Posted on 06/11/2024 5:14:35 PM PDT by ebb tide
Anyone who is baptized and confirmed and who professes the faith of the Church is Catholic. In Germany, as is so often the case, things are quite different. Here, you are only Catholic through the church tax, at least if you are a taxpayer.
This tax is by no means voluntary but a compulsory levy which – thanks to Adolf Hitler – is collected by the state and paid directly to the Church; even back payments and advance payments are mandatory.
It is clear that the church tax is an imposition: membership in the Church should not be dependent on monetary payments.
Nevertheless, German practice is rigorous: anyone who does not want to pay can only declare their “withdrawal from the Church” (“Kirchenaustritt”) at the registry office, even though this “withdrawal” does not exist under canon law.
Once you have “left,” you are in a bad position; basically, you are considered “excommunicated,” while heretics and schismatics belong to the Church as long as they pay their taxes. So let’s say it like it is: if you are Catholic in Germany, you don’t have to believe anything, you just have to pay – I certainly don’t want to know what Jesus Christ has to say about this.
Was it not He who drove the merchants out of the temple with a scourge of ropes because they had turned the place of prayer into a den of thieves? But let’s be honest: no one in the “German” church is interested in Jesus Christ anymore; here, as everywhere else, it’s all about one thing: money. And thanks to the church tax, income is flowing in at unimaginable levels.
The fact that this system has been able to survive can be explained by the authority-based thinking of the Germans, but also by their ignorance: not even the German Pope Benedict XVI was able to convince his compatriots that their tax practice is profoundly at odds with the mission of the Church.
Above all, however, the bishops cling to the church tax like the devil to a poor soul. After all, the tax system has made the Church in Germany incredibly rich but equally faithless and decadent. The “Synodal Way,” which was staged with a lot of money, has brought this to light in a shocking way: In the meantime, even most German bishops deny the fundamental truths of the Catholic faith; yet they unabashedly continue to take church tax from the faithful.
Just how perverse this is can currently be seen in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising: Cardinal Reinhard Marx has now established a “Synodal Council” there to enforce the heretical decisions of the “Synodal Way.” This involves lay people baptizing, marrying, and preaching at Holy Mass – all this despite the Roman veto and against all of canon law.
READ: Cardinal Marx: ‘Global, synodal Church’ without ‘purely clerical rule’ is ‘in the making’
Catholics in Munich are thus faced with a paradox that should accurately be called the most severe spiritual abuse: in order to remain “Catholic,” they have to finance a “church” that is no longer Catholic itself but rather “Marxist” at best. If they fail to do so, they are “excommunicated” by Marx, who, as a heretic and schismatic, has long since automatically incurred excommunication.
Such confused conditions will no longer be sustainable in the long term, and in Germany, the disintegration of the Church can now be felt everywhere.
One thing is certain: the Germans will not return to the communion of the Church; the German schism is irreversible.
What can a German Catholic do in this situation?
First of all, there is no hope of help from Rome. The Vatican is in the red and needs the money from the German dioceses. Moreover, Francis himself is flirting with the heretical ideas of the Germans, which is why he has not put the brakes on their schism.
As a result, German Catholics are currently experiencing the total loss of Catholicism on all sides.
Anyone who wants to remain Catholic in Germany, therefore, has no other choice: they must make a clear decision against the heretical bishops and their church tax system. At the same time, this includes a courageous confession: only those who are baptized and confirmed and who live according to the principles of the Catholic faith are Catholic. To be a German Catholic today means to become a confessor against heretical bishops; one almost feels like in the time of Arianism.
I would, therefore, like to say to all German Catholics: don’t be afraid! Free yourselves from the compulsion of the church tax, from the yoke of unbelieving bishops, and from German heresy! That is the only way to remain Catholic in Germany. Or would you rather become “Marxist” – and even pay for it?
Ping
Good news, Ebby. You are on the same team with the Pope:
That instance is not the first time that reports of Pope Francis affirming pro-LGBT groups or individuals in their sinful practices and ideologies have come out. The openly homosexual priest Father James Alison said that the pontiff affirmed his homosexuality in a private phone call in 2017. In 2023, the Pope reportedly told LGBT activist groups, including New Ways Ministry, to “go forward” with their activities during a private meeting at the Vatican.
The Pope also has an extensive record of promoting heretical, pro-LGBT clerics like Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego and LGBT activist priests like Father James Martin, SJ. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, of Luxembourg, whom Francis appointed the relator general of his Synod on Synodality, has said that he believes Church teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts is “false.”
In December, Francis approved the heterodox document Fiducia Supplicans authored by Cardinal Victor Fernández, head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Because it endorses the “blessing” of homosexual “couples,” it drew condemnations from bishops around the world, including Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Cardinal Robert Sarah, and the majority of the African bishops.
Oh no, you repudiate your teammate?
I’ll repudiate any heretic, whether it be Bergoglio, Biden or you.
Get ready, Ebby. Your Pope is going to talk about Papal Primacy, a topic you don’t understand. You are really going to roast...
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