God has high overhead costs - Who really pays for the church?

At Caritas and Diakonie, the Church itself now finances only about two percent of the budget; society covers 98 percent. The general public pays billions, but has no say in the matter. How do these sums come about? And what does the Church spend its own money, the church tax revenue, on? Bernadette K. was dismissed from her position as director of a Catholic kindergarten because she separated from her husband and moved in with a new partner. Adultery. A breach of loyalty to her employer, the Church decided, and fired her. Like Bernadette K., well over a million people work in social institutions for the churches—in kindergartens, hospitals, schools, and nursing homes. They are all subject to special labor laws. But where the church name is on the label, the state is often the primary force. Because the public largely pays for these Christian institutions. The kindergarten where Bernadette K. worked is 100 percent publicly funded. Author Eva Müller set out to investigate. She spoke with Bernadette K. and the church representatives who fired her, and she shows, using further examples from around the country, what special rights the church has, where the church gets its money from and what it does with it.