Is there anyway out ?

....... · 17-01-2017 5:37pm

This post has been deleted.

Walter H Price · 17-01-2017 5:37pm

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Your religion isn't recorded on your birth certificate. I think you're getting birth cert and baptismal cert mixed up. Your birth certificate is a legal document of the state (Civil Registration Act 2004) which records the following information:

First name(s) and surname(s) of the person as registered

Date of birth (there is a checkbox which should be selected if the applicant is not sure of the exact date and has chosen an approximate date)

Gender

Father's full name (first name(s) and surname(s)

Mother's first name(s) and birth surname(s)

The only passing reference to religion is a field which can be filled in if the child is baptised at a later date under a different name to that recorded on the birth certificate.

By contrast, a baptismal cert is an internal church document which gets used among other things, for weddings and, unfortunately, to act as an obstacle in getting your child into the local national school.

Following the old countmeout process or the manual process detailed at notme.ie will simply result in an annotation being made on the baptismal register which impacts on your baptismal cert. It doesn't however have any effect on your records held by the state. The state collects this information using the census.

im not really ofey with any of the documention at all to be honest hahaha

So basicly thae by going via count me out you can follow to steps to have your baptisimal record amended , to say what , just that you no longer consider yourself a roman catholic or something along those lines.

infogiver · 17-01-2017 5:53pm

Walter H Price wrote: »

Hes not married so its really only the other three , but surely it make' sense that you can renounce your faith and the Church records no longer record you as a catholic.

we all said similar to what you suggested to him at the time that he just mentally divorce himself from it but it didn't seem enough for him , and i do get why. i was more asking here because i was skeptical that it could be that hard to have it officially recognized by the church that you have renounced your faith and longer identify as a catholic. Im just surprised and kind of interested as to why it is so difficult, particularly given the fact that the 3 sacraments you mention where you confirm your faith or are entered in to the faith are all done when your a child under 12

Your baptismal certificate reflects the baptismal record which states the FACT that you were baptised. It's simply impossible to "undo" a fact . Do you agree?
The priest cannot cross out the record and say Joe Bloggs wasn't baptised at all.
That would be completely untrue.

oldrnwisr · 17-01-2017 5:54pm

infogiver wrote: »

I'm sorry that your friend has had such a sad experience.
If he was baptised confirmed married etc within the Rites of RCC then there's no possible way to rewrite history and "pretend" that he wasn't baptised etc etc
There is a written record of his receiving those sacraments and crossing his name of will not mean that it didn't happen any more than crossing my name off the register of births will mean that I wasn't born.
There isn't a list of RCC members anywhere
The Church is the people, not the hierarchy, not the buildings
Probably best to just divorce himself from RCC in his own head or even have some kind of symbolic burning of Certificates at home.

Well you see here's the thing. Marriage is one of the things you list that there's "no possible way to rewrite history". Except that's not the case. Section 1625 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that:

"The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; "to be free" means:

- not being under constraint;

- not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law"

So not only does the rites of the CC provide for negating a sacrament ex-post facto, this section also provides a means for allowing baptisms to be similarly annulled.

If consent is such a deeply important element of marriage, then why shouldn't it also be a feature of what is arguably an even more important relationship with God, namely baptism. Since you didn't consent to being baptised (or more likely were incapable of giving consent) then it stands to reason that this would be appropriate grounds for having it annulled. Instead, however, it would seem that the church just makes up the rules, not to be consistent, but to suit itself.

Walter H Price wrote: »

im not really ofey with any of the documention at all to be honest hahaha

So basicly thae by going via count me out you can follow to steps to have your baptisimal record amended , to say what , just that you no longer consider yourself a roman catholic or something along those lines.

The record gets amended to say that you had followed the Actus Formalis Defectionis ab Ecclesia Catholica, a formal act of defection from the church. I'm not sure what the exact wording was, I don't have the letter I received to hand but basically it was that you had complied with the terms of the defection above.

TheChizler · 17-01-2017 5:55pm

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

This has been debated many times on this forum; there's little to no evidence that the church uses baptismal records as part of lobbying. It would be a very awkward source to derive meaningful data from; people can move away, change religion, die, etc. If they used that as a basis it would give hugely inaccurate numbers without some serious statistical massaging. Much easier to use the readily available census stats, which they do use.

In all likelyhood the baptismal record sits untouched in a filing cabinet from baptism until either it being amended or an ancestor into genealogy unearths it.

magicbastarder · 17-01-2017 6:15pm

there's a big difference between the status of a marriage and of a baptism though; in that a baptism has no weight in law, but it'd be a damn odd marriage which has no weight in law.
you can get your marriage annulled by the church, sure, but that makes little difference to the legal process you have to go through to get the state to recognise the same.

iirc (citation needed) an annulment would be granted on certain grounds, such as failure to consummate, etc.; rather than an 'i've changed my mind' basis.

all that said, it still comes down to the fact that if you ask to be excluded from the church according to their rules, you are agreeing that their rules actually matter.

Cabaal · 17-01-2017 6:21pm

TheChizler wrote: »

This has been debated many times on this forum; there's little to no evidence that the church uses baptismal records as part of lobbying. .

Indeed it has been,
However, one has to question why the Church closed the opt-out loophole.
Surely it was no skin off their nose to loose "members" that didn't believe in their religion.

Why would you want to keep members on the books (numbers wise) that don't want to be members and don't believe in your core beliefs? It boggles the mind.

magicbastarder · 17-01-2017 6:24pm

Cabaal wrote: »

However, one has to question why the Church closed the opt-out loophole.
Surely it was no skin off their nose to loose "members" that didn't believe in their religion.

Why would you want to keep members on the books (numbers wise) that don't want to be members and don't believe in your core beliefs? It boggles the mind.

manpower, maybe?
has anyone actually checked that the note was actually made for them in the baptismal records?
and fwiw, i have no issue with the defence of 'it's an historical record'. i'm on a baptismal roll somewhere, but i don't believe it makes me a member of the church.

robindch · 17-01-2017 6:41pm

oldrnwisr wrote: »

"The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; "to be free" means:

- not being under constraint;

- not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law"

So not only does the rites of the CC provide for negating a sacrament ex-post facto, this section also provides a means for allowing baptisms to be similarly annulled.

Been a while since I looked at the relevant prose, but my memory is that "not impeded by any natural ... law" includes the possibility that at least one participant is unable to contribute to the conception of a child. In the case of a subsequent anulment, the marriage isn't "uncreated", but declared not to have happened in the first place since the conditions for a valid marriage were not met.

The prose doesn't discuss the validity of marriages where the people knew in advance - for example, due to age or illness - that they were unable to conceive.

Anyhow, I have to hand it to the Vatican - the intentional slipperiness of their prose is a wonderful thing.

Huntergonzo · 17-01-2017 6:45pm

Cabaal wrote: »

Indeed it has been,
However, one has to question why the Church closed the opt-out loophole.
Surely it was no skin off their nose to loose "members" that didn't believe in their religion.

Why would you want to keep members on the books (numbers wise) that don't want to be members and don't believe in your core beliefs? It boggles the mind.

I suppose with the Catholic Church we're talking about an organisation that finds things like facts, legitimacy, consistency and honesty all very inconvenient and unwelcome. Nothing would surprise me about them at this stage, they really are shameless in the extreme.

looksee · 17-01-2017 6:55pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

there's a big difference between the status of a marriage and of a baptism though; in that a baptism has no weight in law, but it'd be a damn odd marriage which has no weight in law.
you can get your marriage annulled by the church, sure, but that makes little difference to the legal process you have to go through to get the state to recognise the same.

iirc (citation needed) an annulment would be granted on certain grounds, such as failure to consummate, etc.; rather than an 'i've changed my mind' basis.

all that said, it still comes down to the fact that if you ask to be excluded from the church according to their rules, you are agreeing that their rules actually matter.

A religious marriage has no weight in law either. It is possible for the legal part to take place during a religious wedding, but if the marriage gets annulled you will still have to have a state divorce to make it legal in a civil sense.

Huntergonzo · 17-01-2017 6:57pm

Just in response to the OP, I'm sure this point has been made a few times but just to back it up, don't bother asking the church for permission to leave, that just validates their already illegitimate (as I honestly see it) claim over you.

Just declare yourself a non catholic (privately or publicly, whatever takes your fancy) and it's done. Let's be honest, probably very very few of us actually willingly singed up as informed adults anyway, for most of us it was done well before we had any opinion or say in the matter.

Anyway, I don't recognise the church as a legitimate organisation, it's just a load of silly nonsense, so I couldn't care less what their opinion of me is and there's a pretty good chance they have no opinion of me because they never see me!

magicbastarder · 17-01-2017 6:58pm

looksee wrote: »

A religious marriage has no weight in law either. It is possible for the legal part to take place during a religious wedding, but if the marriage gets annulled you will still have to have a state divorce to make it legal in a civil sense.

that's exactly what i was getting at. that an annulment is usually the least of your worries in a marriage gone wrong.

looksee · 17-01-2017 7:04pm

Huntergonzo wrote: »

Just in response to the OP, I'm sure this point has been made a few times but just to back it up, don't bother asking the church for permission to leave, that just validates their already illegitimate (as I honestly see it) claim over you.

Just declare yourself a non catholic (privately or publicly, whatever takes your fancy) and it's done. Let's be honest, probably very very few of us actually willingly singed up as informed adults anyway, for most of us it was done well before we had any opinion or say in the matter.

Anyway, I don't recognise the church as a legitimate organisation, it's just a load of silly nonsense, so I couldn't care less what their opinion of me is and there's a pretty good chance they have no opinion of me because they never see me!

That is fine, but the point is that the State recognises the church as not only a legitimate organisation, but one that has to be given special respect and authority.

magicbastarder · 17-01-2017 7:09pm

that's not the point though; state recognition of the church is nothing to do with taking your name off the baptismal register, which does precisely nothing to change the state's attitude to the church.

Huntergonzo · 17-01-2017 7:13pm

looksee wrote: »

That is fine, but the point is that the State recognises the church as not only a legitimate organisation, but one that has to be given special respect and authority.

And that is a national embarrassment which should be strongly opposed, trouble is we have no party in this country committed to opposing this and given the populist nature of politicians it's unlikely to be given much attention anytime soon.

TheChizler · 17-01-2017 8:47pm

Cabaal wrote: »

Indeed it has been,
However, one has to question why the Church closed the opt-out loophole.
Surely it was no skin off their nose to loose "members" that didn't believe in their religion.

Why would you want to keep members on the books (numbers wise) that don't want to be members and don't believe in your core beliefs? It boggles the mind.

Could be something as simple as reducing admin. When countmeout was running whoever was processing the requests must have been overwhelmed. And since the church will consider you a Catholic no matter what, what is effectively a just an admin intensive note on you in their system probably doesn't rank high on their list of priorities to be spending resources on.

Hotblack Desiato · 18-01-2017 2:00am

robindch wrote: »

BTW, http://www.catholic.ie redirects to http://www.notme.ie after somebody rather famously forgot to renew the catholic.ie domain.

domain: ionainstitute.ie
descr: Lolek Ltd
descr: Body Corporate (Ltd,PLC,Company)
descr: Registered Trade Mark Name
admin-c: ACL269-IEDR
tech-c: TDI2-IEDR
registration: 28-August-2006
renewal: 28-August-2017
holder-type: Billable
locked: NO
ren-status: Active
in-zone: 1
nserver: ken.ns.cloudflare.com
nserver: uma.ns.cloudflare.com
source: IEDR

person: Patrick Kenny
nic-hdl: ACL269-IEDR
source: IEDR

person: Technical Department Irish Domains
nic-hdl: TDI2-IEDR
source: IEDR

set your reminders now

Hotblack Desiato · 18-01-2017 2:01am

TheChizler wrote: »

Could be something as simple as reducing admin. When countmeout was running whoever was processing the requests must have been overwhelmed. And since the church will consider you a Catholic no matter what, what is effectively a just an admin intensive note on you in their system probably doesn't rank high on their list of priorities to be spending resources on.

Honestly surprised they didn't try and monetise it with an "administration fee" :pac:

ScumLord · 18-01-2017 3:52pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Apart from what those who take the law into their own hands might do. It's not as if the atheist bloggers getting hacked to death in Bangladesh are being killed legally, but the justice system seems disinclined to do anything much about it, either.

None of that will be an issue in Ireland though.

infogiver wrote: »

I'm sorry that your friend has had such a sad experience.
If he was baptised confirmed married etc within the Rites of RCC then there's no possible way to rewrite history and "pretend" that he wasn't baptised etc etc

So instead he has to pretend that the thing he had no say in means anything?

There is a written record of his receiving those sacraments and crossing his name of will not mean that it didn't happen any more than crossing my name off the register of births will mean that I wasn't born.

It would be more like the British government claiming you were British and that you have British ideals because a British politician poured some water on your head when you were a baby.

magicbastarder · 18-01-2017 5:23pm

ScumLord wrote: »

It would be more like the British government claiming you were British and that you have British ideals because a British politician poured some water on your head when you were a baby.

do you deny/disbelieve the basis for the existence of the british state though?

infogiver · 18-01-2017 6:34pm

ScumLord wrote: »

None of that will be an issue in Ireland though.

So instead he has to pretend that the thing he had no say in means anything?

It would be more like the British government claiming you were British and that you have British ideals because a British politician poured some water on your head when you were a baby.

Sure who is asking him to "pretend" anything? Not the Church? They're not asking him anything at all. Nada. Zilch.
He is asking for the impossible. For people to pretend something DIDNT happen, when it quite clearly did.
He can't pretend that he wasn't baptised. He was. What do you want the Church to do exactly? The record says he was baptised on a particular date and who his parents were/are and who did the baptising and who were/are the godparents. This actually happened.
He nor the priest nor anyone can't make it "unhappen". What is it ideally you would like to happen? Get a time machine and go back?

oldrnwisr · 18-01-2017 6:50pm

infogiver wrote: »

Sure who is asking him to "pretend" anything? Not the Church? They're not asking him anything at all. Nada. Zilch.
He is asking for the impossible. For people to pretend something DIDNT happen, when it quite clearly did.
He can't pretend that he wasn't baptised. He was. What do you want the Church to do exactly? The record says he was baptised on a particular date and who his parents were/are and who did the baptising and who were/are the godparents. This actually happened.
He nor the priest nor anyone can't make it "unhappen". What is it ideally you would like to happen? Get a time machine and go back?

You don't really need a time machine.

As I explained in my last post marriage gives us an indication as to what is possible. A religious marriage (as opposed to a legal marriage) is recorded in the church records as having happened. If subsequently, it is found that one or other party to the marriage was coerced, then the marriage is deemed null and void and a notation is made on the appropriate record.
Similarly, since infant children aren't capable of giving consent, once said lack of consent and disagreement with the rite itself are brought to the attention of the church, they could simply make a notation in the church record declaring the baptism null and void. Simples.

As TheChizler and others have pointed out there is an argument to be made here about validating the church's rules by buying into them. However, as an ex-Catholic who has been through the countmeout process, there was a certain element of closure in telling the church that not only did you no longer believe their teachings but that you were sufficiently repulsed by their behaviour that you formally signalled your intention to sever all ties. It's not just about not believing but letting the church know that you don't believe.

infogiver · 18-01-2017 7:25pm

oldrnwisr wrote: »

You don't really need a time machine.

As I explained in my last post marriage gives us an indication as to what is possible. A religious marriage (as opposed to a legal marriage) is recorded in the church records as having happened. If subsequently, it is found that one or other party to the marriage was coerced, then the marriage is deemed null and void and a notation is made on the appropriate record.
Similarly, since infant children aren't capable of giving consent, once said lack of consent and disagreement with the rite itself are brought to the attention of the church, they could simply make a notation in the church record declaring the baptism null and void. Simples.

As TheChizler and others have pointed out there is an argument to be made here about validating the church's rules by buying into them. However, as an ex-Catholic who has been through the countmeout process, there was a certain element of closure in telling the church that not only did you no longer believe their teachings but that you were sufficiently repulsed by their behaviour that you formally signalled your intention to sever all ties. It's not just about not believing but letting the church know that you don't believe.

You've severed all ties and you've got closure but you can't resist or leave the whole thing be. You come back over and over to comment and repeat your declaration that your "done with it".
How do you explain that?

oldrnwisr · 18-01-2017 8:14pm

infogiver wrote: »

You've severed all ties and you've got closure but you can't resist or leave the whole thing be. You come back over and over to comment and repeat your declaration that your "done with it".
How do you explain that?

Explain what exactly? You've made the comment that I come back over and over and yet this is only my fourth post in this thread. The first post was to explain the difference between birth and baptismal certs to Walter H Price. The second post was responding to your point about how baptism was a historic event which was incapable of being changed. You didn't engage with the point I made but rather posted the exact same point again. Now when I responded to your point a second time you again failed to engage with the point and brushed it aside with a snide comment.

So maybe you can explain how it is that I've come back over and over and maybe even better you can actually respond to the point that I made?

infogiver · 18-01-2017 11:29pm

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Explain what exactly? You've made the comment that I come back over and over and yet this is only my fourth post in this thread. The first post was to explain the difference between birth and baptismal certs to Walter H Price. The second post was responding to your point about how baptism was a historic event which was incapable of being changed. You didn't engage with the point I made but rather posted the exact same point again. Now when I responded to your point a second time you again failed to engage with the point and brushed it aside with a snide comment.

So maybe you can explain how it is that I've come back over and over and maybe even better you can actually respond to the point that I made?

If I'd cut my ties with something, divorced myself so to speak, left it all behind etc
I'd imagine I'd be actively avoiding becoming involved in any discussions, cyber or real life on that subject
Life's too short and all that
I'm interested in the psychology of it I suppose
It's like "I'm leaving...but one last thing..."
I've left things behind me in my time, with good reasons, like you.
Men, jobs, friendships etc and once I've made up my mind there's no turning back. It's as if that person that job that relationship never existed.
I don't properly understand the born again atheists continually returning to the subject that caused them so much pain and anger. That's all

Confused mum84 · 19-01-2017 12:19am

Just out of interest does the Catholic Church maintain some sort of ledger of members I.e. When a child is baptised does their details get added to a list that's maintained centrally ? I guess my point is if there is such a formal list then a person should have some mechanism to formally opt out . However if no such list exists , then it makes sense that there is no option to formally opt out I.e. If there is no formal record of membership in existence , then how could you formally opt out ...

Hotblack Desiato · 19-01-2017 2:08am

infogiver wrote: »

If I'd cut my ties with something, divorced myself so to speak, left it all behind etc
I'd imagine I'd be actively avoiding becoming involved in any discussions, cyber or real life on that subject
Life's too short and all that
I'm interested in the psychology of it I suppose
It's like "I'm leaving...but one last thing..."
I've left things behind me in my time, with good reasons, like you.
Men, jobs, friendships etc and once I've made up my mind there's no turning back. It's as if that person that job that relationship never existed.
I don't properly understand the born again atheists continually returning to the subject that caused them so much pain and anger. That's all

Why? Because we live in a society where 96% of primary schools have a religious 'ethos' yet are funded by the taxpayer
Where religious discrimination is legal, even against kids of the age of 4 trying to get into a school
Where some hospitals, also funded by the taxpayer, refuse to provide legal reproductive health services
Where the consititution is openly theistic and certain offices of state require religious oaths
Where those who choose not to swear on a bible in court are regarded as oddballs at best
Where the politicians with rare exceptions kowtow to religious leaders at all times
Where crimes committed by the leaders of religious orders and bishops go uninvestigated, never mind charged and convicted
Where a yard containing hundreds of human corpses whose deaths were never properly recorded, placed there within living memory, is not regarded as a crime scene
Where our national broadcaster carries calls to prayer every day
Where our national broadcaster asserts religious claims as fact on a frequent basis and these claims are rarely if ever challeged
Where a statement of non-belief on the TV is still regarded as shocking by some on here :rolleyes:

etc.etc.

How can we leave religion alone when religion will not leave us alone?

magicbastarder · 19-01-2017 3:36am

Confused mum84 wrote: »

Just out of interest does the Catholic Church maintain some sort of ledger of members I.e. When a child is baptised does their details get added to a list that's maintained centrally ?

there's not. even if they did, what identifying info do they have - your name at birth. no address, nothing else really.

looksee · 19-01-2017 11:11am

You can apply for a duplicate baptism cert, so there must be some sort of list, even in different churches.

Is there anyway out ?

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