It is widely known that leaving the Muslim religion has risks. Some Muslim extremists consider apostasy (leaving the faith) to be punishable by death. But Islam isn’t the only religion that refuses to let people leave the faith. The Catholic Church doesn’t threaten apostates with death. They simply don’t allow people to leave.
Karolina Sygula grew up in a Catholic family and like many others was baptized shortly after birth without any choice in the matter. At the age of 13, Sygula wrote on her Confirmation questionnaire, “I'm an atheist and my parents are making me do this.” Now, 20 years later, the Church continues to refuse her continued requests to be taken off their books as a Catholic.
Several months ago, Sygula wrote to the Archdiocese of Toronto, where she now resides to inform them that she no longer wishes to have her name associated with the Catholic Church. The diocese proceeded to send her on a bureaucratic goose chase. She was then told that she needed to write to the specific parish which had baptized her. When they did not respond to her request, she wrote to the parish where she had first communion. After discovering that the parish no longer existed, she wrote to a different parish. This time it was the parish where she was confirmed.
Finally, Karolina Sygula received an answer, “No one will erase you from official parish records, as what has been done cannot be undone.” The spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, Kristen Carey also responded saying, that “it is like the relationship between a mother and her daughter. No matter how estranged the relationship, the mother will always welcome back her daughter. You can't break that bond.”
Despite the Churches unwillingness to let people leave, more and more people are requesting just such a thing. In the Philadelphia area, Nicholas Stark has just started down a similar process. Yesterday, he sent a letter to Cardinal Rigali of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
In the letter, Stark states that he is giving, “formal notice of my defection from the Roman Catholic Church, and I would appreciate written confirmation to testify to this fact. I want it to be known that I no longer wish to be regarded as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and I have not attended church services since 2006.”
He goes on to state:
“Not wishing to deceive either the Catholic Church or my fellow people, I would like all necessary records changed to reflect the reality that I am not a Catholic, despite being baptized and raised as one without choice.”
“I am opposed to the Church morally, historically, and politically. The claim to absolute, objective moral authority is unacceptable and lacks any demonstration. The disdain, with which the Church treats females, gays, sexuality in general, and non-religious or other-religious makes it an intolerably bigoted institution which I cannot in good conscience associate with.”
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Comments
If the RCC doesn't like that people are leaving, they can effing "offer it up to God." The RCC has brought this on themselves by being generally loathsome and antiprogress in almost every possible instance. People are waking up to this at long last.
In Italy the church cannot cancel your baptism, but it is obliged (by law) to mark at the side of the record that the person does not want to be part of the catholic church anymore
Instructions for leaving Catholic Church according to Italian laws: http://www.uaar.it/news/2010/06/02/ottobre-2010-terza-giornata-nazionale....
In the .rtf it is clearly written you want a written undersigned confirmation of you wanting not to be counted in the list of those baptized but it is not rare they will not reply you. In this case, here more FAQs... http://www.uaar.it/laicita/sbattezzo/faq-sbattezzo.html.
All this is in Italy! :)
Thank you for a very interesting article
Ironically, you can write to the pope and pay a fee and get your marriage "annulled" but you can't ask to leave? You could leave like I did- get divorce without apologizing! I'm told I can't stand on altar ,nor receive communioun, and am banned forever!! Yet a priest molests a child, and all is forgiven.
If any Bishop refuses your request to leave the Church, ask when he was consecrated a Bishop. If it was after 1969 - the end of Vatican II all ordinations and consecratopns are heretical and thus illegal under Canon Law. Of course the Church will dispute hat, but refer them to the Councill of Trent 1540 which decreed the Tridentine Mass must never be changed.
There are some great turns of phrase in Mr. Stark's letter which is quoted above. I hope he doesn't mind that I borrowed a few to use in my own letter of defection from the catholic mafia. We'll see how long it takes.
I actually only used small excerpts from Nick's letter. He had a lot of other interesting things to say too. I also don't think he'd mind you using his thoughts.
Part of me also wants to do this (officially defect) out of principle, but another part of me can't be bothered, and thinks that asking them to remove me unnecessarily gives the church more authority - or the illusion of authority - than I think they should have.
Still, The Church likes to use their vast numbers to encourage politicians to vote their way. Plus, if more and more people start requesting a formal separation from the Church, it will encourage others to re-think their association with the Church. Just something to consider.
It's unfortunate this has to happen. But really, is it that big a deal? I'm not Catholic, but if I were and I couldn't get the church to remove my name, I'd just move on. It would have no bearing on living my life.
The Church likes to use their vast numbers as leverage to get politicians to vote their way. Many people do not want their name associated with the evils of the Catholic Church and to those who have been sexually abused by the Church, such a refusal to remove their names serves as an emotional scar and a continued violation of them as people.
I'm proud of Nick's moral conscience and support the stand he has taken. As to being "Baptized and raised Catholic without a choice," it is just part and parcel of our early development that choices are made for us in good faith that we later as adults come to reject. That is natural and expected in my opinion. I do not regret being raised a Jew, although I later came to deliberately disassociate myself from the Jewish traditions and culture for various reasons. I don't think I would feel any differently if I had been raised Catholic. I would appreciate many things about the traditions and the spirit of the community but there are limits to what we can put up with in good conscience. I independently many years ago came to similar conclusions as Nicholas did recently about the way religious communities come to identify their traditions with moral authority and the harm it ends up doing in some extreme but not rare circumstances. I don't think there is anything ominous intended in the Church "not letting people leave," but it is a sign of their being out of touch with modern culture that they don't seem to recognize that they are denying their members what is considered in other spheres of life a perfectly reasonable expression of protest, a public defection.
I grew up in the Jewish tradition as well and if I could get my foreskin back, I would.
It's Easy really, call their bluff, do something that will get you excommunitaed! Seriously though, they don't want to lode anyone from their grossly inflated figures. Otherwise Islam takes over. Of course they do the same trick with threats od death. Aint Religion wonderful?
She has for all practical purposes left. The Church cannot force her or anyone else into the pews, so as such it is not keeping her in the Church. Nor would any decent Catholic try to make her forcibly attend Mass. Further, it would seem that people will only know she was baptized Catholic because she keeps making an issue of it. If it is really that unimportant to her, all she has to do is shut up about it. Yet she does not' one wonders whose conscience needs examination.
Her name is still associated with the Catholic Church and when the Church makes claims about their numbers in an attempt to sway politicians, her name is used in those numbers. She no longer wishes to aid an immoral organization is such a manner. All the Church needs to do is honor her request and take her name off their books. Instead, you are blaming her for speaking up against such a immorality.
I am blaming her for nothing, and no immorality has been committed. Her parents what they should have done as Catholics: had her baptized. She is not aiding the Church at all if she isn't participating in Church activities. Besides, as a theological point no one can be unbaptized. I realize that you won't accept that rationale, yet so be it. As a practical point, you cannot unsay what has been said. As to the Church being an immoral organization, well, it is a charge which lacks basis when leveled by an atheist. If there is no higher power but only us humans, then I am as likely to be right on any given issue as you. I have no moral obligation to listen to another human being who is essentially on the same moral plane as myself. If there is no truth beyond me, I cannot call others wrong. Nor can they call me wrong. It is a might makes right proposition, and a poor way to decide the goodness of any act.
Please see my Atheism 101 Series article on Moral Grounding.
Second, that is the whole point of the article, you are claiming that one cannot leave the Catholic Church. This is immoral and it is cult-like. The fact is that many atheist groups do offer de-baptism. There is a de-baptism hairdryer and even a de-baptism soap. The point is that you ought to be able to leave a religious organization if that is your choice. But the Catholic Church does not honor people's choices and still uses those people's names to show have large they are and to use as leverage against politicians and others.
Your points about the numbers and political influence are unimportant: the influence of the Church is present regardless of the number of Catholics. What atheist groups offer matters not either: the secular world cannot remove an indelible mark on the soul. As I said before, the Catholic Church cannot change the unchangable. But that is a theological point and beyond your expertise. It is not immoral. It is a reflection of a spiritual reality.
I did read your article on moral grounding, and even complimented a part of it. I rather believe, my friend, that you are a better man than you stated creed.
Mr. Cosgriff is correct in that Baptism is theologically irreversable. She cannot be "erased" from Parish records but she can have a notation of a formal defection. Comparing this in any way to defection from Islam is unfair to the Catholic Church. The title of this article in my opinion, is misleading. Would you require that the U.S. government erase every record of a former citizen if they were to change their allegiences, repudiate their citizenship, and gain citizenship of another country? Why is it not enough to decalare that there has been a "formal act of defection" in the Parish records?
If a citizen renounces their citizenship, they are no longer counted as an American citizen by the government. But if one renounces their belief in Catholicism, they are still counted among the faithful by the Catholic Church. That is the point.
They must be still counted as Catholic. They've been committed to the faith whether they like it or not.
That is the point. This is cult-like and immoral.
But is this really "refusing to let people leave"? Doesn't the Catholic Church or we individual Catholics have a right to view somebody as we wish? The Church makes a notation of formal defection (at least that is what the procedure is to be from what I understand.) I assume you wouldn't expect the Church to destroy the records just as this seems unreasonable. What more can they do? It appears you take issue with them including people who have defected in their number estimates. The real issue is whether they have done so formally. How do you know that the Catholic Church counts those who have formally defected amongst the faithful?
Or if it as if Mr. Cosgriff has said, once they have been committed to the faith it is unable to view them as anything other than Catholic (it may be, I'm a new convert from Protestantism), why is that an issue? Don't we have a right to view them according to our beliefs? What is that to them? If they want to formally defect, they can.
No, apparently they can't and that is the issue.
The fact remains that people are able to "formally" defect ( Actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica) from the Church. There is a process. When this happens, then this is to be notated in the Baptismal record. It appears from your article as if Sygula wanted all the records destroyed. Again, if she were to "swap" her citizenship, would the U.S. Government destroy all of her records? No. The Church would hope that she would come back. Therefore, to say that the Church "refuses to let her leave" is not true. She is free to do as she wishes.
How the CC views her is the CC's perogative. I will ask again, doesn't the CC have a right to view her any way the CC wants to? Would it not be intollerant on the part of others if they were to require that Catholics change their beliefs to those of the other party if they didn't share those beliefs?
If a daughter wants to divorce herself from her mother and goes through the formal process of doing so, is it wrong for that mother to still consider that person her child? Does she not have a right to do so?
Why is the status of the person being changed to a "formal defection" not enough?
You have missed the point where the Church STILL COUNTS HER AS A CATHOLIC!!!
I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand. The Church is not her mother and she is not the daughter of the Church. That is a ridiculous analogy. The Church is an organization and if someone wishes to leave that organization, the organization should let them go! That means that they should no longer count them among their ranks. This is not the case currently. That is the problem. Hiding behind some form of bullshit that they made up doesn't make it right. The Mormons baptize the dead and that is just as reprehensible.
The trouble here is that arguing legal rights when the issue is theological. You are arguing beyond your scope, Mr. Rosch. Human law has no place in theological matters.
Excellent response, Detroit Catholic Examiner!
So I guess you have conceded the point. Thanks
I have concede nothing and cannot imagine how you drew such a conclusion. I asserted that you were speaking of human law when the issue theological. It is you have raised the white flag.
I don't recognize theology as an excuse for breaking human law.
What human law is being broken in this case?
The law of common decency!
And from whom do we get that law of common decency?
Nice how you handled a remark directed at someone else here with rude and crude language than treating their statement with that vaunted common decency which apparently means so much to you.
The Oshkosh Wisconsin Freethinkers held a Debaptisim Ceremony about a year ago for some of the members complete with Certificates of Debaptism. A hairdryer was used to symbolically evaporate the water that was poured on them before the age of consent. It was done with a great sense of humor; however, it did underscore the arrogant imaginary world that religion is.
I have changed my opinion in that in a certain sense, "once a Catholic always a Catholic" from the point of view of the Catholic Church, although one can formally defect and have that notated in their records (even though they might meet some resistence, perhaps more paperwork for the Bishop, they think the person may not be serious or whatever the reason.) One has to wonder, why do non-Catholics (or "ex-Catholics) care how the CC views such people.
This was explained in many of the comments already. The Catholic Church is using these people's names to pad their numbers in an attempt to sway political votes.
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