Germany continues payments to churches a century after deciding to stop

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Merkel made no mention of the financial time bomb when they praised the 1919 constitution during a 100-year commemoration ceremony in Weimar last week.

The combination of these dotations, the church tax law and state subsidies for their many faith-based social services has made Germany’s Protestant and Catholic churches among the richest in the world, with ample funds to finance everything from theological studies to overseas development projects.

Because they’re based on former church holdings, the payments vary from state to state. By far the largest are in the rich southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, followed by equally prosperous Bavaria.

Poorer states in former communist eastern Germany pay much less, which is good for their budgets but a hardship for churches there.

For historical reasons, the city-states of Hamburg and Bremen don’t pay any dotations.

There is also some confusion about exactly what payments qualify as dotations. The churches say they received 520 million euros in total last year, while the Humanist Union, a leading critic of the payments, says they actually got 538 million euros.

According to the church figures, members of the Evangelical Church in Germany — a federation of Lutheran, Reformed and Prussian Union churches — received 317 million euros in dotations last year while the Catholic Church got 203 million euros.

Other religious groups such as the Jews, Muslims and other Protestants such as Baptists receive no dotations.

According to an opinion survey last year, 59 percent of those polled thought the churches should not receive these payments.

Both churches have said

Article source: https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/germany-continues-payments-churches-century-after-deciding-stop