Germany’s lower house of Parliament is considering re-placing state payments to the nation’s two largest churches. The Catholic and Protestant churches received combined state benefits of more than $650 million in 2020.
At a hearing in the interior affairs committee of the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, they welcomed in principle the intention of legislation by the opposition liberal Free Democratic Party, the Greens and the Left Party and pointed out that it was in line with a constitutional mandate to abolish the payments, which date back to a 19th-century provision. By contrast, a number of legal experts said an alternative bill by the Alternative for Germa-ny party to simply phase out the benefits was unconstitutional, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.
The bill by the three parties aims to create the necessary framework for agreements between the federal states, which currently make the payments, and the Catholic dioceses and Protestant regional churches.
Most of the state payments date back to 1803, when German imperial princes received expropriated church property as compensation for a loss of territory. In return, the princes paid the churches money on a regular basis.