One subject about which Pope Benedict felt strongly was the condition of the Church in his native Germany, and not in a good way. He quite openly questioned the nature of a Church which was so thoroughly bureaucratised. In an interview with his biographer Peter Seewald, he declared that, “In Germany we have this established and well-paid Catholicism, often with employed Catholics, who then oppose the Church with a trade-union mentality. For them the Church is only an employer towards whom they are critical. They don’t approach matters from a dynamic of faith… This I believe is the great
danger threatening the Church in Germany: that she has so many paid employees and therefore a surplus of non-spiritual bureaucracy.”