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