[recursinging]

The village I live in has a "Kloster", with nuns making up about 15% of our population. The article is accurate in that the number of practicing nuns is sinking and certainly not sustainable.

Here they have diversified in a number of directions. There is a school, an old folks home, and a hotel. The picturesque location, combined with the historic buildings makes all these quite competitive, and successful. I'd go so far as to say the church here is thriving despite the declining popularity of dedicating your life to it.

[pluma]

Keep in mind that in Germany these "church operated" services are heavily subsidised by the German state via regular taxes (not the "church tax" registered church members pay directly to their church via the tax office). In some cases this can be as much as 100% of the operating costs and salaries (although the business is operated in accordance with church labor laws rather than secular laws, allowing e.g. certain forms of discrimination and removing certain protections).

Maintaining churches, monasteries and church operated services is almost never about finances.

[wsy]

This description is a bit misleading:

- School: Germany mostly has public schools. If you have operated a private school for a few years, you can apply for subsidy. You will receive roughly the amount per pupil that would otherwise be needed to fund the pupil's place at a public school. So this is more or less a zero-sum game for the state. All schools have to obey public school regulations (e.g., on curriculum and exams) regardless who operates them.

- Elderly home: there is no direct subsidy by the state. Germany has established a mandatory insurance ("Pflegeversicherung", nursing care insurance). This insurance will pay for nursing care, regardless who operates the elderly home.

- Hotel: no subsidy by the state at all.

Summarized, there exists no special deal by the state for church operated services, with respect to funding/subsidy.

[idoubtit]

From Wikidepia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax#Germany

About 70% of church revenues come from church tax (Kirchensteuer). This is about €9.2 billion (in 2010).

[wsy]

This is correct, but also needs to be put into context. You only pay church tax if you are member of one of the churches eligible to collect taxes via the German state tax system. Non-Members don't pay church taxes. So there is again no subsidy involved (except that churces save administration costs because they can use the public tax collection system for free).

[pluma]

I'm talking about hospitals and other officially church operated institutions:

http://humanist.de/kirchensteuer/krankenhaeuser.html

Hospitals and elderly homes are NOT primarily financed by the insurance of their patients. Public hospitals are funded by the government. Church operated hospitals are funded by the government AND the church, with churches often paying the smaller share. Additionally churches themselves as public organisations receive public subsidies when providing public services, so even the money they do pay into operating these services partially comes from the state.

But in some cases the state literally subsidises the clergy directly:

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/spardebatte-staat... (€ 442 million paid for clergy wages based on a contract from 1803 that was meant to reimburse the Catholic church for lands that were claimed by the state to prop up the aristocracy -- note that this contract with no expiration date was between the Catholic Church and the German Empire, not modern Germany)

Also, "Germany mostly has public schools" -- yes, but child care is often operated by churches while being mostly funded publicly. Note that "Kindergärten" are often considered part of the school system (but definitions for pre-primary education are hazy so I admit I should have clarified).

The point is that the "special deal" church operated services get compared to regular public services is that they get to apply church law, which is uniquely privileged to override common labor protection and anti-discrimination laws. As a "user" they appear almost indistinguishable from non-church operated public services.

[wsy]

I agree with your last point: church institutions are privileged in that some jobs in these institutions are exempt from some labor laws.

Since a recent court decision, this exemption is now quite limited (https://efarbeitsrecht.net/kirchliche-arbeitgeber/, unfortunately only in German).