Budgets and the faith” “

For months discussion has been raging in Germany about the reforms of the German state – especially in the social security and welfare sectors – aimed at promoting economic recovery. The economic crisis is also having negative repercussions on the German Churches, forced to undertake belt-tightening measures that impact on their activities on the territory. The Churches receive from the State the proceeds of the “Kirchensteuer”, the church tax paid by the taxpayers who declare their membership of a church. The fiscal reform, the high rate of unemployment and the demographic crisis are the main factors held responsible for the financial crisis of the German churches. A review of the situation in the German Catholic Church was exclusively given to SIR by the auxiliary bishop of Cologne, Msgr. Norbert Trelle . The German church tax is linked to state income tax. Consequently, a fiscal reform always implies a variation in the revenue generated by the church tax. But this is not the main cause of the belt-tightening measures of the German dioceses. The decisive factor in the mid term is the demographic trend. In other words: few babies are being born in our country. For years, the number of Catholics in the archdiocese of Cologne has been continuing to decline. Only a small percentage of this decrease is due to the “Kirchenaustritte” (i.e. people who leave the church, which involves a declaration whereby members of a religious confession declare they no longer wants to form part of it; with this declaration their obligation to pay Kirchensteuer also lapses). If things continue in this way – and so far there are no signs of a reversal of tendency –, within 25 years we will have lost a quarter of our faithful. Due to the negative generational pyramid we are heading towards a loss of over 40 percent of our financial resources. This long-term prospect is even now having its concrete effects and the German Church must adapt to living with more limited resources in future. In the archdiocese of Cologne alone we must reduce our annual expenditures by 90 million euros. That involves the need to make sometimes painful cuts to our services. Spiritual assistance to foreign Catholics is also affected by the problem. We have decided in future to link this task more closely with the local communities, for example, so that a priest responsible for the ministry to foreigners may also work in the local parish. This inevitably means that in future we will not be able to do everything in this sector to which the foreign language communities had been accustomed and that would be necessary to do. At the same time, however, we want to exploit these changes to integrate the foreign language communities more closely in the local church. The territorial communities may also derive advantages from these developments. In any case, we cannot give way to depression due to the current situation. When it boils down to it, once the savings provisions have been introduced, the archdiocese of Cologne will still retain 80 percent of its financial resources. That’s far more than other local Churches that testify to a living faith. In some sectors, the tasks with which we are faced are daunting but not insoluble. They require solidarity, creativity, imagination, and also trust in God and optimism based on our faith”. REDUCING THE “motor” OF THE CHURCH. In his pastoral letter to present the programme for the future of the archdiocese of Cologne “Zukunft heute” (“Future today”), published on 1st October, the archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, tackled the thorny question of the containment of costs as follows: “The Catholic Church has never had so much money as over the last 50 years, and in spite of that has never lost the substance of the faith as much as it has in recent decades. No correlation exists between money and faith that may make us think: “if there’s no money there’s no faith”. We only need to think of the young Churches of Asia, Africa and South America. The more terrible their situations are at the material level, the stronger and more vital is the faith of these people…” A NATIONAL CRiSIS. Not only the church of Cologne: almost all the German dioceses – and also the Evangelic Church – are affected by the problem. They include the diocese of Magdeburg (3 million euros less in income; the archdiocese of Bamberg (10 million euros less); and the diocese of Trier (16 million euros less). The cuts planned in the dioceses will especially involve reductions in personnel, material expenses and collateral activities (schools etc.). A big problem is represented by little-attended churches in need of maintenance and repairs.