No Tax Payment, No Blessing!

[KnightofChrist]

There is a simple solution to the problem. The German Bishops should announce that Catholics don't have to pay the tax. This way someone doesn't have to pay for the sacraments, and they don't have to be forced to pay the tax or face what is in effect excommucation for not paying for the sacraments.

Edited September 30, 2012 by KnightofChrist

[Aloysius]

The German Bishops are actually doing the exact opposite. They are announcing that Catholics MUST pay the tax. I don't think people are realizing the extent of the German Bishop's involvement in this tax. The German bishops could end this tax tomorrow if they wished to.

Registering as a "Catholic" on any government form, or even any parish form for that matter, should have nothing to do with access to the sacraments (marriage is generally an exception because of its juridical nature both in civil law and canon law). Some people here have equivocated failing to affiliate as "Catholic" (more properly, as a member of a Catholic Church in Germany) on a tax form as being equivalent to denying the faith. It is not, any more than failing to affiliate as a member of any particular parish is equivalent to denying the faith.

It would certainly be sinful if one was required to sign a statement renouncing the faith in order to be exempted form this tax. Thus far I have seen no evidence that this is true. If it were true, then yes signing that statement would be sinful. you'd have to grin and bear it because you should never deny your faith even if someone's holding a gun to your head. What is sad here is that the German Bishops are having the German Government hold that gun to your head.

What the German Church is doing by putting the people into that situation (and it is indeed the German Church that is putting them in this situation) in the first place is ALSO sinful. It is simony, and it is a grave and terrible sin that has amounted to requiring the faithful to pay for the sacraments. Sure, one of the commandments of the Church is to support the Church according to one's means; but that's to be voluntary and according to what one is able to give, making such tithing mandatory and threatening to withhold the sacraments if one does not tithe is one of the worst most disgusting kind of sins imaginable. one should never be denied the sacraments on the basis that one does not tithe sufficiently, when that begins to be done it is nothing other (forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but this is important and I cannot condemn it enough) than simony. And it is [b]worse[/b] by far than the sale of indulgences ever was.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1349036813' post='2488508']
Oh, and just so that there's absolutely no confusion: lapsed Catholics in Cyprian's time were allowed no recourse to the Sacraments, were publicly rebuked, not even allowed at Mass, and had to ask for communal forgiveness.
[/quote]
of course those lapsed Catholics were truly lapsed Catholics who had publicly denied the faith.

what we're talking about here is people who simply don't affiliate as "Catholic" on a tax form.

the situations are not even comparable. The notion that not registering a "denominational affiliation" on a tax form is akin to renouncing membership in the Mystical Body of Christ is absolutely unfounded IMHO.

[qfnol31]

Where has it been said that the Church has the authority to end this tax? From what I've read (and I'm reading as much as I can find on this right now), the Church has two options: leave it to the state or levy the tax themselves.

Anomaly, I'll respond to you more in full in a bit, but I want to point out a key phrase from the original document that I think is important (and this is for Al just above me):

[quote]Die Erklärung des Kirchenaustritts vor der zuständigen zivilen Behörde stellt als öffentlicher Akt eine willentliche und wissentliche Distanzierung von der Kirche dar und ist eine schwere Verfehlung gegenüber der kirchlichen Gemeinschaft.[/quote]

Source: http://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/presse/2012-145a-Allgemeines-Dekret-Kirchenaustritt_Dekret.pdf

My German is a bit rough right now (and I have no dictionary), but that statement seems to recall what dUSt said originally:

[quote]The declaration of the one leaving the Church before the competent civil authority acts represents, as a public act, a willing and knowing distancing from the Church and is a grave offense against the ecclesial community.[/quote]

The German Church defines this as a public declaration, not simply writing something different on a tax form. I'll research some more, but again my German reading is slow.

[qfnol31]

Here's part of the answer. I was wrong about it being a fine. The German Catholic bishops have the right to tax the laity under Canon Law, 1259:


[quote]Can. 1259 The Church can acquire temporal goods by every just means of natural or positive law permitted to others.[/quote]

Ergo, the problem isn't the bishops here, it's Canon Law.

[Aloysius]

the problem IS absolutely the bishops. the laity have the right to the sacraments (Canon 213, Canon 843), and the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls (stated within Canon 1752). Nowhere in the canons on temporal goods (or the canons on the sacraments) does any Church authority derive the right to require tithing as a prerequisite for the reception of the sacraments. Canon 1259 is NOT being met here because the Church is not acting by any just means, not under canon law or divine law or Catholic doctrine. not at all.

certainly canon law gives the Church the authority to obtain funding from the faithful. there are a lot of canons that govern this, and canons that govern stipends, many of them with the express intent of ensuring that no simony occurs. I don't have the time to go through to find them now, but that has always been my impression from canons referencing stipends and temporal goods and all that--that the mere appearance of simony is to always be avoided. but indeed one of the commandments of the Church is for Catholics to support the Church according to their means, but this support should be voluntary and never attached to one's communion with the Church lest we give the slightest hint (or the most blatantly greedy overt gesture, as the German Bishops are now doing or as was once done with the sale of indulgences) that we are in the business of selling grace.

it is clear to me that the Church can easily choose not to collect a Church tax. not every religious community is defined as a church-tax-collecting community; and they all always have the option to collect the church tax themselves. IE, they can NOT have the government collect it, and instead collect it based upon parish registrations, envelopes, and baskets if they wish. this was discussed over the first couple of pages in this thread and I have not seen anything to contradict that analysis: the Church decides the rate of taxation and it decides to have the government collect the taxes for them.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Aloysius

[4588686]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1349041742' post='2488538']
the problem IS absolutely the bishops. the laity have the right to the sacraments (Canon 213, Canon 843), and the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls (stated within Canon 1752). Nowhere in the canons on temporal goods (or the canons on the sacraments) does any Church authority derive the right to require tithing as a prerequisite for the reception of the sacraments. Canon 1259 is NOT being met here because the Church is not acting by any just means, not under canon law or divine law or Catholic doctrine. not at all.

it is clear to me that the Church can easily choose not to collect a Church tax. not every religious community is defined as a church-tax-collecting community; and they all always have the option to collect the church tax themselves. IE, they can NOT have the government collect it, and instead collect it based upon parish registrations, envelopes, and baskets if they wish. this was discussed over the first couple of pages in this thread and I have not seen anything to contradict that analysis: the Church decides the rate of taxation and it decides to have the government collect the taxes for them.
[/quote]


I think that what Aloysius is getting at here that we should all become atheists.






[size=8]WHO'S WITH ME!?!?!?[/size]

[Winchester]

How does a person obtain the right to command others to give him stuff or be punished or killed? I obviously would be considered a mugger, but apparently, there is a means by which ordinary people obtain this right, since government is permitted to use physical force to extract it or to exact punishment for not paying it. It's interested that tax here is considered just and a natural right (or positive law. Like collecting Jews. That's a positive law that [i]isn't just)[/i]. I'm sure there's a detailed explanation available how taxation is just for some, but not for others. Obviously, a man arising to power over many can create whatever laws he wants.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Winchester

[Aloysius]

It is a much bigger issue that this amounts to the sale of grace. Whether governments should have the power of taxation or not is a completely separate discussion, the fact that the Church is piggybacking on that power of taxation as it currently exists and using it as a means of defining whether Catholics are in communion with the Church and entitled to the sacraments, THAT is the big issue here.

actually, the ideal situation as it's set up in the Church provides a good example of how funding should be raised by institutions; outside of lands of simony like Germany, there is largely a voluntary taxation system... members of the Church are morally required as one of the precepts of the Church to financially support the Church, and they voluntarily place themselves under the authority of canon law (canon 222) requiring them to support the Church; but that is a positive moral requirement, not something that someone holds a gun to anyone's head over.

but that's a whole separate discussion IMO. the problem with this is not that there's taxation at all, that's nothing new or special to this case... the problem is that this taxation has become a prerequisite for the dispensation of grace and that is a sinful and embarrassing scourge on the Church.

even if I were completely wrong about the state of the taxation and the Church was really some innocent victim (a "victim" that generates a ridiculous amount of money from a system supposedly disconnected from them), the Bishops should feel obligated to lobby to create a situation in which Catholics are permitted to be members of the Church receiving sacraments even if they don't pay the tax. unless they were doing that, they are being complicit with simony.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Aloysius

[qfnol31]

I don't understand the big problem with this. I've now read twenty accounts of this situation and most of the people complaining aren't faithful Catholics. Unfaithful Catholics have no rights to certain Sacraments.

As far as the letter itself goes, the bishops are mostly critical of those who wish to make a formal declaration of being outside the Church. This letter is a pastoral push to get such people to reconsider.

[Winchester]

Allosaurus,

It is not entirely separate, since there's an assumption that taxation by some is somehow just. Thus a paragraph in Canon law (I don't think that's infallible, but I'm not going to really argue it) can be used to justify this whole mess because taking stuff from people by force (stealing) is perfectly cool if you go through certain steps to establish yourself as a government.

[qfnol31]

Not quite an assumption as a Church doctrine that legitimate government can tax...

[eagle_eye222001]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1349047084' post='2488565']
I don't understand the big problem with this. I've now read twenty accounts of this situation and most of the people complaining aren't faithful Catholics. Unfaithful Catholics have no rights to certain Sacraments.

As far as the letter itself goes, the bishops are mostly critical of those who wish to make a formal declaration of being outside the Church. This letter is a pastoral push to get such people to reconsider.
[/quote]

I agree that unfaithful Catholics have no right to certain Sacraments in of itself. And I believe Aloysius and Nihil Obstat would agree as well (correct me if I am wrong.) However also, it does not matter who argues and complains about this as that has no bearing on the validity of the argument itself.

The argument being put forth is that this system meets the definition of simony.


Can someone from the other side answer two questions for me?

1. If this is not simony, then what is simony?

and then...

2. Why is this current practice NOT simony? Or if it is, why is it okay?*




*to clarify, I don't think it is okay, but I am asking because either I am right, or I am wrong and missing something.

[Aloysius]

it doesn't matter to me who is complaining about it and who isn't complaining about it. before the counter-reformers complained about the sale of indulgences, a certain fellow by the name of Martin Luther was complaining about it. I'm no fan of him, but I would have agreed with him back then that the sale of indulgences was wrong. the bishops are at the very least being complicit with simony, and at the very worst they are committing simony. what they should have issued was a pastoral letter reminding the faithful of their obligations to support the Church, stated that the taxation system is one way in which they can support the Church, but that they could also do so by means of voluntary contributions and that anyone who is not registered officially as Catholic on their tax form but is properly disposed will never be turned away from the graces of the sacraments.

the reason I hold it separate, winnie, is that there is an entirely separate debate as to whether governments may legitimately tax or not. no matter which side of that debate you are on, you should be against withholding the sacraments in this manner. and canon law there has nothing to do with coercive taxation anyway, it's voluntary. most a bishop can do is take the advice of canon 1261 §2 and remind the faithful of their obligations under canon 222 to support the Church financially, and of course we all voluntarily subject ourselves to canon law so none of the arguments about coercion apply to canon law. oh, and the bishop can tax employees of the Church under canon 1263; but that's intra-institutional and again it doesn't involve any violent coercion.

it's a separate issue, and we would be jumping down a rabbit hole that at the very least deserves its own thread. the idea of legitimate governments having the right to tax, for instance, as Catholic social doctrine generally holds, could be simultaneously held by someone who did not believe legitimate governments had the right to use violent coercion to enforce a tax (perhaps positive moral pleas as included in canon law could be placed into civil law somehow, or else rewards like access to state museums and state parks that you have to show an I-payed-taxes card to get into); but then we're going to get into a long debate about what powers governments should have or whether they should exist at all... when here we should be focusing on what the bishops are using the government to do here. it's not about whether the government has the right to tax, but about whether the bishops should be withholding sacraments on the basis of the official state registry of who is a tax-paying "Catholic".

[Winchester]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1349052645' post='2488597']
Not quite an assumption as a Church doctrine that legitimate government can tax...
[/quote]
So how does government attain legitimacy? That question is kind of built in to my previous questions. You know, the steps ordinary people must take in order to exempt themselves from the rules about stealing. I think I asked that. Yes. Yes I did.