Germany's Conference of Catholic Bishops on Thursday issued a Decree and Pastoral letter providing that those who opt out of Germany's church tax will be ineligible to participate in a wide variety of Church sacraments and activities. (Press release and links to full text of documents in German.) Germans who register with the government as Catholics, Protestants or Jews are assessed an additional 8% to 9% of their income tax bill to support their religious organizations. However Germans can avoid this additional tax by filing a declaration with their local tax office stating that they are leaving their faith community. Growing numbers are filing this opt out. This threatens the 5 billion Euros ($6.5 billion US) realized by the Catholic Church from the tax. In their latest decree (which was approved in advance by the Vatican), the German bishops say that "one cannot partly leave the Church." According to Reuters, the decree provides that:
Catholics who leave can no longer receive sacraments, except for a special blessing before death, the decree states.
They cannot work in the church or its institutions, such as schools and hospitals, or be active in church-sponsored associations such as charity groups or choirs.
They cannot be godparents for Catholic children and must get a bishop's permission to marry a Catholic in a church ceremony. "If the person who left the Church shows no sign of repentance before death, a religious burial can be refused.[Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]
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We who found work in Germany during the Vietnam War were prepared to declare our non-Church status when registering for residence and work permits.
The irony is that if you were a Baptist who declared himself a "Protestant," you would be assessed the church tax, which would go to the German Lutheran Church! Remember that the Baptists left Europe for Amerika in the first place because of the state's messing with their religious lives.
A colleague of mine, a lapsed Austrian Catholic, filed papers to leave the RC Church, only to find that he would have to pay a fee of DM70 to get out, even though only his infant baptism had put him in!
A Jew, to get out, had to have his circumcision reversed (I'm kidding!)
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