How to get Excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church?

Absolam

Irish Girl Guides was pretty much the same as the Scouts;
“I promise on my honour to do my best to do my duty to my God and my country, to help other people at all times and to obey the Guide law”.
Brigini were the Catholic Girl Guides; the Scouting Association of Ireland and the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland amalgamated into Scouting Ireland some years ago but I don't know about the Girl Guide movements...

looksee

Brigini were the younger Girl Guides, the same as the UK Brownies. I valued my time in both Brownies and Guides. Sadly when I came to Ireland I offered my services as a Guide leader, but the local groups were all Catholic Girl Guides, (afaik Ireland was the only country to have specifically Catholic Scout/Guide groups) so my offer was declined.

Guides and Scouts are separate organisations in Ireland, in the UK the groups are mixed boys and girls. In the UK the promise is 'to do my duty to God and the Queen' but this can be adjusted to suit different faiths. In Ireland the promise is 'to my God and my country'.

Absolam

Actually Scouting in Ireland became mixed gender in 1987; and the CBSI joined the SAI in 2004. Girl Guides remain single gender both in the UK and Ireland as far as I know, and they are both still separate organisations from the Scouts (the Guide Association in the UK, and the Irish Girl Guides & Catholic Guides of Ireland), though Scout Groups like my own would generally have had close ties to the local Girl Guide troop and occasionally share (carefully supervised) group activities.

The Catholic Boy Scout movement extends far beyond Ireland though; the International Catholic Conference of Scouting based in Rome is responsible for Catholic Scouting around the world, including the National Catholic Scout Fellowship in the UK.

cowboyBuilder

What annoys me about it is the RCC still use us as statistics.

They will say we have x million believers - which is total bollix ...especially when I am being used as a stat ... to back an organisation - that condones child rape

looksee

Sheesh cB, you are one in a (or several) million. But please don't shout!

Absolam

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

What annoys me about it is the RCC still use us as statistics.
They will say we have x million believers - which is total bollix ...especially when I am being used as a stat ... to back an organisation - that condones child rape

If you can find your name in their statistics I'm sure they'd take it out if you asked; at least out of the list of Catholics used to back the organisation that condones child rape, anyways.

Otherwise; the Vatican Statistical Yearbook specifies it's figures for the number of Catholics (it say's there are x number of Catholics, rather than we have x number believers) are estimates (so they're not necessarily using you as a statistic), and has the caveat: ""It must be remembered that a worldwide survey of this kind is bound to be influenced by some extent by the often considerable differences in the circumstances of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions in various countries.". So you could take comfort in the notion that their statistics are rather vague estimates?

In the US, the Catholic Research Forum defines Catholics as people who are baptised into the church and arrange for a Catholic funeral.
The Pew Research Center counts Catholics as those who self identify as such in censuses.
Some Boardsies count Catholics as those who adhere to Church doctrine in all matters of observance and conform to appropriate stereotypes.
So you probably aren't considered to be contributing to some of those statistics...

Though if you were to get yourself excommunicated Ferendæ Sententiæ, you could appear in the statistics of baptised Catholics who have been named excommunicants? That might be a more fun statistic to be part of; there's a few cool people in that statistic like Robert the Bruce, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Fidel Castro...

All in all, it's probably best just not to worry about being used as a statistic; it's not (in this particular case) likely to make any appreciable difference to your life other than the ennui you yourself work up about it. Or... you could keep a stock letter/email at home, so that every time you see an article saying 'according to the Vatican the number of Catholics is x' you can send them a letter saying 'Dear sir, in actual fact it is not the number of Catholics, but the number of reported Catholic baptisms adjusted for catachumens and estimated deaths and other measurements'. That'll tell 'em.