THE faithful of Limburg, a diocese in Hesse, have been protesting in
front of their Romanesque cathedral, a few even affixing “95 theses” to
its door to make their views of their bishop unmistakable.
But the
prelate, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, had already gone to Rome, where
he awaits a meeting with Pope Francis that will determine his future.
The extent of his excesses is such that it is hard to say which detail
most rankles Germans, and not only Catholic ones.
For some it is the petty lying. Last year the bishop flew first class to India to look at some do-goody projects.
But when Der Spiegel,
a news magazine, confronted him, he insisted that he had flown business
class, even signing affidavits.
On October 10th prosecutors in Hamburg
indicted him for perjury.
For others it is the pomp and luxury.
In 2010, two years after he
became Germany’s youngest bishop at the age of 48, Bishop Franz-Peter
began building a new residence next to the cathedral.
The cost was
estimated at €5.5m ($7.43m).
Then his requests piled up.
His bathtub
cost €15,000.
Instead of resting an advent wreath on an iron frame in
his chapel, he wanted it suspended from the ceiling, requiring the roof
to be cut open, at a cost of €100,000 instead of €10,000.
In total, the
cost estimates now run to €31m.
Germans usually expect to read about such clerical ostentation in
history books about the Reformation.
Pope Francis, who has chosen
simplicity and modesty as his message, makes the incongruity even
starker.
In an increasingly secular Germany this latest scandal is
disastrous for the churches.
Germany separates church and state much less clearly than does
America but more explicitly than Anglican Britain or Orthodox Greece.
Its post-war constitution, in a clause carried over verbatim from the
Weimar constitution of 1919, favours no particular faith but lets all
churches levy taxes on their members through the income-tax system (8%
or 9% of a taxpayer’s bill, depending on the state).
The state also
finances churches directly. It still compensates them for expropriations
dating back to 1803, when Napoleon demanded war reparations from German
princes.
With this money the churches take on more tasks than in many other
countries. One hospital in three, for example, is run by a church, as
are many crèches and schools.
The churches are Germany’s second-largest
employers (after the government). This has drawbacks, says Eva Müller,
author of a book critical of the system.
A Catholic-run crèche, say, can
fire a teacher who divorces and remarries, even though no secular
German institution may do so.
In one egregious case last December, a
woman who had been raped was refused treatment by two Catholic hospitals
because abortion was one option.
Aside from public funds, many churches also have half-hidden pots of
money to play with. Bishop Franz-Peter, for example, built his compound
with money from an endowment set up by a duke of Nassau two centuries
ago.
Hardly anybody knows what assets are in it.
The churches urgently
need to make such things transparent, argues Thomas von
Mitschke-Collande, a former consultant at McKinsey who has written
another critique of Germany’s Catholic church.
In the meantime ever more Germans respond by severing their
affiliation with institutionalised religion.
Church attendance, weddings
and baptisms are all declining.
The exodus would be faster still but
for the many Germans who remain church members for pragmatic reasons,
such as sending children to a church school.
Even so, more than 100,000
Germans leave the Catholic and Protestant church every year.
In Limburg
exits usually run at one or two a day, but have now jumped to about a
dozen.