generation or two for East and West Germans to fully accept each other.
Inevitably, cooperation with Socialism in Germany meant, for a while, cooperation with National Socialism. The 1933 Concordat is still in force. Yes, the Church Tax continued through Adolf's reign. See article 13 and the explanatory Supplement.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat
https://www.concordatwatch.eu/showkb.php?org_id=858&kb_header_id=752&kb_id=1211
And the 1938 law banning home education is still in force. So we have German refugees home educating their children in England.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/feb/24/schools.uk
The State giveth and the State taketh away. Cursed be the name of the State.
Not Socialism, but Christian Democracy. While the social systems in the Nordic countries was largely implemented and developed by the Socialist parties, in Germany, Austria and the Low Countries, it was Christian Democracy that enacted the various social programs according to their own designs.
Yup! What the Germans call social democracy is not Socialism.
As the old US 1970’s bumper sticker in the US sai, “Jesus is coming and boy is he pissed”…
What's the inflation-adjusted revenue?
I hope Church leaders in Germany care more about the souls of those who have stopped paying the church tax than about the lost revenue.
Two points - a missing matter and a rare error by our esteemed author.
1. Almost all ceasing to pay the church tax stopped practicing Catholicism long ago, if they ever did. There certainly had been a desire by many people who did not practice the Catholic faith to preserve and maintain both the cultural institutions of the church (cathedrals, historic churches, monasteries, shrines, libraries, choirs, etc.) as well as the social services the Church provided. Today we have mostly a matter of secular people no longer being willing to do this. If Cologne Cathedral announces it is being converting to high end condos, there may be a snap back.
2. I think the author errs when he relates this to the practice of tithing. It is payment to the churches for the value of what the state confiscated from the Church. The ruling class seized the material possessions of the churches and offered them a state grant instead. With the proclamation of the Republic in 1919, since in a republic the people rule, the people are now also responsible for the state's obligations. Hence the church tax.
One could end the church tax and return to the Church all the rights and property the state has taken. I doubt there would be much support for that.
I'll also make one last point -- I think there is a case to be made that to become a "church of the poor", it would be more helpful for the bishops and pastors to stop sucking up to wealthy donors, as is the case in countries without a church tax.
good points! Many people don't realize that in Germany the bishops get their salary from the government in return for administering state-owned property!