Posted on 07/20/2015 6:25:04 AM PDT by marshmallow
More than 200,000 Germans formally left the Catholic Church in 2014, accelerating the downward trend in the Catholic proportion of the countrys population.
Germans who are officially enrolled in congregation are subject to a church tax, and so disaffected Catholics have an incentive to drop their registration, rather than simply stop attending Mass. The number of Catholics taking that step has increased sharply in recent years.
In 2013, 178,805 Catholics formally dropped off the parish rolls in Germany. In 2014 that figure jumped by 22%, to 217,716, according to official statistic released by the German bishops conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
Yeowch, I had not heard these stats before...
You know those church buildings will probably end up being used by another religion that that’s been growing a lot in Europe lately.
Are Lutherans also subject to the church tax?
The government should not collect taxes for churches. By doing so, it knows who is in what religion. I don’t trust government with that information.
The USA is only about a decade or two behind the Europeans in this race to the bottom.
If the Pope keeps making love to Communism it will be global.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11380968/Compulsory-income-tax-on-Christians-drives-Germans-away-from-Protestant-and-Catholic-churches.html
((Church members in Germany are required by law to pay tax to fund church activities, which is collected by the government.
Under German law, anyone who was baptised as a child is automatically a member of the church and obliged to pay the tax, charged as a percentage of their income, regardless of their beliefs or whether they attend church services.
Si, senor...
And everyone thinks Germany is the cats meow.
Coming soon to American churches.
Historically there were kinda sorta legitimate reasons for this tax. Various German governments in the past appropriated --- confiscated, stole --- church properties, and the govt. offered reimbursement in terms of tax revenues.
But the result is what we see: fat-cat hierarchs living like princes, without faith themselves, and losing the faithful in droves. "The Faithful Departed."
Well, either that (save a few euros) or people are simply fed up with the idiotic policies the priests and bishops push. That goes for the protestants as well.
Hmmm....
Bingo.
Precisely.
There are free church’s in the area that are growing. I am not sure about any free church Catholic parishes, but I suspect there may be a few.
Why do you say that?
I don’t think it will happen in the Catholic Church.
Kinda like...
I wonder if they are subject to the same tax.
I think the government would love to collect more taxes, and they will try to follow suit here in the USA. If doing so tears congregations from their churches, all the better in their eyes. There isn’t a tax the left doesn’t love, and they are the ones who run the show around here on a consistent basis. The right must love taxes, too, as they rarely stand up to the left. When they do, it’s too little, too late. They’ve already been slowly boiling in the pot.
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