If there is one subject on which the German episcopate shows an astonishing conservatism, it is that of the Kirchensteuer, the church tax.
It is a tax whose abolition is less topical than that of ecclesiastical celibacy across the Rhine, and has brought in 6.8 billion euros in 2022, a record amount that should be qualified nevertheless.
The German Bishops' Conference (DBK) is in a dark place on 30 June, 2023.
However, the financial report published that day indicates that the ecclesiastical tax raised a record amount in 2022: 6.8 billion euros, enough to make the French episcopate envious.
In Germany, to finance the Church, between 8% and 10% of a Catholic’s salary is deducted at source (for Protestants, Orthodox, or Jews as well), the rate being fixed by the region – the land – where one is domiciled.
This €6.8 billion must be put into perspective. Taking inflation into account, the amount must be adjusted to $4.6 billion, the lowest figure since 2014. A war chest engulfed in the structures of an increasingly voracious German Church: salaries of people working in schools, diocesan hospitals, Catholic dispensaries, etc.
But it also keeps afloat the powerful Central Committee of German Laity (ZDK) whose members are known to be the champions of progressivism across the Rhine.
And of course, to “underwrite contentious initiatives such as the ‘synodal way’” that little follows the spirit of poverty.
Another factor is worrying: just before the release of the ecclesiastical tax balance sheet came the announcement that 522,821 Catholics had left the Church in Germany in 2022.
For, in order to avoid paying a tax which 68% of Catholics want abolished, one must terminate religious affiliation, which entails – for a Catholic – the loss of religious burial, baptism for his children, and a place in a kindergarten, or a Catholic retirement home.
In the immediate future, the German Church benefits from the Kirchensteuerwunder – the “church tax miracle” – by which the rise in departures “is more than offset by the overall economic development with lower unemployment, rising incomes and thus increasing tax revenues,” also “older and richer groups . . . remain in the fold.”
But this will not last and some German dioceses are already introducing austerity measures in light of the increase in “church exits.”
The “Diocese of Münster, for example, is reconsidering its future construction projects, while the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart expects to have around 40% less church tax revenue by 2040.”
For the same reasons, four bishops have just vetoed the release of money from a common fund to finance certain reforms, a decision that led to the closure of the offices of the Synodal Path on July 1: a blow for the progressives.
The foreseeable reduction of the religious tax is also bad news for the Vatican, which must resign itself to receiving a lesser contribution from the German Church.
Moreover, for the first time, Germany is no longer on the list of countries giving the most to Peter’s Pence.