First We Get Your Money, Then We Pray for Your Soul

Martin Luther

The German Catholic Church has a sweet deal with the German state tax collectors (along with Protestant churches, the Jewish faith, and pagans, we would guess): the German government tacks on a tax surcharge to every Catholic citizen's tax assessment, amounting to a windfall for the church of some $5.2 billion annually.

Can you imagine what would happen in this country if the Cardinal of Philadelphia, say, proposed that the IRS collect tithes for his church?

But get this: some German Catholics, unhappy over the policies of their hierarchy, are withholding their church tax assessments. The German bishops pitched a sizable fit over that and decided  that "believers who refuse to pay religious taxes won't be able to receive the sacrament, become godparents, or work in church institutions."

Well, thanks for making the nexus between salvation and profits for the church quite, quite explicit! Institutional avarice like this led another German several years ago to cause a bit of a break with the Catholic Church. (He also put a nail hole in a church door, we hear.)