*Famous German film comedy of 1938 by Curt Goetz: Napoleon ist an allem schuld.
Even though the state tax offices collect the church tax - in 2021, around 6 billion euros for the Protestant Church and 6.7 billion euros for the Catholic Church - State and Church are separated in Germany.
Still, the German state and states also pay more than 600 million euros
annually to the two Churches as state benefits. Why?
Let's go back in history.
During the Napoleonic Wars, France took over the territories on the left bank of the Rhine. Prussia, Bavaria, and Baden-Württemberg, in particular, suffered territorial losses. The affected princes demanded compensation.
This was when the Imperial Estates turned their attention to the gigantic assets of the Churches. The idea of expropriating Church lands and awarding them to the princes who had suffered territorial losses was obvious.
At its last session on February 25, 1803, the Permanent Diet passed one of the last laws of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Red Baron visited the modest meeting room in Regensburg in 2020.
The negotiated treaty known as the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss stipulates, among other things: All goods of the founded monasteries, abbeys, and convents ... whose use has not been formally determined in the previous decrees, are left to the free and full disposition of the respective sovereigns, both for the purpose of expenditure for worship, teaching and other charitable institutions, as well as to facilitate their finances.
The papal nuncio in Vienna was surprised, "Even Jews stand up for their rights*; only the bishops remain silent. "
*in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Shylock is standing for his bond
This secularization deprived the Churches of substantial assets and income. In Germany, state benefits have compensated these for over 200 years. Since the foundation of our Federal Republic in 1949, a sum totaling 19.6 billion euros has been paid up to 2021.
These payments are rightly criticized because all taxpayers pay to the Churches, "The state benefits are an absurdity for those distanced from the Church," says a church law expert, "State and Church are clearly not separated here."
Constitutional law expert Bodo Pieroth demands: "Bundestag (parliament) and the government should remember that they must represent the interests of all citizens, including the non-denominational majority. They and numerous Church members no longer sympathize with continuing the anachronistic state benefits."
As a declared constitutional demand, the goal of abolishing state benefits has been around for a long time.
In fact, already the Weimar Constitution of 1919 stipulated the replacement of state benefits in Article 138: "State legislation shall replace state benefits to religious societies based on law, treaty or special legal titles. The principles for this shall be laid down by the Reich."
Nothing happened except that the constitutional article was adopted when Germany's Basic Law was passed in 1949. State benefits continued to be paid.
Experts largely agree that the two Churches have now been amply overcompensated, but all initiatives in the Bundestag to replace them have failed so far.
The Christian Democrats' religious policy spokesperson said, "You can get the impression that neither the Churches nor the federal states are in any particular hurry to replace the state benefits."
State benefits have increased since the founding of the Federal Republic.
This is due to the development of pay scales in the public sector. When salaries rise, so do the so-called endowments to the clergy financed
by the federal states via state benefits.
Our government wants to end the annual payments and has enshrined this plan in its coalition agreement. Still, the federal states have opposed its current proposal to replace them, saying it is far too expensive.
Indeed, more than ten billion euros are in the offing as an Ablöse sum, which corresponds to 18.6 times the previous annual payments.
Replacing state payments has been a constitutional mandate for more than 100 years! In the spirit of the strict separation of Church and State, there is no way around an Ablöse as compensation for the Churches.
*
Even though the state tax offices collect the church tax - in 2021, around 6 billion euros for the Protestant Church and 6.7 billion euros for the Catholic Church - State and Church are separated in Germany.
|
| ©ZDF |
Let's go back in history.
During the Napoleonic Wars, France took over the territories on the left bank of the Rhine. Prussia, Bavaria, and Baden-Württemberg, in particular, suffered territorial losses. The affected princes demanded compensation.
This was when the Imperial Estates turned their attention to the gigantic assets of the Churches. The idea of expropriating Church lands and awarding them to the princes who had suffered territorial losses was obvious.
At its last session on February 25, 1803, the Permanent Diet passed one of the last laws of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Red Baron visited the modest meeting room in Regensburg in 2020.
The negotiated treaty known as the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss stipulates, among other things: All goods of the founded monasteries, abbeys, and convents ... whose use has not been formally determined in the previous decrees, are left to the free and full disposition of the respective sovereigns, both for the purpose of expenditure for worship, teaching and other charitable institutions, as well as to facilitate their finances.
The papal nuncio in Vienna was surprised, "Even Jews stand up for their rights*; only the bishops remain silent. "
*in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Shylock is standing for his bond
This secularization deprived the Churches of substantial assets and income. In Germany, state benefits have compensated these for over 200 years. Since the foundation of our Federal Republic in 1949, a sum totaling 19.6 billion euros has been paid up to 2021.
These payments are rightly criticized because all taxpayers pay to the Churches, "The state benefits are an absurdity for those distanced from the Church," says a church law expert, "State and Church are clearly not separated here."
Constitutional law expert Bodo Pieroth demands: "Bundestag (parliament) and the government should remember that they must represent the interests of all citizens, including the non-denominational majority. They and numerous Church members no longer sympathize with continuing the anachronistic state benefits."
As a declared constitutional demand, the goal of abolishing state benefits has been around for a long time.
In fact, already the Weimar Constitution of 1919 stipulated the replacement of state benefits in Article 138: "State legislation shall replace state benefits to religious societies based on law, treaty or special legal titles. The principles for this shall be laid down by the Reich."
Nothing happened except that the constitutional article was adopted when Germany's Basic Law was passed in 1949. State benefits continued to be paid.
Experts largely agree that the two Churches have now been amply overcompensated, but all initiatives in the Bundestag to replace them have failed so far.
The Christian Democrats' religious policy spokesperson said, "You can get the impression that neither the Churches nor the federal states are in any particular hurry to replace the state benefits."
 |
| ©DW |
Our government wants to end the annual payments and has enshrined this plan in its coalition agreement. Still, the federal states have opposed its current proposal to replace them, saying it is far too expensive.
Indeed, more than ten billion euros are in the offing as an Ablöse sum, which corresponds to 18.6 times the previous annual payments.
Replacing state payments has been a constitutional mandate for more than 100 years! In the spirit of the strict separation of Church and State, there is no way around an Ablöse as compensation for the Churches.
*
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