For People Who Want To Leave The Church

Everybody telling the truth when census time comes around would be the way to go on this one I think. I don't really care if the church considers me in or out. I know I'm out. They're wrong. The fact that they're wrong on so many big things really dwarfs the fact that they're wrong on lil' ol' me's membership.

I felt the same way for a long time as some of the posters here. I got into Count me Out just in time but my reasons for wanting to leave where not considered good enough so my request was denied!! I asked for the original copies of my records from my childhood church and was refused.

I stewed over it for ages but now I don't care, as Kiwi says we have choice and that gives us power. For me the simple act of putting myself down as atheist on my census form was enough. The Church can consider me a member all they want, the fact is I don't contribute or participate in anything to do with the RCC and never will, the State knows my status now and for me that is all that matters.

It annoys me when people go "oh its just your name someplace it doesn't matter" if it was just my name someplace the church wouldnt have a problem taking it off, the fact they won't means it DOES matter.

Geomy wrote: »

To some it matters to more its just ink on paper.

Your passport and driving license are just ink on paper. That doesn't mean they don't have significance.

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Baptismal records are used by the Church to show how many members they have, and thus gain influence in society and politics. They should have neither, and as stated above, if it's just ink on paper why do the Church refuse to let people have their names removed?

I see your point.

Ok I'm different,I don't really give a toss about church records.

From reading some posts I can see some of us think about this more than others.

I now understand why it upsets some people and others have a who gives a s&!t
attitude.

I hope it gets sorted for those who want to get out of the records etc

Wishing ye luck

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Baptismal records are used by the Church to show how many members they have, and thus gain influence in society and politics...

Do they though? When have they actually done this?

What do you need to do to be excommunicated these days?

Even if you are excommunicated you are still obliged to go to Mass etc, you just can't recieve the sacrements or take communion.

Wibbly Wobbly Wonder wrote: »

We're dealing with written records that claim that we are permanently recorded on publicly accessible records, for all future generations to see, that we have gone though the Church initiation process. (albeit against our wills). Unamended, these records may be taken as read, that we remained as voluntary members of the Catholic Church after having undergone their initiation process, and not objected to same, and no publically accessible record is kept of our objection. So at the very least these publicly accessible historical records should be amended to set the record straight, for future generations and the records of History where a person requests them to be so.

Baptismal records are not publicly accessible.

In any event, baptism records simply record that a baptism took place. They do not assert that the baptism has any particular consequence or continuing relevance.

By the same token, my birth certificate records my birth in Ireland. As a result of having been born in Ireland, I am an Irish citizen. However if I were to lose my Irish citizenship, my birth certificate would not be amended to note the fact. The certificate records nothing but the fact of my birth, and not the downstream consequences of that. Baptismal certificates are the same.

Wibbly Wobbly Wonder wrote: »

At the very least Atheist.ie should be seeking legal advice on the matter on behalf of Atheists

There is in fact a case winding its way through the French courts on this at present. The plaintiff is demanding that his baptismal record be deleted entirely, on the grounds that it is data personal to him, and that under French law a record of this data may not be kept without his consent. (Note, though, that his case does not depend on the fact that he has left the church. He could make the same case even if he were the most devout Catholic.)

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Then why can there not be an annotation to show one also officially rejected that Baptism?

Let me put it this way - my parents separated 30 years ago but never divorced (Irish Catlicks :rolleyes:) so officially they are still married just like those whose names are on the Baptismal record are 'officially' Catholics.



When a marriage takes place there is a record. When a marriage ends and is dissolved by divorce - there is an official record. What is the difference? No one is disputing that Baptism took place, but one should be able to have ones 'divorce' also noted.

^ that, you can have it officially shown you were once married and now longer are, why not with baptism? I had no choice in it and yes I reject everything about it, so why can't I have that recognised. If it wasnt such a big deal they wouldnt have a problem doing it.

Dades wrote: »

There's definitely a thread about this somewhere here where quotes from the church have supported the idea that they think baptism is for ever (i.e. supernatural) no matter what you write in the margins. Must try to dig it out.

Look, this is not difficult to grasp:

1. In the Catholic view, the spiritual effects of baptism are indeed irreversible.

2. But “baptism” =/= “membership of the church”. As we say in logical analytics, baptism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for membership of the Catholic church.

3. Consequently baptism does not result in permanent membership of the Catholic church.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Then why can there not be an annotation to show one also officially rejected that Baptism? . . . No one is disputing that Baptism took place, but one should be able to have ones 'divorce' also noted.

Oh, sure. I can entirely see why someone would want some kind of official acknowledgement from the Catholic church that they have left the church, or that they do not accept that they were ever a member.

All I’m saying is that not getting such an acknowledgement in the form you expect - a note added to the baptismal record - or indeed in any form does not mean that the (1) you are still a member of the Catholic church, or (2) you are still claimed as a member by the Catholic church, or (3) you are still counted as a member by the Catholic church, and those who assert that it does mean any of those things need to produce some evidence.

The focus on the baptismal register is misplaced. It arises out of the mistaken belief that Dades has just expressed - that, because you are baptized, you are regarded as a Catholic for ever, and therefore to leave the church it is your baptism that needs to be reversed, annulled, cancelled or whatever.

To continue your own marriage/divorce analogy a bit, if your parents divorced, their marriage certificate would not be annotated, altered, cancelled or changed in any way. Nor is the entry in the marriage register. In fact, SFAIK the registrar-general keeps no records of divorces, and no-one consulting his records would have any way of knowing that your parents were divorced. The evidence of your parents’ divorces would be a court order, made and recorded by an entirely different organ of the state, and which would even less publicly accessible than their marriage cert.

If that’s acceptable from the state, should something similar not be acceptable from the church? So if you leave the church, write a letter to your bishop (or to the man who would be your bishop) telling him that you are not, or are no longer, a Catholic, and asking him to acknowledge your position. Odds are you’ll get a polite letter back, noting (no doubt with some expression of regret) your position. And there’s your documentary evidence.

TheChizler wrote: »

Have to agree entirely on this one; just totting up the baptisms would give a hugely inaccurate figure. As Dades points out there was another thread that went through this in detail, I think it was generally agreed that they probably use some combination of the number of new baptisms every year and actuarial tables based on death, emigration, attendance and defection rates to come up with a meaningful figure. It's most likely a complicated statistical exercise.

SFAIK, there’s no mandated method for coming up with the estimate; it’s up to each diocese to develop its own methodology, which will no doubt depend on the local circumstances, the resources they have, and the resources they wish to devote to the exercise (which, for most, is probably not their greatest priority). In Germany, for example, the state keeps records of church membership (for tax reasons), and I think the churches just relay the state’s figures to Rome as their estimates. Elsewhere, though, methods may be cruder. It’s not unknown for the diocesan figures to be suspiciously round (“150,000”) and to remain unchanged for years, before undergoing a sudden step-change to some other, equally round figure.

TheChizler wrote: »

What is important to note that is that they probably (maybe?) account for defection rates in their model, which is the one figure we could influence by making our wishes known. So if you want to help make the figure as accurate as possible by all means make your wishes known to the relevant diocese.

Even when there was a formal canon law procedure for having your departure noted, very few departing Catholics could be arsed to go through it. Consequently an estimate of Catholics which only counted formal defections/notifications would certainly be an over-estimate. A more realistic estimate would have to apply some multiplier = assume that for every notification you received, say, 19 others had left without bothering to notify you. But how would you come up with a reliable multiplier?

It strikes me that there are other, and probably better, ways of estimating defection rates. For instance, if you have a handle on how many ever-baptised-Catholic people there are, and of their demographic profile, and of their fertility (and you can get the latter two items from the census) then you have a pretty good idea of how many babies they’re having each year, and you can compare that to the number of babies presented for baptism. The difference between the two points to a cohort of young parents who have probably bailed out, and you can extrapolate from that to young adults who are not parents, or not yet parents. Techniques like that might give you a better estimate of leaving rates than counting formal notifications and applying a multiplier which, as far as I can see, you’d really just have to pluck out of the air.

The bottom line, I think, is that a formal notification/acknowledgement of leaving might be important to the individual, and it should be available. But there is no reason why it has to be by way of adjustment to the baptismal records, and if it’s not available it does not mean that you are still a Catholic, or counted or claimed as a Catholic. And whether it’s available or not, the number issued probably doesn’t impact hugely on the church’s own membership estimates. Those dioceses concerned to make an accurate estimate will probably use other techniques as well to identify leavers; counting the notifications is never going to produce a reliably accurate figure for leavers.

TheChizler wrote: »

Of course all this hinges on the presumption that there IS some kind of membership list in existence, and any figure presented by the church is any more than wishful thinking and a back of the envelope calculation.

There is no membership list. And the church membership figures are, explicitly, estimates, not counts of individuals. (If there were a membership list, there would be no need to estimate numbers; you could simply count them.) Thus you can never say that the church membership figures do, or do not, claim Peregrinus or TheChizler as members; they may (and should) reflect that a number of Catholics have left, but for the purposes of the figure it’s not necessary to identify which Catholics have left, and which remain.