Oh that's brilliant. German layman will take it from an Italian academic not to pay taxes. But studiously avoid taking a stand on the problem he himself identifies as "That of the Two Popes."

Whose side are you on, Professore?

De Mattei accuses the German Church of simony: “whoever subordinates the sacramental life to the payment of a tax falls into the sin of simony (Acts 8: 5-24), the selling of spiritual goods that has characterized all the ages of great crises in the Church.” He furthermore opines that “paying the Kirchensteuer means directly cooperating in the process of secularization of the Church in Germany and in the world that the German bishops promote on the ideological level and support on the financial level”.