Writing in German for the humanist news site hpd, Sebastian Schnelle argues that the Catholic Church's special labour law in Germany is losing its legal and social footing. He discusses two cases the European Court of Justice sent back to the Federal Labour Court: a Caritas counsellor dismissed after her husband left the church, while Protestant colleagues did the same job, and a choir director fired although the vacancy only asked for church membership in general.

Schnelle notes that Catholics are now about 23 percent of Germans, while over 40 million are non-religious. In his view, putting institutional loyalty above qualifications protects dependency, not freedom. For freethinkers it is a sharp case of how far religious privilege still reaches into ordinary jobs paid largely with public money.

Source: Sebastian Schnelle, hpd (German) (2026-11-10)
https://hpd.de/artikel/morsche-fundament-des-kirchenarbeitsrechts-24553

Summarised by the FTI newsdesk.