One is an opinion blog post which describes the Catholic church in Germany as non-transparent and sometimes competing with private companies. I'm not convinced he has all his facts straight (I'm tolerably sure most of the USCCB opposes abortion, and perusing a couple other posts on his site suggests the presence of an agenda) but it is another precinct heard from and interesting.
The other is a a 2006 ruling on canon law which seems to this (non-canon-lawyer: I'm not even Catholic) reader to mean that a request to leave the church must be made to the "competent authority of the Catholic Church"; which sort of leaves the German state out of the loop.
Zapp seems to have won his case, which has been going on for 5 years, btw.
I'm not German and have no say in this, but a little friendly advice from across the pond: don't be afraid to try the American scheme in which churches fund themselves with no help from the state. Phase it in. If the Apostle Paul could ask that Christians distinguish themselves in giving, surely mere bishops and preachers can do it now and then too. Not all the time though, please.
2 comments:
There are likely powerful historical and cultural motives as well. If a system is in place in which The Society, which in Europe means the government, is paying for the upkeep of something, it constitutes something of an endorsement, an official recognition. To stop doing that, for whatever reasons of fairness, feels like an intentional move of disrespect. It does not feel neutral. We see something of the same in all discussions of school and public prayers here in America. Some advocates for the discontinuation of same are honest neutrals, who can be taken at face value. Others are happy to kick churches. On the church side, some believers interpret it all as a slam - a cultural statement not of neutrality but of rejection. Others agree that this could be a simply neutral event.
True. And without doubt the militant secularists there (as here) would noisily trumpet it as a defeat for religion, which would get even farther under the skin of the church-goers.
The only way it would go smoothly is if the request came from the churches, and I suspect they'd be less than enthusiastic. They even have a good reason: the more time they have to spend asking for money the less time they have for sacramental and pastoral activity.
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