[count-your-change]

It's entirely about pay for service.
Those who chose not to be taxed (not refuse support for their church) must declare they are no longer Catholic as a recent German court ruled against a man who wanted to remain a church member but not pay the tax.

The tax is voluntary in same way income tax payment in the U.S. is voluntary. One has to renounce citizenship to opt out of it.

Here is how a German Catholic bishop described it:

“WARSAW, Poland — The German bishops’ conference defended a controversial decree that said Catholics who stop paying a church membership tax cannot receive sacraments.
“There must be consequences for people who distance themselves from the church by a public act,” said Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, conference president, in defending the Sept. 20 decree.
“Clearly, someone withdrawing from the church can no longer take advantage of the system like someone who remains a member,” he said at a news conference Monday as the bishops began a four-day meeting in Fulda. “We are grateful Rome has given completely clear approval to our stance.”
(National Catholic Reporter online)

Not paying the tax is “withdrawing from the church”. Payment for services rendered.

The widow put her mite in the collection box without a Roman tax collector or threat of being denied anything. Jesus said to his disciples, “you received free give free”.

Or doesn't that apply?

“It's about people declaring themselves to be non-Catholics, then demanding, what? A sacrament they don't believe in?”

It's about people being given the choice of declaring themselves non-Catholic or paying a tax.

[wideawake]

If you have no taxable income - i.e. are actually poor - and pay zero church tax, you are still welcome to the sacraments.

If you formally declare that you are not a Catholic and therefore are exempt from church tax, you should not expect that the Church you publicly renounced will recognize you as a member.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This whole tax system stinks, by the way. It’s an example of laïcité. Germany taxes you for being a member of a church (Catholic, Evangelical or whatever church you designate) and it incentivizes you to renounce your Faith by rewarding you financially for leaving.

But because of reliance on the uncomprehending and/or hostile secular press --- BBC and Reuters, for instance --- a whole lot of people are missing the point.

The whole debate got sparked by a lawyer trying to be removed from the tax register only but remain Catholic. The Bundesverwaltungsgericht ruled that's not possible. This is a link to that: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jSlD9TmctC-Jm-tR901L0ARw4WLw?docId=CNG.f4d4fec426309741ec996fb87c31f219.1101

So this is not something the bishops made up, it's something they are forced to do by German law.

It’s not about "pay to pray." Being an American citizen and Catholic, but not paying the Kirchensteuer since I'm not a German citizen, I can still receive Communion attending a Mass in Germany, or receive any Sacrament.

People who formally renounce their membership of the Catholic Church are no longer members, and formal defection is something a person can choose --- this is not Islam!

The conditions for a formal defection are described in detail the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts and may be read on its website. Note the following paragraph:

“The substance of the act of the will must be the rupture of those bonds of communion – faith, sacraments, and pastoral governance – that permit the Faithful to receive the life of grace within the Church. This means that the formal act of defection must have more than a juridical-administrative character (the removal of one’s name from a Church membership registry maintained by the government in order to produce certain civil consequences), but be configured as a true separation from the constitutive elements of the life of the Church: it supposes, therefore, an act of apostasy, heresy or schism.”

There it is, read with your own eyes: the removal of one's name from a tax register simply to avoid paying the religious tax is explicitly mentioned as not being sufficient for formal defection from the Catholic faith.

So, are the German bishops denying baptized Catholics the sacraments because they do not pay the tax? No. They can be denied he sacraments only for renouncing the faith. One must have the intention of rupturing one's communion with the Church by an act of apostasy, heresy or schism. This would have to be verified in each individual case.

In order to avoid the tax in Germany, you need to go to the church you belong to and ask to be removed from membership. You have to actually and personally renounce membership in the Catholic Church.

The Church must accept your announced withdrawal from the Sacramental life of the Church, and the German government will reward you for doing so. What could be clearer than that?

Anyone with an actual interest in this --- apart from aiding and abetting the secular media’s distortions --- should google Jimmy Akin, Sentire Cum Ecclesia, Ars Vivendi, the German Bishops Conference, or the comments of Dr Edward Peters.