“We don’t want any ostentation at our expense”

On the occasion of the current controversy surrounding the construction costs for the new residence of Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van-Elst, the Humanist Association of Germany is reiterating its calls for reforms to German state-church law. “We can very well understand the outrage among members of the Catholic Church about the excesses and waste,” said Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Federal Association, on Tuesday afternoon in Berlin. “After all, non-denominational people in Germany also have to make considerable contributions to the financing of the Church. It is therefore time to initiate long overdue reforms here too.” Both church-affiliated and non-affiliated politicians had previously spoken out in favor of reforming the church’s financing structures. The lack of transparency regarding the Catholic Church’s assets and the fact that non-denominational and non-believing citizens are also being used to finance bishops and church institutions are currently being criticized. “By now at the latest, it must finally become clear to all political representatives that there can be no ‘business as usual’ when it comes to the question of why some religious communities in the Federal Republic of Germany still enjoy certain subsidies and questionable privileges,” emphasized Frieder Otto Wolf. “Because even within the Catholic Church, there is now unmistakable resentment about incomprehensible structures and opaque sources of funding.” A renewal of the legal and contractual foundations that regulate the financial relationships between the state and the religious communities within it is urgently needed in the interests of all people in the Federal Republic of Germany, Wolf emphasized. He said that the further development of state church law into a contemporary religious and ideological constitutional law would help to ensure that financial contributions from the state to the churches are transparent and comprehensible for the majority. “We would like to see reasonable and fair conditions in the area of church financing. It must be ensured that non-denominational and non-religious people do not have to pay for churches if this is not offset by a contribution to public culture – and a bishop’s residence is probably not one of them. And we certainly don’t want ostentation at our expense.”