“No discrimination against those who have already been disadvantaged” – this is a central principle of the Humanist Association of Germany (HVD) in the debate on state benefits to the major churches and other religious communities in the Federal Republic. With six key points of its own, the association is taking a concrete stance for the first time on the question of the objectives with which the federal and state governments should implement the still unfulfilled mandate of the Basic Law to replace the so-called historical state benefits. “We see a great need for reform in terms of worldview law, which represents a fundamental renewal of the outdated state-church law,” said Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanist Association, at the public presentation of the key points paper on Monday morning in Berlin. “The so-called state benefits play a central role here, because some of the associated payments are rightly met with a growing lack of understanding by a large part of the population.” According to Article 138 of the Weimar Constitution (WRV), which was later incorporated into the Basic Law, the following mandate has existed since 1919: “State payments to religious communities based on law, treaty or special legal titles shall be replaced by state legislation. The Reich shall establish the principles for this.” The payments in question have come under increasing public, media and political criticism in recent years, most recently in the wake of revelations about the new residence of the former Bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst. Among other things, the resulting suspicion that general taxpayers’ money is also being wasted in such cases has led to outrage, particularly among non-denominational people, about incomprehensible and non-transparent financial links between the state and churches. In 2013, financial payments to the large churches with their 48.3 million members amounted to a total of 481 million euros. On April 16, 2014, the federal government (Drs. 18/1110) declared in response to a corresponding question from the DIE LINKE parliamentary group (Drs. 18/903) in the German Bundestag that it saw no need for action on the part of the federal government to enact a “fundamental law” in accordance with Article 140 of the Basic Law in conjunction with 138 Para. 1 of the German Constitution. “The federal states, on the other hand, as the providers of state benefits, are free to change the state benefits by mutual agreement with the churches and to create new legal bases,” the federal government continued in its response. The financial relationships between the state and Christian religious communities have also become the subject of commissions and working groups within several parties represented at federal and state level in recent months. Such relationships also exist beyond allocations in the context of so-called historical state benefits, and not only as purely earmarked funds in the context of activities as providers of independent welfare services. They also exist in the context of state support for culture and fundamental rights. In addition to the churches, other religious communities receive financial allocations, including the Freireligiösen Landesgemeinden, the Jewish community in Germany as well as some state associations of the HVD and a few other organizations of non-denominational people. The grants, which are based on the purpose of promoting culture and fundamental rights, are mostly determined by state agreements between the federal states and the respective communities.
Frieder Otto Wolf: “Reforms and transparency in the financial links between the state and religious and ideological communities are not only necessary in order to put an end to payments that are recognized as unjustified, but also so that legitimate donations can be understood by as many citizens as possible. The lack of clarity that still prevails is not only a constant source of confusion, error and incomprehension for many people, and feeds fundamental doubts about the correctness of such funding. They also conceal existing disadvantages and injustices between the respective communities.” The key points now presented by the HVD state that the association “guarantees a value-creating care, education and cultural offer for those who are distant from the church, atheists and agnostics, which the state itself cannot offer due to its ideological neutrality.” This is why it should receive more, not less, public support in future. Finally, Wolf emphasized that this was also a clear political imperative from a historical perspective. “Unlike some denominational communities, associations that were banned, expropriated and persecuted during the Nazi tyranny and in whose tradition we find ourselves organizationally and ideologically have not received any restitution. This fundamental damage was exacerbated in the new federal states by the SED dictatorship. Over the last quarter of a century, the members of our association have continuously made it clear that they make valuable and value-forming contributions to general public culture. We therefore expect this to be recognized accordingly in the absolutely necessary political reforms in the area of state subsidies to churches and other ideological communities.”
