Since just before summer it came to light that a Belgian bishop had been abusing his nephew throughout his career of spreading the love, 1.000s of Belgians are 'de-baptising' themselves online too, through a humanist site (ontdoping.be). The Belgian church is supposed to make a note of this in their baptism records, but no-one really knows if they do.
As it happens, just this week, the Belgian archbishop released a book from which a single quote has made the media: "Aids has in it a kind of immanent justice". Off course this quote was designed to polarise and shock, as well as divert the attention from the pedo-scandal. Only now politicians are reacting by asking to review the church tax system, which is a system installed by Napoleon, and still in effect many countries that have been at some time under Napoleontic rule, ie. half of Europe.
We don't have a percentage in our personal taxes reserved for religion, instead the state is responsible for the upkeep of all church buildings and church staff wages. And since Napoleon was a Catholic, only the Catholic church has these benefits. The word in parliament is now to change our tax declaration to mention how much we want to give to which church. My guess is if this passes as law, only some religious extremists will give them any money. For my part, they could make all religious organisations self-sufficient. Pity that y'all don't speak dutch cause we have a much more fun word for this: zelf-bedruipend: literally, let them drip on theirselves.
I believe this = Even though I don't know, I pretend this to be true
