(To be clear, if Catholics do not pay this, they will not receive the Sacraments.) The German bishops live and act like CEOs, which of course they are -- as the Church employs 650,000 Germans, making it the second largest employer after the German state, more than six times the size of Mercedes Benz.
The German Church is also famously liberal -- with bishops and theologians regularly issuing public demands that Rome abandon its 'out-dated' ideas and 'get with the program' of modern times. To outsiders, such arrogance may be breathtaking, but it is important to understand the context for this.
The bishops' broadsides aimed at Rome are an attempt to pander to the sensibilities of the German elites and media. The German bishops do a tremendous amount of talking about helping those less fortunate, because that is the single role that most Germans will willingly accord the Church. On matters of morals, they are expected to tow the secular line -- which they do.
Accustomed to luxurious prelates and the high politics of Church and State, ordinary German Catholics are blase about such verbal pyrotechnics. They know that for centuries ferocious power struggles between the State and Church -- not to mention between Protestants and Catholics -- have cut a broad swathe of destruction across Germany's tragic history. The diaspora of Germans across the New World, Eastern Europe and Russia have all resulted from the wars and famines induced by conflict. (So, if your family came from Germany, this is probably why.)
Clerics who rebel against Rome are old news, here.
The German Post-War Catholic Avant-Garde
There is a German word that has found its way into English -- 'ersatz' meaning something used as a substitute for the real thing. Here, in the homeland of ideology, there is a kind of 'ersatz' Arian catholicism which is firmly in control of the Catholic Church's multi-billion euro revenues.
In the 20th century, Germany has been ground zero for the ideology of Modernism. Post-World War II, an avant-garde of German theologians were pretty much responsible for pushing ill-defined liturgical and sartorial changes through the Second Vatican Council. Josef Ratzinger was among this group, though his later about-face earned him the everlasting enmity of former friends in German church circles such as Karl Lehmann, powerful Cardinal of Mainz and 'free-thinking' theologian Hans Kung. (In a presumably unrelated development, Dr Kung has just announced his intention to commit suicide to the world's press.)
Modernist innovations have been zealously applied over the past few decades, not least in art and architecture.
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