For Germans, whether religious or otherwise, Sunday is a sacred day of rest. That’s what the Wall Street Journal said in its Life & Style section on March 23.

“Germany holds to much the same Monday-to-Friday workweek rhythm as the rest of the world, but on Sundays it skips a beat,” wrote Frankfurt-based assistant news editor Sarah Sloat in her article “Germany’s Quiet Sundays.”

She continues:

This uber-efficient country, which puts more restrictions on Sunday activities than nearly all of its neighbors, nearly shuts down. …Opening Sundays to shopping is fiercely resisted …. Efforts by retailers and businesses to loosen the rules have also been unsuccessful. But a blanket prohibition was lifted in 2006, when states were allowed to designate a certain number of Sundays as open for shopping. In Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, four are permitted each year.

So normal labor and commerce are tightly restricted on Sundays. But what if residents want to spend their Sunday doing yard work around their homes? Sloat answers this:

Laws regulating shopping hours and noise levels mean stores shut, lawnmowers fall silent, and woe unto him who flips the switch on an electric tool. … Sonntagsruhe is one term they use. It simply means “Sunday rest.”Anyone considering undertaking outdoor chores or home improvements will be in for a surprise. Regulations limit noise levels, forbidding the use of electric tools like drills and leaf blowers, as well as hammering, sawing and loud music. At recycling containers, it’s even prohibited to throw away glass jars and bottles on Sunday because of the noise. Heavy trucks are banned from German roads on Sunday … to relieve streets and cities of noise and traffic, and to give drivers a break.

The wsj article makes only a passing and vague mention of the influence of “churches” on Germany’s reverence for Sundays. But there is one specific church which lies at the very heart of why Germany “skips a beat” on Sundays: the Roman Catholic Church.

It is true that Europe is undergoing a drift toward secularism and an influx of Muslim immigrants. Yet the influence of the Catholic Church remains robust throughout the Continent. And mandating Sunday rest is among its primary goals.

The broad scope of this goal is perhaps most evident in the Brussels-based European Sunday Alliance, a network of dozens of religious and nonreligious organizations from 27 European nations whose purpose, according to its website, is to “raise awareness of the unique value of synchronized free time for our European societies.” At the helm of these crusaders for Sunday rest is the Roman Catholic Church.

On March 3, the European Sunday Alliance met in Brussels with politicians from all around the European Union for a “Call for Action” about banning Sunday work. The press release for the meeting says:

Stop Sunday Work Now! … Europe is not only an economic but also a social and cultural community. … The “economization” of Sundays and public holidays deepens social divisions at the expense of workers and their families. The common weekly day of rest is a clear and visible sign for the reconciliation of personal, family and professional life. … We need a Europe-wide Sunday protection. … [T]he European Sunday Alliance draws attention to Sunday as the common weekly day of rest which enables EU citizens to live their citizenship together.

Why does this Sunday alliance exist and work so arduously to influence Europe’s labor laws? Why is the Catholic Church so adamant about instituting a Continent-wide day of rest? And why must it be Sunday instead of another day of the week?

In large part, it is because it was the Catholic Church—in intentional violation of biblical teachings—that appointed Sunday as a day of rest and worship. The Vatican is proud of the success it had in this colossal feat, and Sunday rest has become a mark of the Catholic Church’s authority.

This truth is best explained by the Vatican’s own:

The March meeting, and the European Sunday Alliance’s ongoing efforts are bringing the Vatican-influenced EU closer to declaring Sunday as the official Continent-wide day of rest. Any steps in that direction should alarm religious liberty watchers, those concerned about a failure to separate church and state, and anyone familiar with Catholicism’s violent history.

In 2005, when Pope Benedict xvi stressed the importance of Sunday worship for Europe and the world, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote:

Pope Benedict perceives the secularist moral vacuum that has plagued Europe since the time of the Enlightenment. … But it seems Benedict wants to fill that vacuum—the old Roman way. That way was never sympathetic to the idea of the public voluntarily accepting its tenets. Rather, as even a cursory study of history will reveal, it was imposed by force. … Pope Benedict is committed to reinstating the active observance of the Roman Catholic Church’s chief icon: Sunday. He knows that to popularize religion in Europe, he has to reintroduce a means of promoting what marketers call brand loyalty. The most historic brand the pope can offer to bond the people together is the ancient day of worship, fashionable since Babylon, the old day of the sun—Sunday. Hence his promotion of that old Roman brand in his recent addresses. … If we understand how the church has enforced this day in its past history, we should be very alarmed.

Benedict is no longer the church’s frontrunner, but his successor and other Catholic officials are committed to the same ambitions that drove him. To learn the details of why “Germany’s Quiet Sundays” are significant, how the Catholic Church has enforced Sunday at different eras over the centuries, and what to expect regarding Sunday rest in Europe’s future, read Mr. Flurry’s article “The Pope Trumpets Sunday.”