One cousin has already refused to accept the inheritance; four others have not yet responded. If they are smart, they will turn it down as well.

A recent report from the Pew Research Center, "In Western European Countries With Church Taxes, Support for the Tradition Remains Strong," finds that in an ever more secular European continent, official financial support for the churches remain constant, whether people attend services or not.

The Washington-based Pew Research Center issued a report on religious freedom around the world last week that found that Europe registered the sharpest increase in “social hostilities concerning religion” in 2016, the last year for which it has full statistics.

Marx stopped short of a full endorsement of blessings for same-sex couples, but made it clear he was open to approving such benedictions in private ceremonies.

Two bishops have now spoken out in favor of considering some form of benediction for gay and lesbian couples.

The World Communion of Reformed Churches signed a declaration this week endorsing the 1999 Catholic-Lutheran agreement on how Christians might be worthy of salvation in the eyes of God.

Playing the religion card so openly is unusual in France, where the official separation of church and state is normally taken so seriously that politicians rarely if ever mention in public whether they have a faith or not.

Even as Europeans vastly overestimate the actual Muslim populations of their countries, majorities across Europe are deeply concerned about Muslim immigration and support an immediate end to it.

Catholic leaders in Luther’s home country of Germany at first balked at the idea of “celebrating” what Lutherans there had already named the “Reformationsjubiläum” (Reformation Jubilee). But detailed talks between the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican produced a 93-page report titled “From Conflict to Communion” in 2013 that announced they would mark the anniversary together and presented the Reformation as the start of a shared 500-year journey rather than a single and divisive historical event.

A 2002 law decriminalized euthanasia for terminally ill adults and it has the support of a large majority of public opinion and politicians. But opposition in this historically Catholic country has grown as lawmakers extended the practice to including terminally ill children and people with severe psychological problems.