I am curious to know how the church was funded in the past in various countries….
Admittedly my inner American is also rebelling against mandatory taxes lol. I give to my church, would be cool if I could do it pre-tax but mandatory??
The nice thing, imho, of the donation system is that you get donations equivalent to performance (in some way). Donors get to perceive if it is worth donating to X. Yea, that has its own issues (including unreliable funding, but isn’t that the point of an annual appeal?) but at least it helps keeps organizations accountable.
One of the possible benefits of growing up in the closest parish to a tourist trap is that we heard sermons on the importance of donating financially at every Sunday and Holy Day Mass during the tourist season and were therefore much more attuned to the importance of contributing. 5% to Church and 5% to Mt. 25, according to what we were taught. And no administrative costs to the government for doing the paperwork.
I recall Fr Edward Holloway back in the 1970s writing in Faith magazine in England. He was a devoted and devout parish priest. But he was hard nosed enough to note the drop in contributions as parishioners voted with their feet. The post-VAT2 decline was already underway.
But, unlike a declining business, no one was going to blame the managers. It was all the fault of the ignorant peasants if they did not like the New Mass. As one English Benedictine wrote in the 1960s, it was not a matter of the people liking the New Mass. It was a matter of whether it was good for them.
Let me just say, that if you read about England pre-Vatican II, whether in literature or otherwise, I’m pretty sure a decline in mass attendance would have happened no matter what. Whether keeping the OF or not would have stemmed the tide a bit, who knows. But read the likes of Chesterton, Lewis, novels like Brideshead, etc… they paint a very bleak picture of pre-Vatican II England in terms of worldliness and faith.
Seeing that G K Chesterton died in 1936 and Brideshead Revisited was published in 1945, they should not be our only sources for the life of the Catholic Church in England post-WW2. They both came before the huge infusion of fresh young blood from Ireland in the forties and fifties. Both my parents came during WW2.
And there a smaller but important cohort from Poland, made refugees by the Communist takeover of East Europe. And both groups of newcomers might as well have been a different species compared with the established upper class and upper middle class Catholics which you might meet in literature - as I can testify from meeting some of them.
The number of priestly ordinations went to an all time high of 211 in 1965, which is one convincing sign of vitality and devotion. These young men would have effectively made their decisions before Vatican 2 was announced in January 1959.
As one priest commented years later in the middle of the post VAT2 downward slide, a hugely important factor in the life of a celibate priest is solid certainty in his faith. An Anglican vicar might survive utter doctrinal and moral chaos on all sides if he has the love of his family to fall back on. The Catholic priest has no such immediate support.
Merely announcing Vatican II provoked all sorts of speculation about what might be up for grabs and must have subtly unsettled young potential vocations.
Though we would very likely still have had losses due to the collapse in other Christian churches and the permissiveness preached in the mass media, I still maintain that the sudden removal of Latin was a crucial factor for many ordinary Catholics. The Mass was the main link between the Church and ordinary Catholics.
Now the Irish are fading out of the parishes which they sustained for so long. My bishop has an Irish name and a few years ago he noted how few of the traditional Irish were in his crowded cathedral for Easter. My parish church had parishioners from 54 countries at the last count. Our next bishop or the one after may well have a Nigerian or Goan or Venezuelan name.
Priests have families who can give immediate support via the telephone or by coming to visit the priest, and now via zoom. So I don't think that's a factor here.
The ZdK statements claims that having funding primarily from donations would mean that the dioceses are primarily dependent on a few rich donors. Such is not the case in the United States. Parishes rely almost entirely on donations for their regular operations (and mostly on tuition for the schools.) These donations come mostly from the broad swath of the middle class, thus making the parishes not dependent upon a few people. By contrast, the tax system makes the parishes and dioceses dependent upon the government. Relying on private donations is a much better path to independence.
This was my exact thought. Some pretty dirt poor people in some pretty dirt poor places in these United States managed to pool their Pennies and nickels for some pretty gorgeous churches. It’s almost like the Church has survived and thrived without government mandated funding in so many places 🤔
This literally reads as “but if we don’t have guaranteed money we won’t have guaranteed money! We need it guaranteed!” Only it’s… talking about the Church. Bizzare. And mildly simony-ous? But it might just be the vibe of it since it’s been going on for a long time and hasn’t been shut down by Rome 🤷🏽♀️
If we rely on tuition fees for Catholic schools, won’t the Church be serving primarily the upper classes, while the poor must be content with the public schools?
It depends on the scholarship donation process. In Indiana if you give to a scholarship donation fund marked with the school of your choice, you can take 50% of the gift off your taxes.
I do not see how it can possibly be in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity to deny Sacraments to those whose finances do not fit with the expectations of the higher-ups sufficiently for them to afford to pay 8-9% of their gross income (minus whatever difficulties the higher-ups have imagined and approved). The Catechism explicitly discusses that personal circumstances can be expected to adjust how much is given to the Church. Prudential decisions are the domain of those with the necessary detailed knowledge to make them.
The catechism? Elsewhere? Explicitly says it doesn’t give a percent to tithe bc some can only give less than ten percent and others can give far more, so it must be discerned? Am I making that up that it’s formally taught as thus?
I mean I think tithe/tenth is a great benchmark slash starting point to aim for as a goal, etc. but someone on subsistence wages isn’t getting anywhere near ten and a LOT of American income brackets can afford far higher.
And what if you have kids in Catholic schools? Does Germany not having tuition based catholic education? Many people consider that part of their tithe bc they are supporting and sustaining catholic education (I have heard priests in parishes with schools encourage this!) - so you have no ability in Germany to determine your own apportionment. Not to mention some to Church and some to other charities!
Americans still miss the key feature of the Church tax. In the 19th century, secular governments (then monarchies) took vast amounts of Catholic property and, in exchange, made an annual payment to the churches. This was (partial) payment for their rightful properties. With the German revolution, the Republic accepted they had this obligation but to avoid the State determining which churches (Lutheran or Catholic) got how much, instituted the Church tax. As governments had favored the Protestants, this system benefited the Catholics. In a republic the people rule but also must pay the state's obligations.
Until recently (and no one seems to be showing any evidence of much of a change), people long gone from church life or even those never part of it still willingly paid the church tax out of a sense of social obligation. While there is clear data there has been an increase in the number of people withdrawing from the Church tax, I've not seen any data as to how many of them, if any, are sacramentally active Catholics.
Yet Republic France also seized Church assets and the Church there is principally funded via voluntary contributions. (State aid is indirect in support for education and lease terms for churches owned by the State such as Notre Dame de Paris.) Germany’s system imposes tithing via civil not canon law, which seems peculiar for a religious obligation. Indeed, one could argue that the State is not really compensating the Church; it has just agreed to act as its tax collector.
The ZdF statements are entirely self-serving. Let’s keep the gravy train rolling (maybe with a little more gravy via a wealth tax component! Yum!) but we don’t want to seem too mean. Meanwhile, we want to make sure we have control of the purse to maintain the bloat of our massive layperson NGO.
Call it names if you want, but the result of this is one of the safest places in the world to be an unborn baby. Of course, for some when they say abortion is the "pre-eminent" issue, they just mean regulating guests at church functions, not really protecting the unborn and particularly not putting protection of the unborn ahead of paying an extra dime in taxes.
And, while I congratulate Germany on its low abortion rate, I note that German women have fewer babies than their American sisters. So, I suspect this has little to do with ZdF’s promotion of natural family planning (if that’s a thing it does) or pro-life programming and much more to do with a stronger cultural affinity for artificial birth control.
They do have such a role. It's called the parish financial council. And wherever I've lived they have published financial results, usually around the end of June.
A fun story about this system. At one time, my husband worked in Berlin as an expat, and during his onboarding, his official liaison asked him about his religious affiliation. He was an atheist then, so he said he had none. The liaison pressed the point, asking even about baptism, and my spouse admitted he had been baptized and confirmed, but left the church/hadn't attended in years at that point. At which point, the liaison said that as part of paperwork for expats claiming no affiliation, they follow-up with home country church administrators to confirm the claim; if the baptism was documented, my spouse would have been fined for lying and forcibly enrolled in the tax. So, he said, whatever, and completed the "Kirchenaustritte," publicly declaring his disaffiliation. Then, years later, when he experienced conversion and reversion, to return to the Church, a US canon lawyer said my husband had to recite the Creed publicly in a mass after going to Reconciliation, like a Confirmation, but without any of the oils.
Anyway, I agree with the Zdk that taxation disaffiliation should not be tied to sacramental participation because it conflates civil ability with spiritual belonging, and I don't think the state should be policing the authenticity of one's spiritual posture. But I do like the idea of pre-tax tithing as an option.
Although this happened in Austria, not Germany, where the same system prevails, my husband's niece and her family withdrew from the Church because they simply could not afford the Kirchentauer. If the Teutonic system were voluntary, like ours, it would become obvious which doctrines and policies the laity liked. Those overflowing coffers don't seem to translate into full churches of faithful parishioners, do they?
There was a time when one had to pay to go to Confession, which was required annually by the pastor before one was allowed to receive the Eucharist once a year, on Easyer.
When one speaks of the Catholic Church in Germany one is talking about two things: 1) the religious body of the baptized, also called the mystical body of Christ, hierarchically organized with the successor of Peter at the top and dioceses at the local level, with the sacraments as means of sanctification of the faithful and 2) a corporation under public law (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) because it performs state functions and is allowed to collect public-law contributions (church tax).
People who are leaving the church but insist on remaining full fledged catholics, argue that they are leaving church nr. 2, while definitely remaining in church nr. 1. And they are right.
According to Canon Law you are out of the church if you expressly declare before a church official that you renounce to be a member of the catholic church as the body of Christ because you have lost your faith.
The unhealthy and according to Canon Law untenable position of linking the two levels and maintaining that if you renounce to the church as a corporation of public law you are renouncing
by this fact (eo ipso) to the church as body of Christ and you are to all practical effects excommunicated, has already been rejected in the past by the Vatican "Dicastery for legal Texts" (Dicasterium de Legum Textibus) under Card. Coccopalmerio. The linkage of the two levels and the church punishment inflicted on the faithful in this case, go against Canon Law.
Strangely or not, Rom let it be by the legal interpretation of the German church abuse and has done nothing to stop it. Ironically enough, the ZdK seems willing to do something against it.
Especially young people leave church nr. 2 mostly for economic reasons but also because they are furious at the way the church throws its money around, like financing the no-longer-catholic ZdK, the no-longer-catholic Youth Organisation (DKJ), the Academy of Catholic Journalist, which has been nursing the most rabidly anti-catholic journalists in Germany, just to mention a few of the many.
I find myself struggling to resist the urge to sit down and make a cord of whips.
I'm uncomfortable with the tying of tax to sacrament access. It's difficult to understand the history here culturally when my experience is different.
Reading about the ZdK reminds me of just how pernicious lay clericalism can be.
These awful lay Catholics who think they have any rights regarding the protection of our children and our money.
The ZdK is the embodiment of what money does to church structures… that combined with poor catechesis is a schism bomb awaiting to blow up
I have no problem with the clergy getting side jobs to support themselves and ministering as volunteers.
You’ll have a problem when they can’t come to you or someone you loves dying bedside bc they’re at work to pay their bills.
I had that problem under the current system when my mother died. You are unconvincing.
I’m so so terribly sorry for your loss and that awful extra cross. That’s terrible.
Thank you.
I am perplexed by this photo. It’s like a 90s yearbook setup, it just needs a half column and a weird fake plant.
I am curious to know how the church was funded in the past in various countries….
Admittedly my inner American is also rebelling against mandatory taxes lol. I give to my church, would be cool if I could do it pre-tax but mandatory??
The nice thing, imho, of the donation system is that you get donations equivalent to performance (in some way). Donors get to perceive if it is worth donating to X. Yea, that has its own issues (including unreliable funding, but isn’t that the point of an annual appeal?) but at least it helps keeps organizations accountable.
Hardly any accountability in the American system as we see time and time again.
One of the possible benefits of growing up in the closest parish to a tourist trap is that we heard sermons on the importance of donating financially at every Sunday and Holy Day Mass during the tourist season and were therefore much more attuned to the importance of contributing. 5% to Church and 5% to Mt. 25, according to what we were taught. And no administrative costs to the government for doing the paperwork.
I recall Fr Edward Holloway back in the 1970s writing in Faith magazine in England. He was a devoted and devout parish priest. But he was hard nosed enough to note the drop in contributions as parishioners voted with their feet. The post-VAT2 decline was already underway.
But, unlike a declining business, no one was going to blame the managers. It was all the fault of the ignorant peasants if they did not like the New Mass. As one English Benedictine wrote in the 1960s, it was not a matter of the people liking the New Mass. It was a matter of whether it was good for them.
Mass attendance in my diocese:
1965: 74,000.
2025: around 20,000.
Population of diocesan area up at least 20%.
Let me just say, that if you read about England pre-Vatican II, whether in literature or otherwise, I’m pretty sure a decline in mass attendance would have happened no matter what. Whether keeping the OF or not would have stemmed the tide a bit, who knows. But read the likes of Chesterton, Lewis, novels like Brideshead, etc… they paint a very bleak picture of pre-Vatican II England in terms of worldliness and faith.
Seeing that G K Chesterton died in 1936 and Brideshead Revisited was published in 1945, they should not be our only sources for the life of the Catholic Church in England post-WW2. They both came before the huge infusion of fresh young blood from Ireland in the forties and fifties. Both my parents came during WW2.
And there a smaller but important cohort from Poland, made refugees by the Communist takeover of East Europe. And both groups of newcomers might as well have been a different species compared with the established upper class and upper middle class Catholics which you might meet in literature - as I can testify from meeting some of them.
The number of priestly ordinations went to an all time high of 211 in 1965, which is one convincing sign of vitality and devotion. These young men would have effectively made their decisions before Vatican 2 was announced in January 1959.
As one priest commented years later in the middle of the post VAT2 downward slide, a hugely important factor in the life of a celibate priest is solid certainty in his faith. An Anglican vicar might survive utter doctrinal and moral chaos on all sides if he has the love of his family to fall back on. The Catholic priest has no such immediate support.
Merely announcing Vatican II provoked all sorts of speculation about what might be up for grabs and must have subtly unsettled young potential vocations.
Though we would very likely still have had losses due to the collapse in other Christian churches and the permissiveness preached in the mass media, I still maintain that the sudden removal of Latin was a crucial factor for many ordinary Catholics. The Mass was the main link between the Church and ordinary Catholics.
Now the Irish are fading out of the parishes which they sustained for so long. My bishop has an Irish name and a few years ago he noted how few of the traditional Irish were in his crowded cathedral for Easter. My parish church had parishioners from 54 countries at the last count. Our next bishop or the one after may well have a Nigerian or Goan or Venezuelan name.
Priests have families who can give immediate support via the telephone or by coming to visit the priest, and now via zoom. So I don't think that's a factor here.
The ZdK statements claims that having funding primarily from donations would mean that the dioceses are primarily dependent on a few rich donors. Such is not the case in the United States. Parishes rely almost entirely on donations for their regular operations (and mostly on tuition for the schools.) These donations come mostly from the broad swath of the middle class, thus making the parishes not dependent upon a few people. By contrast, the tax system makes the parishes and dioceses dependent upon the government. Relying on private donations is a much better path to independence.
This was my exact thought. Some pretty dirt poor people in some pretty dirt poor places in these United States managed to pool their Pennies and nickels for some pretty gorgeous churches. It’s almost like the Church has survived and thrived without government mandated funding in so many places 🤔
This literally reads as “but if we don’t have guaranteed money we won’t have guaranteed money! We need it guaranteed!” Only it’s… talking about the Church. Bizzare. And mildly simony-ous? But it might just be the vibe of it since it’s been going on for a long time and hasn’t been shut down by Rome 🤷🏽♀️
If we rely on tuition fees for Catholic schools, won’t the Church be serving primarily the upper classes, while the poor must be content with the public schools?
It depends on the scholarship donation process. In Indiana if you give to a scholarship donation fund marked with the school of your choice, you can take 50% of the gift off your taxes.
I do not see how it can possibly be in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity to deny Sacraments to those whose finances do not fit with the expectations of the higher-ups sufficiently for them to afford to pay 8-9% of their gross income (minus whatever difficulties the higher-ups have imagined and approved). The Catechism explicitly discusses that personal circumstances can be expected to adjust how much is given to the Church. Prudential decisions are the domain of those with the necessary detailed knowledge to make them.
The catechism? Elsewhere? Explicitly says it doesn’t give a percent to tithe bc some can only give less than ten percent and others can give far more, so it must be discerned? Am I making that up that it’s formally taught as thus?
I mean I think tithe/tenth is a great benchmark slash starting point to aim for as a goal, etc. but someone on subsistence wages isn’t getting anywhere near ten and a LOT of American income brackets can afford far higher.
And what if you have kids in Catholic schools? Does Germany not having tuition based catholic education? Many people consider that part of their tithe bc they are supporting and sustaining catholic education (I have heard priests in parishes with schools encourage this!) - so you have no ability in Germany to determine your own apportionment. Not to mention some to Church and some to other charities!
//Does Germany not having tuition based catholic education? //
It does not. The funding of Catholic education in Germany is based on taxes, not tuition.
Americans still miss the key feature of the Church tax. In the 19th century, secular governments (then monarchies) took vast amounts of Catholic property and, in exchange, made an annual payment to the churches. This was (partial) payment for their rightful properties. With the German revolution, the Republic accepted they had this obligation but to avoid the State determining which churches (Lutheran or Catholic) got how much, instituted the Church tax. As governments had favored the Protestants, this system benefited the Catholics. In a republic the people rule but also must pay the state's obligations.
Until recently (and no one seems to be showing any evidence of much of a change), people long gone from church life or even those never part of it still willingly paid the church tax out of a sense of social obligation. While there is clear data there has been an increase in the number of people withdrawing from the Church tax, I've not seen any data as to how many of them, if any, are sacramentally active Catholics.
Yet Republic France also seized Church assets and the Church there is principally funded via voluntary contributions. (State aid is indirect in support for education and lease terms for churches owned by the State such as Notre Dame de Paris.) Germany’s system imposes tithing via civil not canon law, which seems peculiar for a religious obligation. Indeed, one could argue that the State is not really compensating the Church; it has just agreed to act as its tax collector.
The ZdF statements are entirely self-serving. Let’s keep the gravy train rolling (maybe with a little more gravy via a wealth tax component! Yum!) but we don’t want to seem too mean. Meanwhile, we want to make sure we have control of the purse to maintain the bloat of our massive layperson NGO.
Call it names if you want, but the result of this is one of the safest places in the world to be an unborn baby. Of course, for some when they say abortion is the "pre-eminent" issue, they just mean regulating guests at church functions, not really protecting the unborn and particularly not putting protection of the unborn ahead of paying an extra dime in taxes.
Seems as if you are more than prepared to call names.
And, while I congratulate Germany on its low abortion rate, I note that German women have fewer babies than their American sisters. So, I suspect this has little to do with ZdF’s promotion of natural family planning (if that’s a thing it does) or pro-life programming and much more to do with a stronger cultural affinity for artificial birth control.
"... the church tax system, through which the ZdK itself is largely funded."
Hmm...
God forbid the laity have some role in the administration of Church funds that pay for the sinecure clergy.
They do have such a role. It's called the parish financial council. And wherever I've lived they have published financial results, usually around the end of June.
Super interesting!
A fun story about this system. At one time, my husband worked in Berlin as an expat, and during his onboarding, his official liaison asked him about his religious affiliation. He was an atheist then, so he said he had none. The liaison pressed the point, asking even about baptism, and my spouse admitted he had been baptized and confirmed, but left the church/hadn't attended in years at that point. At which point, the liaison said that as part of paperwork for expats claiming no affiliation, they follow-up with home country church administrators to confirm the claim; if the baptism was documented, my spouse would have been fined for lying and forcibly enrolled in the tax. So, he said, whatever, and completed the "Kirchenaustritte," publicly declaring his disaffiliation. Then, years later, when he experienced conversion and reversion, to return to the Church, a US canon lawyer said my husband had to recite the Creed publicly in a mass after going to Reconciliation, like a Confirmation, but without any of the oils.
Anyway, I agree with the Zdk that taxation disaffiliation should not be tied to sacramental participation because it conflates civil ability with spiritual belonging, and I don't think the state should be policing the authenticity of one's spiritual posture. But I do like the idea of pre-tax tithing as an option.
Although this happened in Austria, not Germany, where the same system prevails, my husband's niece and her family withdrew from the Church because they simply could not afford the Kirchentauer. If the Teutonic system were voluntary, like ours, it would become obvious which doctrines and policies the laity liked. Those overflowing coffers don't seem to translate into full churches of faithful parishioners, do they?
So we pay for the Sacraments?interesting. You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church but only if folks pay?
There was a time when one had to pay to go to Confession, which was required annually by the pastor before one was allowed to receive the Eucharist once a year, on Easyer.
When one speaks of the Catholic Church in Germany one is talking about two things: 1) the religious body of the baptized, also called the mystical body of Christ, hierarchically organized with the successor of Peter at the top and dioceses at the local level, with the sacraments as means of sanctification of the faithful and 2) a corporation under public law (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) because it performs state functions and is allowed to collect public-law contributions (church tax).
People who are leaving the church but insist on remaining full fledged catholics, argue that they are leaving church nr. 2, while definitely remaining in church nr. 1. And they are right.
According to Canon Law you are out of the church if you expressly declare before a church official that you renounce to be a member of the catholic church as the body of Christ because you have lost your faith.
The unhealthy and according to Canon Law untenable position of linking the two levels and maintaining that if you renounce to the church as a corporation of public law you are renouncing
by this fact (eo ipso) to the church as body of Christ and you are to all practical effects excommunicated, has already been rejected in the past by the Vatican "Dicastery for legal Texts" (Dicasterium de Legum Textibus) under Card. Coccopalmerio. The linkage of the two levels and the church punishment inflicted on the faithful in this case, go against Canon Law.
Strangely or not, Rom let it be by the legal interpretation of the German church abuse and has done nothing to stop it. Ironically enough, the ZdK seems willing to do something against it.
Especially young people leave church nr. 2 mostly for economic reasons but also because they are furious at the way the church throws its money around, like financing the no-longer-catholic ZdK, the no-longer-catholic Youth Organisation (DKJ), the Academy of Catholic Journalist, which has been nursing the most rabidly anti-catholic journalists in Germany, just to mention a few of the many.