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From: covert@castor.DEC (John Covert)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: School prayer (and other establishment of religion)
Message-ID: <6577@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Mar-84 01:10:36 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.6577
Posted: Thu Mar 29 01:10:36 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Mar-84 02:15:07 EST
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 17

When I was a student in the Free State of Bavaria in the mid-sixties, every
school divided its students into Roman Catholic classes and Evangelical
(Lutheran) classes.  The curriculum was the same; which class you were in
determined the prayer recited each morning and who taught the religion classes.
 
Religion is firmly established by the state in other areas as well.  A Church
tax is deducted from your paycheck unless you formally withdraw from the Church.
 
The following days are holidays (businesses and stores are closed) in
Bavaria (and most of them in other parts of Germany and many other European
countries as well):
 
New Year's Day, Epiphany (Heilige Drei Koenige), Good Friday, Easter Monday,
May Day, Ascension Day, Whitmonday (Monday after Pentecost), Feast of Corpus
Christi, Day of German Unity, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, All
Saints Day (day after Halloween), Day of Atonement, First and Second days of
Christmas.