State and Church in Modern Germany the Legacy of a Symbiotic Relationship

State and Church in Modern Germany The Legacy of a Symbiotic Relationship Hans Sebald nce upon a time, emperor and pope nursed a close Vatican in the face of Nazi atrocities; and (2) encouraging alliance, at least most of the time, for it was the Vatican to have its clergy refrain from meddling in German 0 advantageous to both. Most people think that this politics. sanctimonious partnership was a temporary peculiarity in Not surprisingly, the arrangement, so convenient and European history, an antiquated epiphany that faded away lucrative for the church, contributed to the minimal opposition during the Enlightenment. Wrong—at least when it comes shown by German Catholicism against the Nazi state—after to modern Germany. This nation is an anomaly among modern all, who wants to have a falling out with an agent who so nation states insofar as the government functions as the reliably fills one's treasury? Of course, there were additional church's tax collector. reasons Catholicism so modestly resisted Nazism: anti- Each church member is taxed a certain percentage of his Semitism among Catholic clergy, plus sentiments of or her wages, salaries, or general income, and collection is nationalism and the vision of Germany as a bulwark against carried out by the government's internal revenue service. godless communism. It must be said that this characterization Depending on the specific German Bundesland (confederate may apply to the German Protestant churches to the same state), the percentage withheld is between 8 and 10 percent or even greater extent. But the focus of the discussion is the of an individual's federal income tax. The higher the rate status of the Catholic church. of taxation, the higher the take of the church. (Perhaps this The Catholic church in Germany today is a financial giant, is one of the reasons why the church has never shown great because post-Nazi Germany has continued to adhere to the interest in bringing about a reduction of taxes levied on Concordat. It is not only the automatic church tax that fills workers.) When people assume employment they must declare the church's coffers, but also the huge income derived from church affiliation in order for deductions to be automatically clever investments and from a variety of church-owned carried out. The Finanzamt (Internal Revenue Service) will properties and institutions, ranging from hospitals, kinder- then commence to transfer the monies to the coffers of the gartens, homes for the aged, schools, and publishing houses 2 However, the church on a regular basis.' to the ubiquitous Sunday collection plate. The agreement of the government to handle the collec- church tax levied against wages and salaries accounts for the bulk and stability of the church's wealth. For example, the tion of annual billions of church-tax monies was part of the national internal revenue service collected for the Catholic 1933 Concordat, the treaty between the Third Reich and the and Lutheran churches a total of over 15 billion Deutsche Vatican, personally signed by the pope and Hitler (the latter Mark (roughly $10 billion) in taxes in 1991.3 himself a Catholic who was never excommunicated) and in I am especially familiar with the financial standing of the fact the first significant international treaty Hitler signed upon central German archdiocese of Bamberg, which is made up coming into power. (Spain and Italy, under Franco and of mostly rural and low-income population. A publication Mussolini, respectively, had similar concordats with the of the diocese's treasury office discloses the financial status Vatican, but their subsequent governments rescinded them.) for 19924 and shows that 88 percent of the diocese's total The German concordat served the interest of both parties. income was amassed from taxing wages and incomes of church It favored major aims of the Vatican: (1) protection of the members. The sum amounted to 219 million DM (approx- German clergy; (2) forestallment of the establishment of imately $140 million), broken down into 164.5 million DM Protestantism as the state religion, which had been the goal from taxed wages and 54.5 million DM from taxed income of the Nazi-inspired "German Christian" movement; and (3) (other than labor wages). Additional income derived from engagement of the German state as church tax collector. revenues of leases of land and other income-yielding properties, Likewise it met some of Hitler's interests: (1) muting the 8.3 million DM; and general government subsidies (again symptomatic of church/ state liaison) to the tune of 15.7 million Hans Sebald is professor emeritus of sociology at Arizona DM. State University in Tempe. Many church-tax payers never attend church; they are members solely on paper and harbor serious questions about Winter 1993/94 29 the meaning of their religious affiliation. Hence the logical unemployed received unemployment compensation figured as question arises as to why they would not cancel membership a percentage of their previous net income. The formula that and save themselves money. Alas, these lax Catholics fear was applied ignored the fact that workers without religious the consequences such severance would entail. First they would affiliation had increased net income, since no church tax had have to make a formal declaration of severing ties with Mother been deducted. Yet, an undifferentiating across-the-board Church in order for the Finanzamt to cease charging them. deduction of approximately 9 percent (of the state tax) was (Note: Prior to such declaration, which must be made to church part of the rigid formula and applied to all applying for officials, payment of church tax is theoretically enforceable unemployment compensation. The state over the years got through exactly the same legal procedures as the enforcement away with harvesting huge sums of unrightfully withheld of government income tax, which, in its most extreme compensation monies from citizens who did not hold religious manifestation, could consist of the sheriff coming to the house affiliation. While this has remained unchallenged in the western to safeguard the auctioning off of personal property.) Second, provinces of Germany, where only about 8 percent of the they would be barred from the sacraments of the church, population declared themselves without church membership, a sanction the believer fears is a straight path to eternal the population of the new eastern provinces, where about damnation. A majority of lax Catholics retain a modicum 67 percent are without church membership, resent the state's of belief in basic theological doctrines and don't dare write procedure. As a consequence, German labor unions are off the possibility that the doctrines might be based on real phenomena. As a consequence, emotions of fear persuade them to pay a sort of insurance premium just in case—rather "[Modern Germany] is an anomaly among than take a chance of eternal nonbliss. It is these powerful modern nation states insofar as the govern- emotions of fear and uncertainty that turn into blessings for ment functions as the church's tax collector." the bishops' treasury. In addition to these theological threats, there often is social pressure by spouses and other family members to stay in the church. As a consequence, millions currently engaging the courts to achieve a differentiating of German Catholics prefer to pay church tax rather than formula according to which the unemployed with a history catch a heavy dose of theological angst plus cause family of religious nonaffiliation would receive higher compensation disharmony. payments.6 Church membership has its infantile version, literally. Backed by the power of the Deutsche Mark, the Catholic Baptism instantly confers membership and obliges payment church has gradually sharpened her political aspirations. For of church tax, at least theoretically, even for infants. While example, her "pro-life" stance has become more than they may not yet have income derived from gainful outspoken, it has become militant and commands followers employment, they may possibly have inherited fortunes, which to fight for it as a sacred duty; appropriate sign-up sheets are subject to tax collectible by the German internal revenue, are left at church doors. From the pulpit and through the who ipso facto will also collect the churches' percentage and various media the church owns or can influence, the believers turn it over to the church authorities. Ignored in the process are told for whom to vote, which political party to support, is the violation of the Grundrecht, the constitutional rights which "anti-life" candidates to defeat. of the individual, which proclaims children's Religionsfreiheit Also, control has been tightened over priests tinged by (Art. 4, Abs. 1 GG), their freedom from religious coercion.5 liberation theology or doctrinal dissent. The 1992 limelight The matter of state subsidies to the churches deserves case of this type has been that of Father Eugen Drewermann, additional comment. The rationale for a good part of current whose criticism of the church was initially merely a theological subsidies is anchored in an anachronism dating to an imperial sparring, and the authorities of the church limited their decree that promised to pay compensation for property taken reactions to fraternal disagreement. But the debate escalated from the churches and secularized during the Napoleonic era. as Drewermann called the Catholic credo a formulation "sticky In this way it has happened that an 1803 agreement, the with blood and gold" and one that served the battle cry in Reichsdeputationshaupt-schluß, still today obliges the more than one genocidal war. What piqued the authorities governments of most states in the German republic to pay most was his denial of the pope's infallibility. Gradually his compensation to their two main churches, Lutheran and influence grew and evolved into a structural fissure with a Catholic.

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