Defecting from Church

splinter65

Skedaddle wrote: »

Mostly because they've a tendency to use figures to misrepresent themselves as far bigger than they are because people keep allowing them to do that.

It's one reason I think the census data here is useful, even if it's a bit intrusive.

Can you give us an example of where the church used figures they gleaned from the parish registers to misrepresent themselves?

Wheety

Just tick no religion on the census. That's what the stats are based on.

Skedaddle

My own personal reason for defecting is quite simply that I didn't voluntarily want anything to do with the organisation in the first place, my parents had me baptised, without my consent, largely for access to schools back in the 1980s.

I then made my communion and confirmation without any real choice in the matter, and certainly did not engage with them at any kind of spiritual or theological level.
It wasn't that I became an atheist, I wasn't ever a catholic in the first place.

As an organisation, the church takes stances on political and social issues that are diametrically opposed to my world view and it takes a very regressive stance on gay rights, womens rights and so on.

On top of that, the abuses that went on on church organisations here in Ireland are just beyond something I would be able to tolerate. Not only that, but the organisation then ducked and dived to avoid dealing with them or taking any responsibility for what went on. All of that stuff just goes against every grain of my being.

So, I want nothing, whatsoever to do with the. I don't want my name in databases, on lists or anything else. Nor do I want priests calling around attempting to make contact, which has happened.

I continue to get "parish dues" envelopes, personally addressed and pushed through the door and on two occasions I've had a priest trying to 'get me back involved' which is utterly ridiculous as I've no interest whatsoever in the church or being in anyway involved with it.

So, yes, I do think I should be able to remove myself from these marketing databases and anything else. I don't see the Church as any different from any other organisation and I think then seem data protection rules should apply.

I genuinely think that preventing people from deleting data is behaving like some kind of cult. If you want to leave and have no more contact or relationship of any type with this organisation, that should be your right.

magicbastarder

are you living in the same house you were living in in the 70s or early 80s?

Skedaddle

Nope, and I have no idea where they are getting the data from.

I keep getting personally addressed 'dues' envelopes and other literature sent though the door.

They go straight into the recycling.

Also I wasn't in existence in the 70s or early 80s due to not having been born yet. So, it would be quite an achievement if they were working off pre-conception data.

Mark Hamill

magicbastarder wrote: »

how many times are people going to keep repeating this?
baptism figures are *not* used to estimate the size of the church.

Not by governments and other 3rd parties (who, I hope, use census figures), but what does the RCC use to estimate it's own size? The Annuario Pontificio, which gives a figure of 1.27 billion catholics in 2016, gets it's data from diocesan curias. What do they use?

Yawns

splinter65 wrote: »

In every parish there is a register where a record is kept of Catholic sacraments including baptism.
If you were baptized then there is a record of it there.
As it is impossible to pretend that something that did happen, DIDNT happen, then it’s pointless removing an entry from the register.
You can’t rewrite history and decide that you weren’t baptized after all.

If people can rewrite history by having birth certs altered about gender, I wouldn't be so sure of your assumption.

I just wandered in from the main pages, saw your post and had to reply to it. I'll let myself out now tho!

TheChizler

Yawns wrote: »

If people can rewrite history by having birth certs altered about gender, I wouldn't be so sure of your assumption.

Are they altered or have a note added though?

I suppose the argument there is that they were always the gender they say they now are, and it was originally recorded incorrectly, whereas an event either happened or it didn't and can't be changed by future realisations.

Fred Swanson

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recedite

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I think that says more about Judaism than it does about the RCC

Vetch

daithi84 wrote: »

The purpose of GDPR is to enhance an EU citizens right to privacy and data protection is included under that that umbrella. That is what i meant. The solicitor training us in work also said its a human right, so thats where i got it from.

In relation to your arguments for keeping my data, none of them fly in my opinion. Not everyone in the country is baptised, therefore if my data is deleted i can be treated the same way a non catholic would be. Whatever processes apply to them will them apply to me.

If prove of baptism is required to be given on request of church services then since i would not longer have that then those services would be denied to me upon request so therefore there is no legitimate reason to keep my data under those reasons.

It is not up to the church to determine my relationship with them. No other organisation would be permitted to keep my personal information once i remove myself from membership of that organisation.

The church's "freedom of religion" does not include keeping data without consent, i dont even know how my data being deleted would infringe on their "rights", since they dont own the data, they are keepers of it. The data will always remain mine not theirs.



Under GDPR the rights are all mine. Consent is the main trump card here. The data always belongs to me and if i withdraw consent then thats the only argument needed under GDPR. The church are not a state organisation, they are a private organisation, there is no legitimate reason to keep my data, especially as i am non longer a catholic, will never require their services and wish for my records to be deleted.

Whatever shady reasons they have got away with this so far i think are numbered. I think GDPR will be lead to interesting developments.

I haven't read the whole lot of this thread so apologies if I'm saying something that's already been said.

There is no absolute right to data protection. Instead it's set against a bunch of other rights - not all of them belonging to data subjects. This is Recital 4 of GDPR:

'The processing of personal data should be designed to serve mankind. The right to the protection of personal
data is not an absolute right; it must be considered in relation to its function in society and be balanced against
other fundamental rights, in accordance with the principle of proportionality. This Regulation respects all
fundamental rights and observes the freedoms and principles recognised in the Charter as enshrined in the
Treaties, in particular the respect for private and family life, home and communications, the protection of
personal data, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom to
conduct a business, the right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial, and cultural, religious and linguistic
diversity.'

Because of the above, in part, consent is not a trump card at all when it comes to processing personal data.

The Church might look to Article 9(2)(d) to process such data. It says:

(d) processing is carried out in the course of its legitimate activities with appropriate safeguards by a foundation, association or any other not-for-profit body with a political, philosophical, religious or trade union aim and on condition that the processing relates solely to the members or to former members of the body or to persons who have regular contact with it in connection with its purposes and that the personal data are not disclosed outside that body without the consent of the data subjects

You could also look at Article 91.

Peregrinus

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

recedite wrote: »

I think that says more about Judaism than it does about the RCC

Actually, it may not say that much about Judaism. I'm willing to bet a pint and a chaser that Fred's recollection is mistaken, or that there is more in this that meets the eye. While Judaism doesn't particularly seek converts, they do accept conversion if they are satisfied as to the intending convert's reasons. Documentation from the religion you are leaving is absolutely not a factor in this; what matters is your attitude to Judaism, your reasons for wishing to convert and your desire to live a Jewish life. Getting certificates from your old church, if any, would absolutely not enter into this at all.

Nor are Jews likely to seek such a certificate in practice, if only for the reason that they themselves would never issue such a certificate to someone wishing to leave Judaism. They would see the expection that someone should be able to obtain such a certificate from another church as manifestly unreasonable, and th idea of using the ability to obtain such a certificate as a suitable test of someone's commitment to Judaism as wildly irrational. Finally, I think they'd find it fundamentally offensive to be asked to accept that the Catholic authorities could determine who could, and who could not, be accepted into Judaism.

Effects

magicbastarder wrote: »

why would you want to both leave the church and be buried in a catholic graveyard? is that not having your cake and eating it?

It is having my cake and eating it.
I've a plot in a catholic graveyard but I'm not a Catholic. It won't be checked when it's time to be buried there and I'm pretty sure they won't dig me up.

Peregrinus

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Not by governments and other 3rd parties (who, I hope, use census figures), but what does the RCC use to estimate it's own size? The Annuario Pontificio, which gives a figure of 1.27 billion catholics in 2016, gets it's data from diocesan curias. What do they use?

The overall figure is the sum of the figures reported by each diocese, and it's up to each diocese to decide how to prepare its own figures. That in turn depends on the resources available to each. German dioceses, for example, report figures based on the government's church tax records, but that option isn't available in many other countries.

When last I attempted to reconcile the Irish church figures with the census returns, north and south, they tallied pretty closely (on the all-Ireland level; I didn't try this diocese by diocese) which makes me think the Irish dioceses probably do make use of census figures when preparing their estimates. But I did that before the most recent census results were published. It will be interesting to see if church estimates are revised downwards in light of the 2016 census results.

(SFAIK it's too soon to say yet. The 2016 census results came out in 2017. They cannot affect diocesan estimates reported to Rome until 2018, which will be reflected in the Annuario Pontificio for 2019.)

Dioceses in other countries don't necessarily have census figures to assist them in their calculations - not all countries ask about religion in the census. (Indeed, not all countries have regular censuses.) If you look at France, for example, where there is no religion question in the census, the Archdiocese of Paris can tell you exactly how many people live in the Archdiocese (2,265,886. as of 2016). That figure obviously comes from the census or some other official count. However they then to on to report that 60% of them are Catholic. It was 60% in 2013 as well. In 2004 they were reporting that 70% of the population were Catholic, but the previous year, 2003, it had been 60%. These are suspiciously round figures; they are obviously broad estimates, not counts or calculations.

I doubt any diocese simply counts baptisms. Sure, you may know from your baptismal register how may Catholics were baptised in the diocese in each year, but you have no way of knowing how many of those people are still alive, or are still living in the diocese, never mind how many are still Catholic. Plus, you'd have to account for Catholics baptised elsewhere and moving into the diocese, people baptised in other Christian denominations who have joined the church, etc, etc. So working from baptismal records to an estimate of the current numbers of Catholics would be quite a tricky exercise. In the French context, marriage registers might be more useful; you will know (from state figures) how many marriages were celebrated in your diocese last year and (from your own figures) how many of those had a church ceremony, so that might give you a handle on church identification/participation among the demographic that is of marriageable age. Obviously extrapolating from that to total numbers of Catholics, allowing for different identification rates of different cohorts, would be a bit of an exercise. But, still, it's a data point. obviously these kinds of techniques can only get you so far, which is why the number-of-Catholics estimate is so round.

Peregrinus

Mark Hamill wrote: »

This is a non-sequitor. The RCC may count all christian baptisms as permanent, but that's not the same thing as counting all christian baptisms as RCC baptisms.

I don’t think it's a non-sequitur at all. When people claim that the Catholic church’s view is that baptism makes you a permanent member of the Catholic church, if you ask them for cites, they invariably quote church teachings that refer to all baptisms.

Can you point to a Catholic source that says that baptism at the hands of a Catholic minister makes you permanently and irrevocably a member of the Catholic church?

I’ll save you the trouble of looking; you won’t find such a source. Catholic teaching about the permanent and irreversible spiritual effects of baptism isn’t dependent at all, in any way, on the identity of the minister of the sacrament in a particular case. Whatever the permanent, irreversible spiritual effects of baptism are in the Catholic view, Ian Paisley had them.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Besides that, the article I quoted, from the Vaticans own pontifical council uses "Church" with a capital C. So I'm pretty sure they are referring, in that article anyway, only to themselves.

Nope. Their convention is to use the capital ‘C’ for the church of Christ, the whole shebang, and not just for the RCC, the organisation under the jurisdiction of the Pope. They also use it for local and particular churches, whether or not under the jurisdiction of the pope. For example Canon 1183, which I cited previously refers to “baptised persons belonging to a non-catholic Church”.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Thank you Peregrinus for finding these references, but two things:
1. Given that the formal defection form is gone, are there any canon law references for what the RCC accepts as defection now?
2. Your references show that there are plenty of things you can no longer do once you defect from the church. But none of them actually say that you are no longer a catholic once you defect. Plenty of punishments for breaking the rules, but nothing that outirght says that you are out of the club if you do. In fact, some of them (e.g. Canon 1183) even offer RCC sacrements to no non-RCs, once they have been baptised into at least some christian church.

Let me take the second question first. True, there’s nothing that says outright that someone who defects is “out of the club”. But, equally, there are no canons that deal with how you join the club in the first place. That’s because the RCC doesn’t think of itself as a club. Don’t think of being a Catholic as like being a member of Portnmarnock Golf Club. Think of it more like being Irish, or being a feminist, or a republican. Or some blend of those things.

The closest you’re going to get to club membership rules is probably canons 204 and 205, which I‘ll quote in full:

Can. 204 §1 Christ's faithful are those who, since they are incorporated into Christ through baptism, are constituted the people of God. For this reason they participate in their own way in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ. They are called, each according to his or her particular condition, to exercise the mission which God entrusted to the Church to fulfil in the world.

§2 This Church, established and ordered in this world as a society, subsists in the catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him.

Can. 205 Those baptised are in full communion with the catholic Church here on earth who are joined with Christ in his visible body, through the bonds of profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance.

OK. There’s a distinction there between “the people of God”, those incorporated into Christ through baptism, and “the Church established and ordered in this world as a society”, governed by the pope and the bishops which includes those baptised who are joined through “of profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance”, a relationship described as being “in communion”.

Being a member of the People of God is a spiritual consequence of baptism, and that’s one shared by Ian Paisley and by yourself, if you are baptised. But as people of God, they fly solo; they participate in the office of Christ "in their own way" and God calls them "each according to his or her particular condition". There's nothing collective or collaborative here; nothing remotely analogous to club membership, if you want to stick with that image. Being part of the church “established and ordered in this world as a society” - and that’s as close as you’re going to get to club membership - requires not just baptism but also communion - shared profession of faith, shared sacraments, shared ecclesiastical governance. That rules out Ian and, I imagine, yourself.

On your other question, at various times the Code of Canon law talks about defection, about public defection, about notorious defection, about defection by a formal act. These all mean different things.

Remember the purpose of the Code of Canon Law; its supposed to be a set of rules by which the church organises itself, in light of church teaching. It’s not something which proclaims or defines that teaching; it just takes church teachings as a given, and then says, right, in practical terms, in light of these teachings, how are we going to act in this or that situation?

As we’ve seen, membership of the organised church depends on communion, defined as shared profession of faith, shared sacraments, shared submission to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The expert on whether Mark Hamill professes the shared faith, participates in the sacraments, submits to his bishop is of course Mark Hamill. He knows more about this than anyone else alive, and he knows about it authoritatively, from the inside. On their side of the relationship, the church has relatively limited information. So if they have to take a view about whether Mark Hamill is a member of the church or not (and, NB, they will normally avoid taking such a view unless they need to) they first they they have to ask themselves is, what relevant knowledge do we have?

In the canonical context, the issue nearly always comes up in a situation where Mark Hamill says he is a Catholic (or somebody else says Mark Hamill is a Catholic) but there is some doubt about this. (After all, if MH is not a Catholic, and does not wish to be seen as a Catholic, he is unlikely to be interacting with the church in a way which raises canonical issues.) So they have come up with the notion of “defection”. Defection is an act which ruptures communion in a way that makes you not a Catholic, even if you claim, or somebody claims, that you still are. And these various canons layout out the kind of defection that has to be established in order for you to be treated as not a Catholic when someone, quite possibly you, is demanding that you be treated as a Catholic. In some cases, you need to have publicly defected, in other cases you need to have notoriously defected (which is a higher standard; public defection just has to be knowable in principle, but notorious defection has to be actually known).

“Defected by a formal act” is the highest standard of all. It’s a test only applied in relation to someone who seeks to be treated as Catholic so that he can have a church wedding. Since the faithful have a right to the sacraments, and since in the Catholic view Catholics can only validly marry in a church wedding, denying somebody a church wedding is a really big deal, and it requires the strongest justification. Therefore the rule is that the bishop has to be able to point to a formal action of defection - e.g. having been formally received into another church, having made a formal renunciation of faith, that kind of thing.

As we know, for a brief period there was a canonical rule which specified a particular formal Act which involved writing to your bishop. (They introduced that rule to sort out a problem they were having in Germany, where people were telling the state that they were not Catholic in order to avoid or protest against the church tax, which was being treated as a formal act, but still rocking up to church for weddings, baptisms, etc.) That made the rule even tougher, but also completely unrealistic, since practically nobody ever went through the required formal procedure. So they dropped it, now any formal act will do for this purpose but there is no particular formal act, or list of formal acts, that you have to use. The document you linked to earlier gives bishops guidance as to what will constitute a formal act (“the formal act of defection must have more than a juridical-administrative character . . . but be configured as a true separation from the constitutive elements of the life of the Church: it supposes, therefore, an act of apostasy, heresy or schism.”)

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Actually re-reading the first paragraph of that pontifical article I linked before to seems to contradict you too:

That would appear to say that those who are considered notoriously or publically defecting (and it quotes a few of the same canon laws that you quoted) are still bound by ecclesiastical laws.

Well, only in the sense that, if you have a rule about identifying those who are members of a club, people who have left the club (or indeed who were never members in the first place) are “bound” by the rule, since if the question arises that rule will be applied to determine their membership status.

The document you cite doesn’t bind any non-Catholic to do anything, or not to do anything. It binds the church as regards how it will respond to what the individual has done or not done. The individual may choose to behave in a particular way in order to attract the response he wants but if he does, that is his free choice.

beefburrito

A piece of paper won't matter when you're 6 foot under or your ashes are dissolving into oblivion off hags head or Ballyvaughan.

Mark Hamill

Peregrinus wrote: »

Catholic teaching about the permanent and irreversible spiritual effects of baptism isn’t dependent at all, in any way, on the identity of the minister of the sacrament in a particular case.

No, it's dependent on what church you are baptising the person into. Ian Paisley wasn't baptised into the RCC, so he wouldn't be counted as one. Hence, in the view of the RCC, all baptisms are permanent, but not all baptisms are RC.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Nope. Their convention is to use the capital ‘C’ for the church of Christ, the whole shebang, and not just for the RCC, the organisation under the jurisdiction of the Pope.

And in the article "RESPONSES TO SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE ON THE CHURCH", the RCC affirms that the Church of Christ subsists alone in the RCC (second response). In their view, the Church of Christ is the RCC.

Peregrinus wrote: »

But, equally, there are no canons that deal with how you join the club in the first place.

Eh, yes there are, it's "the sacramental bond of belonging to the Body of Christ that is the Church, conferred by the baptismal character".
"Club" is used as an analogy, don't get caught up on it.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Being part of the church “established and ordered in this world as a society” - and that’s as close as you’re going to get to club membership - requires not just baptism but also communion - shared profession of faith, shared sacraments, shared ecclesiastical governance. That rules out Ian and, I imagine, yourself.

No, being in full communion with the RCC requires shared profession of faith, shared sacraments and shared ecclesiastical governance, but simply being a part of it does not. As I was baptised (shared sacrament) I am therefore still considered bound by ecclesiastical law (shared ecclesiastical governance) even if I reject the faith. Your canon links on the previous page, coupled with the pontifical article I quoted before ("[In the case of defectors], those who have been baptized or received into the Catholic Church continue to be bound by merely ecclesiastical laws") proves that once you are baptised, rejecting the faith doesn't free you from the RCCs laws, infact it applies more, by limiting your privileges.

You keep bringing up Paisley (and I'm pretty sure you did in the previous threads this was discussed) as if he shows the contradiction in "baptisms are permanent". Seeing as they clearly say both that baptisms are permanent (part 7 of the pontifical text) and RC baptisms are permanent (preamble in the pontifical text which I quoted in the previous paragraph), at best, he shows the contradiction in "baptisms are interchangeable".

Peregrinus wrote: »

The document you cite doesn’t bind any non-Catholic to do anything, or not to do anything. It binds the church as regards how it will respond to what the individual has done or not done.

So you agree then, that in the RC eyes, even someone who has notoriously or publically defected is still subject to it's laws. That is the entire point what you responded to, ultimately the entire point of this discussion, that it doesn't matter what you or I or Ian Paisley thinks: if you have been baptised in the RCC, they consider you subject to their rules no matter what you do afterwards.

magicbastarder

Mark Hamill wrote: »

it doesn't matter what you or I or Ian Paisley thinks: if you have been baptised in the RCC, they consider you subject to their rules no matter what you do afterwards.

"they consider you subject to their laws no matter what you do afterwards."

i was baptised catholic. i have never felt i was subject to their laws since then. i have never felt bound by their laws, nor that i was restricted by them.
yes, there's an argument to be made about how irish society is bound to catholic 'laws', but baptism is at such a remove from that debate it's just a distraction, and detraction from that debate.

Mark Hamill

magicbastarder wrote: »

"they consider you subject to their laws no matter what you do afterwards."

i was baptised catholic. i have never felt i was subject to their laws since then. i have never felt bound by their laws, nor that i was restricted by them.
yes, there's an argument to be made about how irish society is bound to catholic 'laws', but baptism is at such a remove from that debate it's just a distraction, and detraction from that debate.

it doesn't matter what you or I or Ian Paisley thinks: if you have been baptised in the RCC, they [the RCC] consider you subject to their rules no matter what you do afterwards.

What the RCC itself says about defecting is not a distraction or detraction from a debate about defecting from the RCC.