German Catholics Told to Pay Income Tax or Risk Excommunication

By Mary Gearin
ABC - the World Today
September 25, 2012

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3597281.htm

[with audio]

ELEANOR HALL: The Catholic Church has suffered from declining numbers in its congregations for decades. This is not helped by the continuing revelations worldwide about sexual abuse within the church.

In Germany the declining congregations have led to a loss of cash flow as well.

But now German bishops have decreed that any German Catholic who doesn't pay a significant tax to the church will be excommunicated, as Europe correspondent Mary Gearin reports.

ANDREAS JANKE: I'm very sad, I feel it's a pity.

MARY GEARIN: Andreas Janke has had to pay his penance for choosing not to pay tax as a Catholic in Bavaria.

ANDREAS JANKE: I lost all my rights as Catholic. In the bible says nothing written that you have to pay tax and you should pay willingly from your free will.

MARY GEARIN: Germany's church tax is based on the notion of tithing, and it's the way money flows to all religions in some European countries, including Switzerland and Austria.

It brings more than $6 billion a year to the German Catholic Church - about three quarters of its revenue.

Its bishops have now ruled Catholics who don't pay their taxes will no longer be considered part of the church, forfeiting their rights to a Catholic burial, to become a godparent, or to receive sacraments, although a special blessing before death would be permitted.

CHRISTIAN WEISNER: This decree at this moment of time is really the wrong signal.

MARY GEARIN: Christian Weisner from the We Are Church Parishioners lobby group says that bishops should be concentrating on addressing the problems that are sending away an estimated 180,000 parishioners each year.

CHRISTIAN WEISNER: The German bishops, their point is that you are only a good Catholic if you pay your church taxes. You know that the Catholic Church is in a deep crisis after the disclosure of the sexual abuse and I think many people are now leaving the church, so I think it would be much better if the bishops would change their attitude to sexual abuse.

MARY GEARIN: Father Lukas Glocker, a priest in Mannheim, defends the tax. He says it's not as if he polices it from the altar.

LUKAS GLOCKER: If some people in the church come to me, they don't have a sign on their hat, well I haven't paid tax, so I see a person standing in front of me because it's always a question of persons and people and I am not allowed to say go away. It's a contract between the state and the church.

Thanks to the tax of the church, we as churches in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, we can do real, real good things, also not only for Catholics, also for all the people.

MARY GEARIN: The church fears it will lose even more people if a court case succeeds.

Five years ago, a retired church law professor challenged the tax and the German appeals court will soon decide if his case can proceed and if the tax returns, for German Catholics, will determine their returns in heaven.

ELEANOR HALL: Europe correspondent Mary Gearin there.