Dear Cardinal Marx,*<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been reported in the (U.S. Catholic) news<\/a> that, as archbishop of Munich and Freising, you\u00a0and your fellow German bishops are\u00a0threatening to\u00a0change\u00a0church teaching regarding remarriage, and maybe other areas regarding sexuality and the family\u00a0as well, such as those having to do with same-sex couples, in the name of \u201cpastoral care.\u201d \u00a0You seem to believe that this action will revive the fortunes of the Catholic Church in Germany, which is losing adherents year after year.<\/p>\n And perhaps you\u2019ll gain a few new members, or at any rate, a few individuals will choose to continue staying on the rolls \u2014 though you may lose just as many who feel cheated by having struggled through a difficult marriage and now feel like suckers for it.<\/p>\n But if you really want to revive the church, rather than just keep the money flowing in, it\u2019s time for a bigger change, one that\u2019s more\u00a0radical, and more challenging. \u00a0Yes: \u00a0get rid of the church tax<\/strong>. \u00a0Regular readers of mine will know that I talked about this yesterday here<\/a>, but I felt it merited addressing more directly.<\/p>\n Yes, I know that the church tax was intended to keep the church strong. \u00a0My first German teacher, in Germany, told us that the objective was to ensure that the church wouldn\u2019t be co-opted by the government but would be able to speak against injustice, even if perpetrated by the government itself. \u00a0But it\u2019s making things worse, not better.<\/p>\n Here are three key reasons to abandon the tax:<\/p>\n 1) Unlike the voluntary contributions Americans make to their churches, the German church tax is an all-or-nothing extra 9% of income tax. \u00a0With no option to simply pay less church tax, more and more of your flock is choosing \u201cnothing.\u201d<\/p>\n 2) Church tax, being centralized, doesn\u2019t reward local parishes who actually work to reach out and minister. \u00a0So far as I understand, the funds are allocated to parishes based on the total count of registered Catholics who live within predefined geographic borders, without regard to how many attend services or are involved in the church in any other way. \u00a0True, baskets are passed during mass, but the practice of tossing in a few coins rather than foldin\u2019 money means this makes little difference. \u00a0Once could even say that this system penalizes churches who work at ministering, given staffing costs, the cost of keeping the building heated, and all the extra costs that don\u2019t result in any additional donations coming their way. \u00a0It also seems to me that the very centralized nature of church tax collection seems to be encouraging leadership to aim for centralized \u201cquick fixes\u201d such as retreating from unpopular doctrine, rather than encouraging local parishes to reach out. \u00a0Certainly, there is a definite benefit to the fact that, if one American parish disappoints its parishioners, they will vote with their feet, and pocketbooks, by going elsewhere.<\/p>\n 3) \u00a0Church tax is corrupting. \u00a0Let\u2019s fact it: \u00a0we in the U.S. had the sexual abuse crisis; you\u2019ve got \u00a0the \u201cbishop of bling.\u201d And rather than seeing the growing number of de-registrations as a need for change, you\u2019re\u00a0doubling-down on denial of sacraments to those who refuse to pay up. \u00a0Do you not see how wrong this is? \u00a0Is this not in itself a demonstration that the church tax has corrupted church leadership?<\/p>\n And, by the way, I\u2019m not just some busybody American who thinks she knows better. \u00a0My husband is German, and we\u00a0lived in Germany for two years, with two small children. \u00a0The first year, I alternated between trying out a number of reasonably-nearby parishes (the low-light: \u00a0an old lady yelling at me about my misbehaving kids, after mass at Maria Koenigin in Gruenwald<\/a>), alternatingly with and without kids in tow, and attending, as a family, the welcoming, child-friendly haven of St. Killian\u2019s English-speaking parish<\/a> (the website listed at the link is invalid, so I do hope they\u2019re still around). \u00a0The second year, I found St. Georg in Taufkirchen<\/a>, which at the time had a Familiengottesdienst nearly every Sunday, even if there wasn\u2019t anything more to it than kid-friendly hymns and an explicit welcome to families. \u00a0(As a bonus, they were built recently enough that they actually had bathrooms in the building \u2014 a must when you\u2019re potty-training a child.) \u00a0Now they\u2019re a part of the Pfarrverband with the other local parish, the welcoming priest is gone, and everything\u2019s scaled back considerably. \u00a0And you know what? \u00a0When I had my youngest son baptized there, they had to secure official permission from the parish I was geographically supposed to be at, for reasons that were never entirely clear to me but I assumed had to do with the local parish having a \u201cclaim\u201d to me and whatever coins I should see fit to throw their way, or to a more generous donation what we were supposed to have made by virtue of some unwritten rule.<\/p>\n Now, I know you\u2019ve got cathedrals to maintain, and it\u2019s a big risk to forgo what seems like a guaranteed income stream, but is the slow decline in revenues, with no end in sight, really the right choice? \u00a0If you truly want to minister to your parishoners, please, abandon the Church Tax.<\/p>\n Best Regards,<\/p>\n Jane the Actuary<\/p>\n * My apologies for writing in English rather than German, but just let me know and I\u2019d be happy to translate.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Cardinal Marx,* It\u2019s been reported in the (U.S. Catholic) news that, as archbishop of Munich and Freising, you\u00a0and your fellow German bishops are\u00a0threatening to\u00a0change\u00a0church teaching regarding remarriage, and maybe other areas regarding sexuality and the family\u00a0as well, such as those having to do with same-sex couples, in the name of \u201cpastoral care.\u201d \u00a0You seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n