Faith-based welfare: Links

From birth to death many Germans depend on social services which, while paid for by the taxpayer, are run by the Church. These accounts of ordinary Germans show what it means to live in the shadow of Canon (Church) Law. This code of religious law regulates the institutions where they may have to seek jobs or help, and they must accept any its interference in their private lives without complaint, or risk being unemployed.

In Germany the churches themselves determine the labour regulations of their 1.3 million employees. That’s what the Constitution says. Factory committee? Employee participation? The right to strike? No way.

German law opts for "church autonomy", rather than "separation of church and state". This has been interpreted by the Constitutional Court to mean that the churches are free to run huge enterprises (at public expense) where the state's employment laws do not apply, and the churches are free to make their own. This can mean that their employees can legally be fired if their personal lives don't conform to the church ethos.

In this important essay, available in English for the first time, Dr. Carsten Frerk, an authority on the subject, reveals the vast, but little-known network of church-run social services in Germany. As the country has handed over more and more of its social welfare obligations to religious organisations, the German taxpayer has been left to foot the bill.
Also 3 related articles:
   ● Church-run home for the aged goes to court for an inheritance 
   ● Church labour law versus the Antidiscrimination Law
   ● How Caritas and the Diakonisches Werk began