Abortion/ *Note* Thread Closing Shortly! ! !

Obliq wrote: »

A friend of mine managed it, afaik (I think it was baptism - but maybe it was confirmation into the church - not sure, shall ask). I do know that he had to argue for the non-existence of God in front of a panel of at least 4 jesuits. He won, btw. :cool::cool::cool:

Obliq wrote: »

Well done you! What's the 'Hotel California' clause? This line??! "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"

Peregrinus wrote: »

Other way round - they’ve made it easier.

At the time you jumped through the hoops, Bannasidhe, there were hoops you had to jump through. Hence the “relevant bits of paper” that you refer to.

The thing is, most people leaving the church were not interested in jumping through any hoops. So they didn’t. The result was, those people were treated as still being in the church when the reality was they weren’t.

So in 2009 they dropped the hoops requirement. Since then, you can leave the church without any formality at all, and without requiring anyone’s agreement, validation, approval or acknowledgement. No bits of paper. Nothing.

This is a bit frustrating if you actually want a bit of paper, but experience shows that most people who bail out don’t want one, and won’t go through any procedures to get one.

In April of this year, the Catholic Church modified the Code of Canon Law to remove all references to the act of formal defection, the process used by those who wish to formally renounce their membership of the Church.

Since then, the Catholic Church in Ireland has been reflecting on the implications of this change for those who wish to leave the Catholic Church. Despite our requests for clarification, the Church have yet to reach a firm position on how or whether they will continue to accept requests for the annotation of the baptismal register.

In recent weeks we have been contacted by an increasing number of people whose defections have not been processed, due to the limbo created by this canon law amendment.

Because of this uncertainty, we have taken the decision to suspend the creation of declarations of defection via CountMeOut.ie from today (12th October 2010)


...
20/07/2011 - Church Continues to Block Formal Cessation of Membership

The Catholic Church continues to block efforts by those who wish to formally renounce their membership of the faith. The Countmeout.ie organisation recently assisted 16 people in their effort to have an "Act of Apostasy" recognised as a formal declaration of their wish to leave the church. However, the Archdiocese of Dublin has decided it cannot accept these declarations meaning those who wish to leave the church continue to be denied this option.

The website Countmeout.ie made headlines in 2009 when it offered a simple 3-Step process for this wishing to formally leave the Catholic Church. The process involved sending a "Declaration of Defection" to one's local diocese, after which an annotation was made to the baptismal register. In 2010, however, the church made changes to Canon Law which removed the option to formally defect. Count Me Out has been exploring alternative methods of formally renouncing one's membership since the changes to Canon Law and recently trialled a new declaration known as an "Act of Apostasy".

The Act of Apostasy allows someone to declare themselves an apostate to the faith, i.e. one who rejects Christian teachings. Canon Law stipulates that an apostate to the faith automatically incurs a latae senteniae excommunication. In response to the 16 Acts of Apostasy which were sent to the Archdiocese of Dublin in June 2011, a spokesperson stated that they would not be accepted. Furthermore, it was stated that excommunication does not mean that somebody is no longer a member of the church.

Count Me Out has concerns about the latest developments. It appears that there is currently no possibility of formally ceasing one's membership of the Catholic Church. This has implications for one's freedom of religion and association. Countmeout.ie has experienced a ten-fold increase in traffic to the site in the aftermath of the Cloyne Report. This demonstrates the desire of many lapsed Catholics to leave the church and we are now calling on the church to make this a possibility.

Count Me Out, 20/07/2011



Relevant Articles of Canon Law

Can. 751 Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.

Can. 1364 §1 An apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication, without prejudice to the provision of Can. 194 §1, n. 2; a cleric, moreover, may be punished with the penalties mentioned in Can. 1336 §1, nn. 1, 2 and 3.

Peregrinus wrote: »

You’re quoting from the countmeout website, and telling me that’s an authoritative statement of Catholic canon law on leaving the church?

Besides, countmeout does not contradict what I said. What countmeout says is that “there is currently no possibility of formally ceasing one’s membership of the Catholic church”. What I said is that there is no requirement to go through any formalities in order to leave, which - if you think about it - would explain why canon law doesn’t provide any formalities to go through.

At no point does countmeout quote, or even suggest the existence of, a canon law provision which says that, if you have ever been baptized, you are a Catholic for ever. And for a very good reason; despite the vampire-like urban legend which refuses to die on this board, that’s not actually the Catholic position.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’m dragging the thread down a tangent?

This is a thread about abortion. The question of whether someone can leave the Catholic church was raised by ninja900 in post 2494 and then successively discussed in posts by Kiwi in IE, ninja900 again, Kiwi in IE again, Obliq, yourself, Obliq again and yourself again before I contributed anything at all to the discussion. But I’m the one who’s dragging the thread off down a tangent? How do you figure that?


No, it isn’t.

Think about it for a minute. Millions of people are baptised every year in Anglican, Lutheran, Orthodox and other Christian services. The Catholic church regards all those people as truly and completely baptised and (should they ever wish to become Catholics) will not baptise them. But it does not regard them as Catholics. Clearly, baptism does not create a Catholic.

A Catholic is a baptised Christian who is in communion with the Catholic church. From the Catholic perspective, all you have to do to not be a Catholic is not be in communion with the Catholic church. Imposing an additional requirement involving notification, paperwork or entries in registers doesn’t make it easier to leave the church; it makes it harder.


This is so completely the opposite of the truth that it’s almost funny.

Back to countmeout.ie for a moment. Their website tell us that 531 people used their service to e-mail a formal defection from the Catholic church during the five years of its operation. That’s a bit over a hundred a year, or an average of between four and five persons per year per Catholic diocese in Ireland.

Now, of course, it’s possible that other people were nutting their own way through the process without availing of the countmeout.ie service. Still, even if we assume that as many again were doing so, that’s still only a bit over two hundred people a year throughout Ireland.

Do you seriously think that only 200 people a year leave the communion of the Catholic church in Ireland? No, me neither.

The reality, as you, I and – more to the point – the Catholic church all know is that many more people leave the church every year, and the great bulk of them are not motivated to fill out forms, send letters to bishops, etc, etc. They couldn’t be arsed.

And I don’t think Ireland is any different from any other country. I don’t imagine that canon law on this issue – which comes from Rome – is driven by the Irish experience, but common sense suggests you will get the same result anywhere; if you establish a bureaucratic procedure for leaving the church, people who leave because they consider it pointless or irrelevant – which is an awful lot of people – will have no incentive or motivation to go through the procedure. Uou end up inflating church numbers by counting most leavers as Catholics unless and until they go through the procedure, which most of them never will.

The result is that having a formal mechanism for leaving the church does not reveal the numbers leaving; it conceals them.

And, if you look into this in any depth, you’ll find that the objections from within the church to the “formal defection” procedure were precisely that; “this system requires us to treat as Catholic the (very large) number of people who have left the church but who are not motivated to comply with the procedures established. It is producing inaccurate and anomalous results. It is causing us trouble. It fails to reflect the truth.”