I no sooner finished posting my last article on the subject of the church tax in Europe when I ran across this story on the Net.
The Norwegian Catholic Church has been fined for overstating the number of its members in an attempt to receive more state funding.
The church is accused of looking for immigrants with names that would suggest they were of Catholic origin and adding them to the list of members without their knowledge.
Prosecutors have given the Diocese of Oslo, responsible for keeping records of Catholics living in the country, a one million kroner (Euro 95,000) fine.
"We've never done anything illegal or received too much money," a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Oslo stated. "We have always recognized that we have made mistakes and had an unfortunate practice in parts of our registration. This was cleaned up a long (time) ago." The Church claimed that, from 2004, there was an increase in immigration from Catholic countries such as Poland and these members were not registered.
In Norway, the state finances religious groups in accordance with the number of members by way of a church tax imposed on all its citizens.
Separately from the fine, the Norwegian state is demanding the Diocese of Oslo repay the 40.6 million kroner (Euro 3.8 million), which was overpaid to it by the government.
Many believe that there should be a total separation of church in state in terms of governance and structure. I agree.
What do you think?
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