Switzerland: No Religious Peace without Public Arrangements—or, Why the Catholic Church in Switzerland has to adopt Provisions from Swiss Democracy, as Exemplified by the Canton of Zurich

Abstract

By using the example of the Catholic Church in the Canton of Zurich, this chapter describes the legal basis and the schedule of responsibilities in Swiss ecclesiastical law. The first part of the chapter retraces the historical development of the four religious wars that the country experienced and how they gave light to the religious peace on which the current ecclesiastical law system is based. The second part of the chapter explains the current schedule of responsibilities and the division of powers between the federal and the cantonal level. It then proceeds to outline the process of recognition of the Catholic Church in the Canton of Zurich. For some centuries, the Reformation repressed the Catholic Church in the public sphere. It was only in 1963 that cantonal legislation would finally allow for its recognition as a Landeskirche. This went along with the introduction of a legislative body (the synod), an executive body (the synod council), and a judiciary body (the recourse commission)—structures that are unknown in Catholic ecclesiology. Correspondingly, the Catholic Landeskirche’s leadership has had a hard time to accept these structures. We conclude that the current system nevertheless has to be preserved, since it supports consensus democracy—also through the elements therein taken from direct democracy. Consensus democracy alone is able to preserve the equilibrium between different ethnic and religious groups in Switzerland.