Decades paying Millions to Bishops revealed as a Mistake

[retroHelen]

Last year's German austerity budget cuts everything except the grants to the churches. These grants, which few Germans know about, even pay the wages of the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy. They are paid in addition to the "church tax" that the government has collected from church members since the concordat the Vatican had with Hitler (http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showtopic.php?org_id=858&kb_header_id=752). And they have now been revealed by investigative journalists to appear to be based on a mistake.

The present-day grants to the churches began as compensation to the individual prince-bishops whose territories were once dotted all over Germany who lost lands during wars with France in the past. But apparently no one imagined that 200 years after the bishops were compensated for their losses, the state would continue to repeatedly reimburse their successors and their ecclesiastical retinues with no end in sight!!

The German news magazine, Der Spiegel, has looked into this and their video presents some classic moments. When a spokesman for the Lutheran Church is asked why the state should still pay his and everyone else's salaries he gets flustered and, in order to try to think of a reason, leaves the room for over 20 minutes. On the other hand, when asked the same question, the Catholic brother of the Pope, Monsignor Ratzinger, calmly replies "Why not?"

Here is the video from Der Speigal magazine, but it is in German so most of the written translation is below:

http://www.concordatwatch.eu/topic-41971.843 This is an English translation of the gist of the German video

[rahabnruth]

always appalling