To be, or not to be, a Catholic in Germany

[pne]

Something that’s been going through the news recently is the status of members of the Catholic church who do not pay church tax.

For historical reasons, certain religious communities in Germany (including the Roman Catholic Church) can have contributions collected from workers’ salaries automatically, at a fixed percentage of their income tax (

Comments

[muckefuck]

IANACL, but any way you slice it, it looks pretty dodgy to me.

[anicca_anicca2]

I don't think the Catholic Church doesn't differentiate between those who leave because they're done or those who leave because they think they're the better Catholics. When I left, (als ich aus der Kirche ausgetreten bin, which is a bureaucratic act and one of the consequences is that you don't pay those taxes any longer...) the Berlin Einwohnermeldeamt (not trying to translate this) apparently informed the church in the community I grew up in, and *they* sent me a letter, explicitly asking not to try and take part in, for example, communion, should I come back to visit. They would be forced to ignore me, and it might cause problems if I hadn't informed my family beforehand etc. While I think that's a petty thing to say or do, it makes sense. Either or. It makes more sense to me than accepting me as one of the godmothers at my nephew's baptism when I wasn't Catholic any more. Btw, my mother's biggest concern once she found out was "where are you going to get buried?"...

[anicca_anicca2]

Actually, that should have read "I don't think that the Catholic Church *differentiates* / makes any difference between those...

And I left more than 20 years ago which is when they told me I'd have to do without eg. religious burial. So while I agree it might be theologically doubtful it's not new.

[sarahcb1208]

Religion, organized at least, is now all about the money.
We have similar issues in the States. They want to NOT have to pay taxes, but they want to have control of the government (like church-affiliated hospitals not providing birth control coverage to those who work for that hospital, whether they are affiliated with that religion or not).

It's why I identify myself as Christian but not with a specific denomination nor church. When man gets involved, religion gets corrupted.

[dandelion]

Is this already the case for German Protestants? The reason I ask is, I know that years ago my mum explained to me that in Germany, you pay a church tax, and if you don't pay it, you aren't allowed a religious marriage or burial, and that made sense to me at the time (while it conflicts with churches being inclusive I could easily see my local church back home in England loving the idea...). So, when this news story broke I came to two conclusions

[pne]

I don’t know about Protestants for sure.

I think it’s your #2, though: that Protestants already “refused service” to people who don’t pay church tax and that the new bit is the Catholic church-possibly coupled with the fact that it’s nearly impossible to leave the Catholic church but (as far as I know) reasonably possible to leave most Protestant denominations. (Due, I suppose, to the difference in theology on what constitutes a member of the church.)

Calling the non-burial a law sounds odd to me, though; I would think it’s up to (church) policy rather than (government) law.