Catholics: Pay Or Get Out!

From BBC:

"German Catholics lose church rights for unpaid tax"

Germany's Roman Catholics are to be denied the right to Holy Communion or religious burial if they stop paying a special church tax. A German bishops' decree which has just come into force says anyone failing to pay the tax - an extra 8% of their income tax bill - will no longer be considered a Catholic. The bishops have been alarmed by the number of Catholics leaving the Church. They say such a step should be seen as a serious act against the community. All Germans who are officially registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay a religious tax of 8-9% on their annual income tax bill. The levy was introduced in the 19th Century in compensation for the nationalisation of religious property. "If your tax bill is for 10,000 euros, then 800 euros will go on top of that and your total tax combined will be 10,800 euros," Munich tax accountant Thomas Zitzelsberger told the BBC news website. Catholics make up around 30% of Germany's population but the number of congregants leaving the church swelled to 181,000 in 2010, with the increase blamed on revelations of sexual abuse by German priests.  Alarmed by their declining congregations, the bishops were also pushed into action by a case involving a retired professor of church law, Hartmut Zapp, who announced in 2007 that he would no longer pay the tax but intended to remain within the Catholic faith.

Tax on Germany's Christians

• 25 million Catholics
• Tax worth 5bn euros (2010)
• 24 million Protestants
• Tax worth 4.3bn euros
• German population 82 million

Unless they pay the religious tax, Catholics will no longer be allowed receive sacraments, except before death, or work in the church and its schools or hospitals.  Without a "sign of repentance before death, a religious burial can be refused," the decree states. Opting out of the tax would also bar people from acting as godparents to Catholic children. "This decree at this moment of time is really the wrong signal by the German bishops who know that the Catholic church is in a deep crisis," Christian Weisner from the grassroots Catholic campaign group We are Church told the BBC.

^ This is just plain disgusting. To think that any religion would do this is just plain wrong. There are Catholic churches all around the world that do not receive this kind of money and they are doing fine. The focus of the Church shouldn't be money (which is a "worldly possession") but the spiritual well-being of a person. If I was living in Germany I would stop paying the tax which would mean they wouldn't allow me to go to church and I would be fine with that. It seems these German Catholic bishops have become too greedy and do not portray the true definition of a Catholic and so it isn't worth going to church to hear them. I wonder if these stupid policies are known to the Pope - who is German? If he knows and allows them then he is just as guilty as the bishops, priests and others who follow these practices. The Catholic Church has been hit with many scandals lately and they should be doing their best to encourage those who want to continue going to church to do so instead of forcing them out. As far as I'm concerned the German Catholic bishops are basically saying pay us to get into heaven. That didn't work in the past when people protested the Catholic Church and their "bribes into heaven" and created Protestants. I don't see it working now either. They should learn a thing form their past considering that they are Catholics and on top of that - Germans. ^

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19699581