Seeing the Image of God
21 hours ago
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Monday, May 04, 2026
Thursday, November 13, 2025
Friday, August 29, 2025
Germany is rearming, with potentially huge implications
...Across Germany, both politicians and members of the public have been going through a similar transformation. The country’s army, officially named the Bundeswehr — which translates as “federal defense” — was established by the United States during the Cold War. It was designed to support NATO rather than ever lead a conflict, for fear that a German military could be misused as it was during World War II. This supporting role suited Germany’s leaders: Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the country’s politicians carefully shaped an image of a peaceful nation that prefers influencing global politics through trade and diplomacy. After the end of the Cold War the Bundeswehr began scaling down, with military spending falling from a high of 4.9 percent of GDP in 1963 to just 1.1 percent in 2005.
But in the months following the Russian invasion, then-chancellor Olaf Scholz surprised the world by announcing a radical change in German foreign policy, including a €100 billion ($116 billion) plan to beef up its army. Then in early 2025, five days after the February election of new chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Donald Trump invited Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky into the Oval Office for a browbeating broadcast around the world that signaled his lack of interest in standing up to Russia. A shocked Merz, who had campaigned on a platform of low taxes and low spending, immediately agreed with Scholz to work together to reform the country’s strict borrowing laws — which were embedded in the constitution — and build up its defense capabilities as quickly as possible with a €1 trillion loan, which amounts to about 25 percent of the country’s GDP. According to Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this type of defense spending was previously unheard of during peacetime. “Countries that spend this much are usually those at war, or autocratic states that don’t have democratic oversight,” he said.
The following month, Germany’s lawmakers voted to back the plan, setting the country’s military on track to be the best-funded in Europe and the fourth-biggest in the world. In Merz’s view, Europe didn’t just need to arm itself against Russian aggression, but also “achieve independence from the USA.” Later in the year, NATO members would agree to raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, at Trump’s behest.
Read the rest here.
This is a longish read, but very good.
Sunday, June 08, 2025
Germany May Revive the Draft
BERLIN — Germany may need to turn to compulsory measures to get more soldiers into the ranks of its depleted military, say senior lawmakers from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives.
The government is drafting legislation to revitalize a shrinking Bundeswehr, but so far efforts to recruit more troops have relied on voluntary measures. Now, senior conservative lawmakers are warning that may have to be backed up by a return to the draft.
“If it turns out that the significant personnel needs for a Bundeswehr capable of defense and deterrence, especially in light of the new NATO plans, cannot be met through a purely voluntary model, compulsory elements will have to be introduced,” said Thomas Erndl, who represents the Christian Democrats on the parliamentary defense committee.
Read the rest here.
Monday, March 31, 2025
Friday, March 21, 2025
Worth a read...
Facing a suddenly hostile US; Europe turns to Germany and Berlin steps up...
Meanwhile Russia continues its campaign of disruption...
Moscow and Beijing rejoice at the imminent demise of Radio Free Europe and VOA...
Four conservative columnists discuss Trump's enduring popularity on the right...
On the huge run-up in gold...
(I agree in part, but also think there is more to the story. Gold has always marched to the beat of its own drum. Geopolitical and US specific political tensions, and the out of control US debt are all contributing. Also there has been a voracious demand for gold coming from other parts of the world, notably China.)
Europe sees opportunity in Trump’s economic chaos...
The weird world of anti-vaxxers...
Tesla owners are trading in their EVs at record levels...
How Republicans Learned to Love High Prices...
Monday, July 08, 2024
Is Germany’s church tax ‘miracle’ over?
Each year, the journalist Peter Winnemöller noted, hundreds of thousands of people formally left the Catholic Church in Germany. But year after year, church tax income continued to grow.
But what Winnemöller facetiously called the “Kirchensteuerwunder” — the church tax miracle — may be over.
The German bishops’ conference announced July 8 that church tax revenue was 6.51 billion euros (around $7 billion) in 2023.
That’s a lot, of course, but it marked a 5% drop on the year before, when church tax income was a record 6.84 billion euros (roughly $7.4 billion).
What exactly is the church tax? How is the so-called miracle even possible? And is it truly coming to an end?
For many Catholics outside of Germany, the idea of a church tax is bizarre. But within Germany, it’s a largely unquestioned feature of Catholic life.
It’s telling that while Germany’s controversial “synodal way” produced 150 pages of resolutions calling for radical changes to Catholic teachings and practices, it did not offer a single proposal for reform of the Kirchensteuer.
A cynic might say that’s because the tax helps to keep afloat the lay Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), which co-sponsored the synodal way alongside Germany’s bishops.
Perhaps, but it might simply be that few can imagine an alternative to a system that is rooted in the medieval practice of tithing but took on its present form in 1919.
In Germany today, religious communities that are corporations under public law have a right to levy taxes on their members.
Every person in Germany — including foreigners — who says they are Catholic on an official registration form must pay an 8-9% surcharge on top of their income tax liability, depending on the state in which they live.
This sum is collected directly from employees’ paychecks on the Church’s behalf by the state authorities, which claim roughly 3% of the total revenue.
The only way for baptized Catholics to opt out of the system is to declare formally that they are leaving the Church, after which they are told they may no longer receive the sacraments, hold Church posts, or serve as baptismal or confirmation sponsors.
Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe
Note: To the best of my knowledge, Orthodox Christians are not subject to the church tax in Germany.
Friday, December 08, 2023
Monday, January 23, 2023
Tanks for Ukraine: American or German?
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
The Catholic Church in Germany Has Gone Off the Rails
Most of the clergy, including its bishops, are openly promoting heresy. Meanwhile the Vatican appears to be unable or unwilling to act. In the face of the present crisis, with the German church in open revolt against not just Catholic, but basic Christian orthodoxy, and the Holy See paralyzed; (small 'o') orthodox Roman Catholic bishops around the world should take steps to contain the cancer. They should warn Rome in no uncertain terms to do its job or they will take emergency measures on their own authority. Such measures should include declaring a state of impaired communion with the bishops and clergy in Germany until they recant.
Tuesday, August 03, 2021
Some people collect stamps or old coins; others...
A German pensioner who kept a Second World War Nazi tank in his basement for over 30 years was given a 14-month suspended jail sentence and fined €50,000 (£43,000) on Tuesday.
The 84-year-old, named only as Klaus-Dieter F under German privacy laws, admitted breaking the country’s War Weapons Control Act in a plea bargain to avoid being sent to prison.
He also agreed to pay a further €200,000 (£170,000) to charity under the terms of the deal.
As well as a 1943 Panther tank, he also kept an 88mm anti-aircraft gun, a torpedo, a mortar, 70 assault rifles and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition in the basement of his private villa in Heikendorf, a wealthy suburb of Kiel in northern Germany.
Prosecutors stumbled on the remarkable trove of weapons when they searched his home looking for stolen Nazi artworks after a tip-off in 2015.
Read the rest here.
Monday, May 10, 2021
Germany's Catholic Church is Schismatic in All But Name
If the German Catholics possessed a shred of honesty they would just join the Anglican Communion or the Lutherans. But they don't, and the only man in Rome who can put a stop to this is pretty obviously in their corner.
The crisis in the Roman Church is dangerously close to reaching a tipping point. The problem of course, is that Catholic ecclesiology has no contingency plan for when the church is overrun by heretics and the Pope is one of them.
Thursday, May 06, 2021
German Clergy Defy Vatican On Gay Blessings
Catholic clergy are preparing to bless gay couples across Germany in defiance of a recent Vatican ban on the practice, in the latest sign of how far liberal German Catholics are pushing the boundaries of the Vatican’s authority and teachings to forge a more progressive version of their church.
Priests and some lay ministers are planning coordinated ceremonies blessing gay relationships in about 100 Catholic churches and other venues in Germany, including Essen Cathedral, over the next few days, most of them on Monday. Almost 20 events will be live-streamed.
Such blessings have become common over the past decade in Germany and some other parts of Northern Europe, but they have usually taken place quietly, in places other than churches. Monday’s highly visible ceremonies will mark a protest against a Vatican declaration in March, approved by Pope Francis, prohibiting the blessing of same-sex relationships on the grounds that God “cannot bless sin.”
“It always has been a little bit kind of a secret,” said the Rev. Christian Olding, a Catholic priest in the northwestern town of Geldern, who says he has blessed about 10 same-sex couples in the past eight years. “This is the first time that we are going this way in society, to do it visibly for everyone.”
Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has contended with deepening divisions in the global Catholic Church between conservatives, including in the U.S. and Africa—who are uncomfortable with his more liberal approach to matters including divorce and homosexuality—and progressives, with Germany in the vanguard, who are impatient with what they see as a reluctance to back substantive change.
The prohibition of gay blessings by the Vatican’s doctrinal office was seen in Germany as an example of that resistance to change. Vatican officials are anxious about a national synod of German Catholics, under way since last year, that is debating a number of overhauls, including the ordination of women, greater roles for laypeople in church governance, and the revision of church teaching on homosexuality.
Conservative bishops in Germany, the U.S. and elsewhere have warned that such changes could lead to a schism in the universal church. Pope Francis and Vatican officials have more than once admonished German church leaders not to go their own way.
The German synod “is an instrument to adapt the teaching of the Catholic Church to the demands of the Western world that has largely fallen away from God. It neither respects the apostolic tradition nor seems to care about the majority of faithful believers in the universal church,” said Gabriele Kuby, a German writer and sociologist.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Concerns over the Catholic Church in Germany grow
VATICAN CITY — As reports emerged recently of Pope Francis’ “dramatic concern” about the state of the Catholic Church in Germany and news that he received Germany’s apostolic nuncio for private talks on Monday, the country’s bishops pressed ahead on their goal of shared Communion with Protestants despite strong objections from the Vatican.
The leaders of both churches said their intercommunion proposal “still needs to be clarified” even though the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said last month that differences in the Catholic and Protestant understanding of the Eucharist were “still so grave” that they ruled out attendance at each other’s services.
The increasing divergence between Rome and the German bishops, amplified by the ongoing Synodal Path — a two-year reform program of German bishops and laity that questions some of the Church’s established teaching on faith and morals — demonstrates the real dangers of the Church in Germany one day breaking with Rome.
In September, a leading German prelate raised the possibility of schism for the first time.
Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne warned that the “worst outcome would be if the Synodal Path leads to schism” and that the “worst thing” would be if a “German national church were to be created here.”
Such a prospect is something Pope Francis appears increasingly concerned about, despite his own efforts to grant more autonomy to bishops’ conferences on doctrinal matters which critics have warned has sowed the seeds of a kind of “doctrinal anarchy” in the Church.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
German [Catholic] bishops’ working doc calls for approval of contraception, homosexuality, women’s ordination
January 29, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The working documents in preparation for the assemblies of the German bishops’ “Synodal Path” defend the use of contraception, the practice of masturbation, and an active homosexual lifestyle. Additionally, neither the question of the ordination of women nor that of making celibacy optional for priests is taken off the table.
In 2019, four panels of experts were preparing working documents to serve as the basis for discussion among the participants of the Synodal Path, a process that begins Jan. 30. A careful study of those four documents reveals that the Church in Germany would, in fact, be reinvented, in spite of claims to the contrary made by Cardinal Reinhard Marx.
The head of the German Bishops’ Conference had stated in an interview that the Synodal Path does not want to “reinvent the Church.” With the first assembly being scheduled for the end of January and the beginning of February, the two-year long “Synodal Path” is focusing on sexual morality, the lifestyle of priests, women in the Church, and the abuse of power. The working documents essentially follow the agenda of Professor Eberhard Schockenhoff to loosen the Church's moral teaching, which he outlined for the German bishops at their conference last March.
The working document’s chapter dealing with sexual morality is revealingly titled, “On the further development of Catholic teaching on sexuality.” The document demands sexual morality must develop “on the basis of insights of the human sciences, including the life experience […] of (faithful) loving people.”
The document describes that relying on the human sciences, namely “psychology, sociology, anthropology,” would open up the many prohibitions of sexual morality as proposed by the teaching authority of the Church, “which sees sexual activity only within marriage, and still directed strongly towards procreation.”
Consequently, the document justifies the use of contraception, the practice of masturbation, and an active homosexual lifestyle.
Read the rest here.
In 2019, four panels of experts were preparing working documents to serve as the basis for discussion among the participants of the Synodal Path, a process that begins Jan. 30. A careful study of those four documents reveals that the Church in Germany would, in fact, be reinvented, in spite of claims to the contrary made by Cardinal Reinhard Marx.
The head of the German Bishops’ Conference had stated in an interview that the Synodal Path does not want to “reinvent the Church.” With the first assembly being scheduled for the end of January and the beginning of February, the two-year long “Synodal Path” is focusing on sexual morality, the lifestyle of priests, women in the Church, and the abuse of power. The working documents essentially follow the agenda of Professor Eberhard Schockenhoff to loosen the Church's moral teaching, which he outlined for the German bishops at their conference last March.
The working document’s chapter dealing with sexual morality is revealingly titled, “On the further development of Catholic teaching on sexuality.” The document demands sexual morality must develop “on the basis of insights of the human sciences, including the life experience […] of (faithful) loving people.”
The document describes that relying on the human sciences, namely “psychology, sociology, anthropology,” would open up the many prohibitions of sexual morality as proposed by the teaching authority of the Church, “which sees sexual activity only within marriage, and still directed strongly towards procreation.”
Consequently, the document justifies the use of contraception, the practice of masturbation, and an active homosexual lifestyle.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Meanwhile in Germany
The German Catholic bishops have agreed that their church has been wrong about a few things.
Details.
But not to worry. There are no doctrinal differences between Orthodoxy and Rome.
Details.
But not to worry. There are no doctrinal differences between Orthodoxy and Rome.
Monday, December 09, 2019
Germany's hard-Left 'Corbyn problem' is only just beginning
Germany has a giant "Corbyn problem" of its own. The Social Democrat base has been captured by hard-Left youth activists and has repudiated the core policy positions of the party leadership and Germany’s post-war consensus.
The difference is that the venerable SPD is not in opposition. It is for the time being the second pillar of Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition, with "co-determination" powers over economic policy and the strategic direction of Europe.
The weekend "revolution" of the SPD congress saw vows to reverse the free-market Hartz IV labour reforms of the Gerhard Schroder era and embrace a 2pc wealth tax, doubling down on a tax experiment abandoned in the 1990s as unworkable and economically destructive.
The SPD delegates voted for a rent freeze in the big cities, a stretch in unemployment benefits to 36 months, a 30pc rise in the minimum wage, and a much higher carbon tax.
They want to abandon the "black zero" straightjacket of a balanced budget and launch a fiscal blitz of 1.5 million units of social housing, with €45bn of extra infrastructure and investment spending (1.2pc of GDP) every year for the next decade.
Peter Ramsauer from the Bavarian Social Christians (CSU) called it a “fantasy socialist wishlist” that renders the coalition effectively impossible. “A wealth tax will drive productive capital out of the country. The SPD will ruin itself first, and then the German economy,” he said.
Read the rest here.
The difference is that the venerable SPD is not in opposition. It is for the time being the second pillar of Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition, with "co-determination" powers over economic policy and the strategic direction of Europe.
The weekend "revolution" of the SPD congress saw vows to reverse the free-market Hartz IV labour reforms of the Gerhard Schroder era and embrace a 2pc wealth tax, doubling down on a tax experiment abandoned in the 1990s as unworkable and economically destructive.
The SPD delegates voted for a rent freeze in the big cities, a stretch in unemployment benefits to 36 months, a 30pc rise in the minimum wage, and a much higher carbon tax.
They want to abandon the "black zero" straightjacket of a balanced budget and launch a fiscal blitz of 1.5 million units of social housing, with €45bn of extra infrastructure and investment spending (1.2pc of GDP) every year for the next decade.
Peter Ramsauer from the Bavarian Social Christians (CSU) called it a “fantasy socialist wishlist” that renders the coalition effectively impossible. “A wealth tax will drive productive capital out of the country. The SPD will ruin itself first, and then the German economy,” he said.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
For whom does this bell toll?
The church is described as Protestant which I am sort of assuming means Lutheran. After a rather heated debate that has drawn global interest (and commentary) they appear to have decided to leave the bell alone for now although there are plans to add some kind of plaque.
I am not unsympathetic to the conflicting views. After the war, first the Allies and then both East (Communist) and West Germany went on something of a campaign to eradicate monuments and buildings that it was feared might serve as some kind of rallying point for Nazi sympathizers. Laws were passed that forbade the public display of Nazi symbols and salutes. While a few structures with ties to the Third Reich survive, most were demolished or at least had any symbols stripped away.
But it has been almost three quarters of a century since the end of the war and many Germans are wondering if it isn't time to approach their past with out the kind of fear that, justifiably IMO, motivated their parents and grandparents to eradicate almost all physical reminders of that evil regime.
The options considered in this case were to leave the bell alone, move it to some kind of museum or simply melt it down. While I understand the emotional argument in favor of destroying the bell, I think its historical value would make some kind of preservation desirable. But as a Christian (forget Orthodox for the moment), I cannot conceive worshiping in a church with a Nazi bell ringing. It just beggars the imagination. The swastika along with the hammer and sickle are the two political symbols that I most closely associate with the demonic. To me it simply has no place in a church.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
The New German Catholic Bible is... problematic
GERMANY, September 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — The German Bishops have presented a new “Unified Translation” of the Bible that follows a significant modernization of the language and will be binding for all German-speaking areas starting in 2017.
On Tuesday, the German Bishops Conference (DBK) presented in Fulda the fruit of many years of scientific work: a new edition of the so-called “Unified Translation” (Einheitsübersetzung) of the Bible into German. It’s called “unified” because, from the original published from 1962 onward, these editions are supposed to be used ecumenically, unifying Catholics and Protestants in Germany. The original aim, however, was thwarted in 2005 when Protestants reverted to the Luther translation.
The leader of the research project was the bishop (now emeritus) of Erfurt, Joachim Wanke, who explained that the new edition is a “moderate revision” of the older text. Wanke added that a translation is always also an interpretation. The new edition shows more “braveness” to present “biblical jargon,” he said, reported by kath.net.
According to Jewish tradition, the personal names of God cannot be pronounced, so “Yahweh” is substituted by “Lord” in the new edition. In fact, every paragraph has a change, explained Michael Theobald, president of the German Bible Association.
When the apostle Paul calls two new followers, they are not two men anymore, Andronicus and Junias; rather, a new discovery showed that apparently it was one man and one woman, hence Andronicus and Junia. This led to the discussion that the word “apostle” must be applied to women as well as men (Author’s note: In German, different genders of the word exist and usually gender-ideologists insist on using male and female forms).
Other changes are more ideological.
Most frightening is the change to the iconic Isaiah passage (7:14): “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son” (NIV) will now read: “The virgin has conceived and gives birth to a son.” The change seems to suggest that the virgin is not at all a virgin anymore (after having conceived) and at the same time removes the prophetic impetus by putting the words from the future into the past. This trend continues and a note from the translators explains that the Hebrew word “almáh” means “young woman” instead of “virgin,” as it has been reported. This change goes back to an old — and refuted — disputation of Hebrew apologists:
Read the rest here.
On Tuesday, the German Bishops Conference (DBK) presented in Fulda the fruit of many years of scientific work: a new edition of the so-called “Unified Translation” (Einheitsübersetzung) of the Bible into German. It’s called “unified” because, from the original published from 1962 onward, these editions are supposed to be used ecumenically, unifying Catholics and Protestants in Germany. The original aim, however, was thwarted in 2005 when Protestants reverted to the Luther translation.
The leader of the research project was the bishop (now emeritus) of Erfurt, Joachim Wanke, who explained that the new edition is a “moderate revision” of the older text. Wanke added that a translation is always also an interpretation. The new edition shows more “braveness” to present “biblical jargon,” he said, reported by kath.net.
According to Jewish tradition, the personal names of God cannot be pronounced, so “Yahweh” is substituted by “Lord” in the new edition. In fact, every paragraph has a change, explained Michael Theobald, president of the German Bible Association.
When the apostle Paul calls two new followers, they are not two men anymore, Andronicus and Junias; rather, a new discovery showed that apparently it was one man and one woman, hence Andronicus and Junia. This led to the discussion that the word “apostle” must be applied to women as well as men (Author’s note: In German, different genders of the word exist and usually gender-ideologists insist on using male and female forms).
Other changes are more ideological.
Most frightening is the change to the iconic Isaiah passage (7:14): “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son” (NIV) will now read: “The virgin has conceived and gives birth to a son.” The change seems to suggest that the virgin is not at all a virgin anymore (after having conceived) and at the same time removes the prophetic impetus by putting the words from the future into the past. This trend continues and a note from the translators explains that the Hebrew word “almáh” means “young woman” instead of “virgin,” as it has been reported. This change goes back to an old — and refuted — disputation of Hebrew apologists:
Read the rest here.
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