Catholic Church in Germany
The Catholic Church in Germany or Roman Catholic Church in Germany is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope, assisted by the Roman Curia, and with the German bishops. The current "Speaker" of the episcopal conference is Georg Bätzing, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Limburg. It is divided into 27 dioceses, 7 of them with the rank of metropolitan sees.
File:Konfessionen-in-Deutschland.svg|thumb|left|upright|Map with traditionally Catholic states in green and Lutheran states in red
Growing rejection of the Church has had its impact in Germany; nevertheless, 23.7% of the total population remain Roman Catholic. Before the 1990 reunification of Germany by accession of the former German Democratic Republic, Roman Catholics were 42% of the population of West Germany. Religious demographic data is relatively accessible in Germany because, by law, all Christian taxpayers must declare their religious affiliation so that the church tax can be deducted by the state and passed on to the relevant church in the state where the taxpayer lives.
Apart from its demographic weight, the Catholic Church in Germany has an old religious and cultural heritage, which reaches back to both Saint Boniface, the "Apostle of Germany" and the first Archbishop of Mainz, buried in Fulda, and to Charlemagne, buried at Aachen Cathedral.
File:Maria_Laach-16-2007-gje.jpg|thumb|View of Maria Laach Abbey in Glees, Rhineland-Palatinate.
Notable religious sites include structures from the Carolingian era to modern buildings. A cursory list may name Quedlinburg, Maria Laach, Erfurt Cathedral, Eberbach, Lorsch Abbey with its remnant 'Torhalle', one of the oldest structures in Germany, Reichenau, Maulbronn, Weingarten, Banz and Vierzehnheiligen on the opposite hill, the Wieskirche, Ettal, Fürstenfeld, Sacred Heart in Munich, Altötting and many more. Oberammergau is famous for the Passion Play staged every ten years.
The Catholic Church in Germany also boasts one of the country's most recognizable landmarks, Cologne Cathedral.
Other notable Roman Catholic cathedrals are in Aachen with the throne and tomb of Charlemagne, Augsburg, Bamberg, Berlin with the crypt of Bernhard Lichtenberg, Dresden, proto-Romanesque Hildesheim, Frankfurt with the coronation church of the old Reich's Emperors, Freiburg, Freising, Fulda, Limburg which was depicted on the reverse of the old 500 Deutschmark banknote, Mainz with St. Martin's Cathedral, Munich Frauenkirche with its onion domes and giant single roof, Münster, Paderborn, Passau, Regensburg, Speyer with its Rhenish Imperial cathedral, and Trier with the oldest church in the country.
The country has a total of about 24,500 Church buildings including many additional religious landmarks:
abbeys, minsters, basilicas, pilgrimage churches, chapels, and converted former cathedrals, built in a profusion of different layouts and styles, from Romanesque to post-modern. Many are listed as World Heritage Sites.
History of Catholicism in Germany
Christianization of the Germans
The earliest stage of the conversion of the various Celtic people and Germanic people to Christianity occurred only in the western part of Germany, the part controlled by the Roman Empire. Christianization was facilitated by the prestige of the Christian Roman Empire amongst its pagan subjects and was achieved gradually by various means. The rise of Germanic Christianity was at times voluntary, particularly among groups associated with the Roman Empire. Aspects of primæval pagan religion have persisted to this day, including the names of the days of the week.As Roman rule crumbled in Germany in the 5th century, this phase of Catholicism in Germany came to an end with it. At first, the Gallo-Roman or Germano-Roman populations were able to retain control over big cities such as Cologne and Trier, but in 459 these too were overwhelmed by the attacks of Frankish tribes. Most of the Gallo-Romans or Germano-Romans were killed or exiled. The newcomers to the towns reestablished the observance of the pagan rites. The small remaining Catholic population was powerless to protect its faith against the new ruling Frankish lords.
But as soon as 496, Frankish King Clovis I was baptized together with many members of his household. In contrast to the eastern German tribes, who became Arian Christians, he became a Catholic. Following the example of their king, many Franks were baptized too, but their Catholicism was intermixed with pagan rites.
Over the next eight centuries, Irish, Scottish, and English missionaries reintroduced Christianity into the German territories. During the period of the Frankish Empire, the two most important of these missionaries were Columbanus, who was active in the Frankish Empire from 590, and St. Boniface, who was active from 716. The missionaries, particularly the Scottish Benedictines, founded monasteries in Germany, which were later combined into a single congregation governed by the Abbot of the Scots monastery at Regensburg. The conversion of the Germanic peoples began with the conversion of the Germanic nobility, who were expected to impose their new faith on the general population. This expectation was consistent with the sacral position of the king in Germanic paganism: the king is charged with interacting with the divine on behalf of his people. Hence the general population saw nothing wrong with their kings choosing their preferred mode of worship. The favoured method of showing the supremacy of the Christian belief was the destruction of the holy trees of the Germans. These were trees, usually old oaks or elm trees, dedicated to the gods. Because the missionary was able to destroy the trees without being slain by the gods, his Christian god had to be stronger.
The pagan sacrifices, known as blót, had been seasonal celebrations where gifts were offered to appropriate gods and attempts were made to forecast what the coming season would be like. Similar events had sometimes been convened in times of crisis, for much the same reasons. The sacrifices, consisting of gold, weapons, animals, and even human beings, were hung on the branches of a holy tree.
The Hiberno-Scottish mission ended in the 13th century. Supported by native Christians, they succeeded in Christianizing all of Germany.
Catholicism as the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire
In medieval times, Catholicism was the only official religion within the Holy Roman Empire. Within the empire the Catholic Church was a major power. Large parts of the territory were ruled by ecclesiastical lords. Three of the seven seats in the council of electors of the Holy Roman Emperors were occupied by Catholic archbishops: the Arch-chancellor of Burgundy, the Arch-chancellor of Italy, and the Arch-chancellor of Germany. The Holy Roman Emperor could only become such through coronation by the Pope.The Protestant Reformation
Burghers and monarchs were united in their frustration at the Catholic Church not paying any taxes to secular states while itself collecting taxes from subjects and sending the revenues disproportionately to Italy. Martin Luther denounced the Pope for involvement in politics, and instigated the Protestant Reformation. Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms justified the confiscation of church property and the crushing of the Great Peasant Revolt of 1525 by the German nobles. This explains the attraction of some territorial princes to Lutheranism. Along with confiscated Catholic church property, ecclesiastical dominions became the personal property of the holder of the formerly religious office, for the right to rule was attached to this office.On 25 September 1555, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and the forces of the Schmalkaldic League signed the Peace of Augsburg to officially end the religious wars between the Catholics and the Protestants. This treaty legalized the partitioning of the Holy Roman Empire into Catholic and Protestant territories. Under the treaty, the religion of the ruler determined the religion of his subjects. This policy is widely referred to by the Latin phrase, cuius regio, eius religio. Families were given a period in which they were free to emigrate to regions where their desired religion prevailed.
The religious intolerance and tensions within the Holy Roman Empire were one of the reasons for the Thirty Years' War, which devastated most of Germany and killed eight million people, many of those within the Empire dying from disease and famine.
Secularization of church states in the aftermath of the French Revolution
In the war of the First Coalition, revolutionary France defeated the coalition of Prussia, Austria, Spain, and Britain. One result was the cession of the Rhineland to France by the Treaty of Basel in 1795. Six years later, the Concordat of 1801, an agreement between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII, was signed on 15 July 1801. Another two years later, in 1803, to compensate the princes of the annexed territories, a set of mediatizations was carried out, which brought about a major redistribution of territorial sovereignty within the Empire. At that time, large parts of Germany were still ruled by Catholic bishops. In the mediatizations, the ecclesiastical states were by and large annexed to neighbouring secular principalities. Only three survived a tide of secularization as theocracies: the Archbishopric of Regensburg, which was raised from a bishopric with the incorporation of the Archbishopric of Mainz, and the lands of the Teutonic Knights and Knights of Saint John.Monasteries and abbeys lost their means of existence as they had to abandon their lands. Paradoxically, the losses in church land and property made the national or local churches in Germany more dependent on Rome. This shift in the 1850s was sustained by a more zealous clergy, the revival of old teaching orders, the emergence of Marian confraternities, new religious congregations of men and women, and the holding of popular missions.