An Established Church and a Reform That Failed in Liechtenstein

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Article 37 of Liechtenstein's constitution names the Roman Catholic Church the national church, entitled to the state's full protection, and by law the state pays it 300,000 Swiss francs annually with individual municipalities providing additional funds; parish priests are municipal employees, and no other religious community receives comparable direct funding. Legislation passed in 2012 aimed at loosening the state church system and clearing the way for a genuine concordat between the Catholic Church and the Holy See, the kind of formal bilateral treaty several neighboring states already hold.

That reform never entered into force after two of the country's eleven municipalities could not reach agreement with the Archdiocese of Vaduz over property rights, so Liechtenstein remains one of the last places in Western Europe with a constitutionally established church and no concordat at all, a reform stalled not by political opposition but by a property dispute between two towns and their own archdiocese.