How to "un-baptize"/ Withdraw affiliation with RCC?

Zed Bank

I have been an atheist for as long as I can recall, however like many of you went through the rigmaroll of baptism, communion and confirmation.

I would consider myself fairly strong in my atheistic beliefs, and the thought of my name being in some archive somewhere declaring me a Christian irritates me.

Obviously I haven't stepped foot in a church in years, and my morals could hardly be called catholic, so it would just be a symbolic thing really. But is there any conceivable way to actually formally check out? So to speak.

Knasher

You can send a note to the parish office you were baptised in and they will add a note to their register that you no longer consider yourself a member, but they won't remove you from the register itself any more.

Wouldn't consider it worth the effort myself though.

shroom007

There was a "count me Out" thing a few years ago.It was a website with information about this but Im a bit sketchy on the details

Cabaal

There used to be a loop hole you could use, count me out.ie used to use it but then the Catholic Church closed it.

So basically they won't strike you off their register anymore

shroom007

Convert to Islam then that should do it

Sulla Felix

shroom007 wrote: »

Convert to Islam then that should do it

I seem to remember Benny saying something along the lines that apostates are still considered part of the church. So as long as you still give a shít about what they think, you just can't leave.

shroom007

at least make a very clear will,least the f*ckers can't get ye when your dead

Kidchameleon

Its a name on a list OP, nothing to worry about.

robindch

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Its a name on a list OP, nothing to worry about.

Been over this many times -- the church uses figures from the baptismal register to inflate its figures so it can attempt to influence local and national policy.

Very much everything to worry about if, like many people here, you don't happen to like the church.

VinLieger

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Its a name on a list OP, nothing to worry about.

My name on a list i would prefer it not to be on and which I was never asked if i wanted it to be on, as stated above they use this list to artificially inflate its dying support

Peregrinus

They don't have a list of current members, so there is no list you can ask to be removed from.

They do have registers of baptisms, but they are simply records of the fact that on a give day and at a give place a baptism took place. You can't get that changed because, absent a Tardis you cannot alter the past.

The register of baptisms is not treated as a list of current members, if only because the great majority of names in the register are of people who are long dead.

Peregrinus

robindch wrote: »

Been over this many times -- the church uses figures from the baptismal register to inflate its figures so it can attempt to influence local and national policy.

I have many times asked for, and never been offered, a single example of the church using the baptismal register in the way described.

Figures for church membership employed in public policy discussion in Ireland tend to be the figures from the census. The baptismal register is not treated as a register of members for the reason pointed out in the post above.

Kidchameleon

If, without your approval, you were put on the register of "The league of intergalactic Unicorn rapists", would you want to be removed from that aswell? Being on the baptismal register of the Catholic Church is the same thing IMHO.

Hotblack Desiato

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Its a name on a list OP, nothing to worry about.

Everything is A-OK provided it's a religion doing it. Yeah we got the message by now.

Hotblack Desiato

Kidchameleon wrote: »

If, without your approval, you were put on the register of "The league of intergalactic Unicorn rapists", would you want to be removed from that aswell?

Feckin' right I would.

DK man

If you don't believe and think it's all codswollop then why r u worried about undoing something that you has no meaning!

topcatcbr

Zed Bank wrote: »

I would consider myself fairly strong in my atheistic beliefs,

Curious as to what these beliefs are. I always thought it was non belief.

Hotblack Desiato

DK man wrote: »

If you don't believe and think it's all codswollop then why r u worried about undoing something that you has no meaning!

Because it has a meaning to many people in this society.

It also has a very significant meaning to a rather repulsive organisation I never freely chose to have any part of.

SpaceTime

Cabaal wrote: »

There used to be a loop hole you could use, count me out.ie used to use it but then the Catholic Church closed it.

So basically they won't strike you off their register anymore

I filled that stuff in a few years ago before the loophole closed and I got officially made a Heathen

I got a lovely letter back from the Bishop and a parish priest in the parish I was baptised in. Nothing at all pushy, just like "best of luck with it!"

Basically, I'm now barred from using Catholic Church ceremonies etc etc. Fine with that!

Hotblack Desiato

I thought 'why bother' at the time but now I deeply regret not doing that when I had the chance. (I want a guarantee of exclusion from any possibility of an RCC funeral.)

They say atheists have no purpose in life, well my purpose in life is to oppose those bastards at every turn keep religion in churches, and out of hospitals, schools and our legislature.

SpaceTime

I'd say nowadays you'd just have to stop participating, do not fill in a religion on forms such as the census or anything like that etc etc.

Unfortunately though, the Catholic Church itself won't allow you to leave anymore i.e. they'll keep counting you as a member regardless.

I wonder actually if you could do something under the Data Protection Act i.e. they're refusing to amend an inaccurate database or to delete your records upon request.

Hotblack Desiato

It's not an inaccurate record, it's an accurate record of a historical event :rolleyes:

We can't erase the past but what we want is our repudiation of it to be recorded!

I'm going to write a nice chummy letter to Diarmuid asking him if he will bar my corpse from all churches under his jurisdiction

aaakev

ninja900 wrote: »

It's not an inaccurate record, it's an accurate record of a historical event :rolleyes:

We can't erase the past but what we want is our repudiation of it to be recorded!

I'm going to write a nice chummy letter to Diarmuid asking him if he will bar my corpse from all churches under his jurisdiction

That needs a thread of its own if he replies!

Sulla Felix

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/29/146046428/on-the-record-a-quest-for-de-baptism-in-france

Apparently still going through the courts, I can't find a newer reference to it.
OAP wins the first round to have the baptismal record deleted not just annotated, appeal by the RCC pending.

kylith

I too missed my chance with Count Me Out. For those who say seeking a de-baptism is pointless, well, I was signed up as a member of a misogynistic, corrupt, and predatory organisation without my consent and before I was capable of making the decision for myself. The RCC maintains that baptism changes you in the sight of their god. I never asked to be changed in any way, no matter how imperceptible, and I wish to be restored to my original state of being.

If you truly believe that being on the membership list of an organisation you find repulsive is nothing to be concerned about why not send me on your details and I'll sign you up to NAMBLA. It's just a list, after all, it doesn't mean anything, it has no impact on your life.

Peregrinus

ninja900 wrote: »

It's not an inaccurate record, it's an accurate record of a historical event :rolleyes:

We can't erase the past but what we want is our repudiation of it to be recorded!

I'm going to write a nice chummy letter to Diarmuid asking him if he will bar my corpse from all churches under his jurisdiction

Why this curious dependence on the archbishop? Would you not just bar your own corpse from all the churches under his jurisdiction? And all the churches not under his jurisdiction, while you're at it?

Take control! I honestly don't see the point of leaving the Catholic church, and then asking them to take over management of your funeral plans.

Peregrinus

Sulla Felix wrote: »

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/29/146046428/on-the-record-a-quest-for-de-baptism-in-france

Apparently still going through the courts, I can't find a newer reference to it.
OAP wins the first round to have the baptismal record deleted not just annotated, appeal by the RCC pending.

Appeal succeeded last September: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=86512098&postcount=78

Peregrinus

SpaceTime wrote: »

I wonder actually if you could do something under the Data Protection Act i.e. they're refusing to amend an inaccurate database or to delete your records upon request.

The database is not inaccurate. It shows that you were baptised at such-and-such a place on such-and-such a date and that's (presumably) factually correct. The record does not include any implicit or explicit claim that this means you are a current member of the church, or that someone is "counting" you as a current member.

Baptismal records would be covered by the Data Protection Act. In certain circumstances a data subject does have the right under the Act to ask to have the data relating to them erased, but generally you don't have this right unless you can show that the data controller has breached his obligations under the Act in the way that he processes your data. It seems to me that if your parents present you for baptism as an infant, and you are baptised, and an entry is made in the baptismal register to this effect, and that entry is thereafter left in the register, there's no breach there of the processing requirements under the Act. So to have any chance of forcing deletion of your register entry under the Act, you're going to have to show that something more has been done with your data, and that that something is a breach of a data processor's obligations under the Act.

Cabaal

ninja900 wrote: »

I thought 'why bother' at the time but now I deeply regret not doing that when I had the chance. (I want a guarantee of exclusion from any possibility of an RCC funeral.)

They say atheists have no purpose in life, well my purpose in life is to oppose those bastards at every turn keep religion in churches, and out of hospitals, schools and our legislature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i1cJIwE7M

:pac::pac:

SpaceTime

Peregrinus wrote: »

The database is not inaccurate. It shows that you were baptised at such-and-such a place on such-and-such a date and that's (presumably) factually correct. The record does not include any implicit or explicit claim that this means you are a current member of the church, or that someone is "counting" you as a current member.

Baptismal records would be covered by the Data Protection Act. In certain circumstances a data subject does have the right under the Act to ask to have the data relating to them erased, but generally you don't have this right unless you can show that the data controller has breached his obligations under the Act in the way that he processes your data. It seems to me that if your parents present you for baptism as an infant, and you are baptised, and an entry is made in the baptismal register to this effect, and that entry is thereafter left in the register, there's no breach there of the processing requirements under the Act. So to have any chance of forcing deletion of your register entry under the Act, you're going to have to show that something more has been done with your data, and that that something is a breach of a data processor's obligations under the Act.

Using the statistics from the records to support claims of membership could be construed as such a misuse.

All the organisation could legitimately use them for is to say X persons were baptised and may or may not be members.

It would be akin to me claiming that I have 400 staff if I ran a company that employed 400 people over the years but only ever 20 worked there at any given time.

Peregrinus

SpaceTime wrote: »

Using the statistics from the records to support claims of membership could be construed as such a misuse.

All the organisation could legitimately use them for is to say X persons were baptised and may or may not be members.

It would be akin to me claiming that I have 400 staff if I ran a company that employed 400 people over the years but only ever 20 worked there at any given time.

To make a case under the DPA in relation to get your own baptismal record deleted you would need to show that your record specifically was being used to claim you specifically as a church member. Even if you could show that some bishop was claiming that everyone who was ever baptised was a churc member forever and, therefore, the Catholic church in Ireland has 17,000,000 members (or whatever the total number of Irish baptism is) I don't think that would be enough to show that your data in particular was being processed in a way that breached the Act.

But in any event the claim that the Catholic church counts membership figures on the basis that everyone ever baptised is still a Catholic is unevidenced. If your going to bring a DPA action based on the claim that the church is counting Spacetime in its stated membership figures, you'll need some evidence that they are. The unsupported assertions of posters on A&A that this happens are not going to cut it.

SpaceTime

Peregrinus wrote: »

To make a case under the DPA in relation to get your own baptismal record deleted you would need to show that your record specifically was being used to claim you specifically as a church member. Even if you could show that some bishop was claiming that everyone who was ever baptised was a churc member forever and, therefore, the Catholic church in Ireland has 17,000,000 members (or whatever the total number of Irish baptism is) I don't think that would be enough to show that your data in particular was being processed in a way that breached the Act.

But in any event the claim that the Catholic church counts membership figures on the basis that everyone ever baptised is still a Catholic is unevidenced. If your going to bring a DPA action based on the claim that the church is counting Spacetime in its stated membership figures, you'll need some evidence that they are. The unsupported assertions of posters on A&A that this happens are not going to cut it.

All I would actually need to do is raise a concern that they're keeping inaccurate data on file and refusing to delete it, if they're using it as a membership database rather than a historical record.

You're entitled to a copy of data held, to have it ammended and corrected and it should only be held for a specific purpose.

So for example, holding records on me, when I've long since left an organisation would be rather unreasonable.

It would be an interesting case.

However, I've no issue myself as I formally left before the rule change. Being a member was ridiculous anyway as I'm not Catholic or terrifies at all and I disagree with them on a large number of issues : some rather basic social policy issues, human rights issues etc etc

So being a member in my case wouldn't make any sense whatsoever!

I do think it's utterly pathetic behaviour on behalf of the church to make formally leaving an impossibility though.

That kind of thing is more reminiscent of a cult than a religion. I have no issue with am organisation keeping membership through having a powerful story and message but I've a major problem with any organisation : religion, political party, gang, company etc that will not let members leave.

gizmo555

SpaceTime wrote: »

All I would actually need to do is raise a concern that they're keeping inaccurate data of file and refusing to delete it, if they're using it as a membership database rather than a historical record.

You couldn't get your baptismal record erased on grounds of inaccuracy, because as others have pointed out, it isn't.

A comparable case was a complaint made by someone to the Data Protection Commissioner because the Gardaí wouldn't delete PULSE records about his being prosecuted for an offence after he was acquitted. The complaint wasn't upheld, because the DPC said it wasn't inaccurate to record the fact of his prosecution, whether or not a conviction resulted.

A better tack to take might be to make a subject access request to the church for the data it holds about you. Along with a copy of the data, you are entitled to an explanation of the specific purposes for which the data is being held - you might want to make it clear in your request that you want this explanation.

Personal data may not be retained for longer than is necessary to fulfill the specific purposes for which it was originally collected. These purposes cannot be amended after the data is collected without your consent.

If, for example, the church answers that it processes baptismal records to keep track of its members, you might be justified in asking for your record to be deleted on the grounds that you've left the church.

Peregrinus

SpaceTime wrote: »

All I would actually need to do is raise a concern that they're keeping inaccurate data on file and refusing to delete it, if they're using it as a membership database rather than a historical record.

You're entitled to a copy of data held, to have it ammended and corrected and it should only be held for a specific purpose.

So for example, holding records on me, when I've long since left an organisation would be rather unreasonable.

It would be an interesting case. .

It would be an interesting case – if, as you point out yourself, they are using baptismal records as a membership database rather than a historical record. But without evidence that they are using it this way, I don’t see that there’s any case.

SpaceTime wrote: »

I do think it's utterly pathetic behaviour on behalf of the church to make formally leaving an impossibility though.

That kind of thing is more reminiscent of a cult than a religion. I have no issue with am organisation keeping membership through having a powerful story and message but I've a major problem with any organisation : religion, political party, gang, company etc that will not let members leave.

Far from making leaving an impossibility, they’ve made it easier. It was (briefly) a rule that, in order to have them accept (for certain purposes) that you had left the church and were no longer a Catholic, you had to go through a process of writing to the bishop. That was the process that countmeout.ie would take you through.

Naturally, most people who left had no interest in going through the process, and didn’t, with the result that they were still treated (for certain purposes) as members of the church. Since this was a result at odds with reality, they eventually dropped any requirement to correspond with your bishop in order to leave. You can write to your bishop if you wish, but you don’t have to, for any purpose.

shruikan2553

I dont think there should be a need to remove someone from the list of those baptised but a note should be made to say that while the event happened the person no longer wishes to be seen as a Catholic and has left the church, if they are to return another baptism should be done.

Benny_Cake

shruikan2553 wrote: »

I dont think there should be a need to remove someone from the list of those baptised but a note should be made to say that while the event happened the person no longer wishes to be seen as a Catholic and has left the church, if they are to return another baptism should be done.

A second baptism is a big no-no in Catholicism, even if someone is baptised in another denomination they will not re-baptise. That goes to the heart of Catholic theology and the chances of it changing are close to nil.

catallus

If people want to officially reverse a baptism then they should have to ask their mammies and their daddies if it's ok first cos they were the people who made it happen in the first place.

lazygal

catallus wrote: »

If people want to officially reverse a baptism then they should have to ask their mammies and their daddies if it's ok first cos they were the people who made it happen in the first place.

Was it not the priest who made it happen?


I wonder if priests ever have an issue with infant baptism.

Zed Bank

topcatcbr wrote: »

Curious as to what these beliefs are. I always thought it was non belief.

The belief that there is no "God"

catallus

lazygal wrote: »

Was it not the priest who made it happen?


I wonder if priests ever have an issue with infant baptism.

No, I'd say it was the parents. So very inconsiderate of them, if you think about it.

Peregrinus

gizmo555 wrote: »

A better tack to take might be to make a subject access request to the church for the data it holds about you. . . .

Well, if all you want is to know what data they are holding about you, you can just ask for a copy of your baptismal certificate, for which there is usually no fee. But, as you point out . . .

gizmo555 wrote: »

Along with a copy of the data, you are entitled to an explanation of the specific purposes for which the data is being held - you might want to make it clear in your request that you want this explanation.

Personal data may not be retained for longer than is necessary to fulfill the specific purposes for which it was originally collected. These purposes cannot be amended after the data is collected without your consent.

If, for example, the church answers that it processes baptismal records to keep track of its members, you might be justified in asking for your record to be deleted on the grounds that you've left the church.

First point to note is that the person to whom your data access request has to be directed is the “data controller” – the person who controls the contents and use of your personal data. In the context of a Catholic church baptismal record, that’s the parish priest of the church in which you were baptized. Catholic church sacramental records are highly decentralized. There is no point in writing to the bishop asking what data the diocese holds about you; they probably don’t hold any, and they almost certainly hold none about your baptism. (The only circumstance in which your baptismal records are likely to be held by the diocese is if the parish of your baptism has been closed. The records of closed parishes are transferred to the diocesan archives.)

Second point to note is that, as well as knowing what church you were baptized in, you’ll need to have a good idea of the likely date or range of dates for your baptism. Baptismal registers are chronological; baptisms are entered in the order they are performed and, though the names of the various parties are recorded, they’re usually not indexed, so without knowing roughly when a putative baptism might have been, it’s pretty well impossible to find out whether there’s an entry relating to you.

As regards the purpose for keeping a record, the answer is likely to be something along these lines:
1 We keep baptismal registers because canon law requires it.
2 We keep baptismal registers so that if people look for baptismal certificates we can issue them.
3 We keep baptismal registers so that if it is claimed that someone has been baptized we can try and verify that.
4 We keep baptismal records because they are of significant value for historical and genealogical research.

Even if you could get them to delete the register entry relating to your baptism, it would likely have no effect on the estimate of church membership. Every parish, every year, sends a return to the diocese of numbers of baptisms, numbers of communions, numbers of confirmations, marriages, funerals, etc. So the diocese may have no record of the fact that you were baptized in Ballymagash parish in (say) 1980, but it does hold a record showing that in that year (say) 85 people were baptized in Ballymagash. Even though you are one of the 85 people, that’s not personal data relating to you; there’s nothing in the raw number that tells us that gizmo is one of the 85. And even if your baptismal record is later deleted, the raw number for 1980 will not be changed, because it remains true that there were 85 baptisms in the parish in that year and there is no reason to falsify that record and pretend there were only 84. And, of course, to the extent that the diocese relies on baptismal records at all in its estimate of current Catholics, it’s simply the raw number they’d be looking at. In order to estimate the number of Catholics today, at no stage do they need to form an opinion on whether gizmo is or is not a Catholic today. It’s an estimated number, not a list of names.

Peregrinus

Zed Bank wrote: »

The belief that there is no "God"

Um. This is a recurring argument on this board, but the majority view is that atheism is not the belief that there is no god. It is the lack of any belief that there is a god.

Delirium

It does seem that the RCC have their own counting system (24 Feb 2013). Using guesstimates they managed to have 100 million of a surplus compared to a Pew Research Center which used self-identification as a baseline.

Hotblack Desiato

Peregrinus wrote: »

Why this curious dependence on the archbishop? Would you not just bar your own corpse from all the churches under his jurisdiction?

Er, I'll be dead so I'll be in no position to dictate.
I can trust my wife to respect my wishes, but none of my relatives. Sad perhaps but that's the way it is.
Wills are no use as you'll be weeks or months gone before they're read.
You can make arrangements with an undertakers in advance, but your relatives can override this.
And you have to admit it would be pretty cool to get a letter saying that my future corpse is barred from all catholic churches :cool:

I honestly don't see the point of leaving the Catholic church, and then asking them to take over management of your funeral plans.

That's the whole point, I haven't left as far as they are concerned, because there is no process which recognises that one has left.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Far from making leaving an impossibility, they’ve made it easier. It was (briefly) a rule that, in order to have them accept (for certain purposes) that you had left the church and were no longer a Catholic, you had to go through a process of writing to the bishop. That was the process that countmeout.ie would take you through.

Naturally, most people who left had no interest in going through the process, and didn’t, with the result that they were still treated (for certain purposes) as members of the church. Since this was a result at odds with reality, they eventually dropped any requirement to correspond with your bishop in order to leave. You can write to your bishop if you wish, but you don’t have to, for any purpose.

The bolded bit contradicts the argument you were making earlier, that one's presence on a baptismal register doesn't mean one is counted as a member. So does it or doesn't it?

The rest of the quote above is just nonsense. There was a process by which the RCC would officially recognise that one had left, they removed that process. That isn't making it easier to leave, it's making it impossible.
Just walking away from the church is not recognised by them. You yourself said that a baptised person can still be counted as a member. A baptised person is also entitled to an RC funeral.

What I want is for the RC to refuse me a funeral, if asked

Peregrinus

SW wrote: »

It does seem that the RCC have their own counting system (24 Feb 2013). Using guesstimates they managed to have 100 million of a surplus compared to a Pew Research Center which used self-identification as a baseline.

Yes. But it has to be pointed out that the Catholic church's estimate for Ireland has generally tallied closely with the self-identification figures from the RoI and NI censuses.

More to the point, nothing in the linked article suggests that the Catholic church's estimating methodology consists simply of counting all baptised people. In fact the article suggests several data points are employed - mass attendance estimates, numbers celebrating lifetime events like marriage or first communion, etc. And there is nothing to support the view that everyone ever baptised is counted as a current Catholic, or that if people could "de-baptise" this would reduce the estimate of current Catholics.

gizmo555

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, if all you want is to know what data they are holding about you, you can just ask for a copy of your baptismal certificate, for which there is usually no fee. But, as you point out . . .

Actually, last time I got one I was asked for a donation of €10, whereas €6.35 is the maximum that can be charged for a subject access request under data protection legislation.

The reason I suggested the data protection route is because the church (and I understand and agree with your point that it's the parish that's likely to be the data controller) has to be able to explain on request the specific purposes for which it's processing the OP's baptismal record.

If the OP believes, as an ex-church member, the processing is no longer justified, he can ask for it to be stopped and for his record to be deleted. If he's not satisfied with the response, he has a statutory entitlement to assistance from the data protection commissioner, who must give a decision. (Of course, it may not be the decision the OP would like!)

The attraction of this is that it doesn't cost anything to complain to the commissioner, so it doesn't involve the financial risk of taking legal action, if the OP felt strongly enough to do so.

Peregrinus wrote: »

As regards the purpose for keeping a record, the answer is likely to be something along these lines:
1 We keep baptismal registers because canon law requires it.
2 We keep baptismal registers so that if people look for baptismal certificates we can issue them.
3 We keep baptismal registers so that if it is claimed that someone has been baptized we can try and verify that.
4 We keep baptismal records because they are of significant value for historical and genealogical research.

Probably. But they're not necessarily entitled to do any or all of the above in the absence of the OP's consent. He can get the data protection commissioner to adjudicate on the matter, and - very importantly - he doesn't have to pay for the privilege. (As an aside, as Michael McDowell observed when he was attorney general, canon law carries no more weight than the rules of a golf club.)

Peregrinus

ninja900 wrote: »

. . . And you have to admit it would be pretty cool to get a letter saying that my future corpse is barred from all catholic churches :cool:

OK, I have to give you that!

ninja900 wrote: »

That's the whole point, I haven't left as far as they are concerned, because there is no process which recognises that one has left.

From their point of view, there's no need for a process. Being Catholic is not a matter of being registered somewhere or having your name on a list; it;s a matter of being in communion with the Catholic church, "communion" being a particular spiritual relationship. If you're not in communion, you're not a Catholic, end of. You don't need anyone's agreement, anyone's assent, anyone's acknowledgement; you don't even need anyone else to be aware. (Though, of course, if you want them to be aware, there's nothing to stop you telling them.) Given their understanding, establishing a procedure that you need to go through in order to not be Catholic is not liberating you; it's restricting you. It's setting up hoops that you have to jump through, and treating you as a Catholic if you won't jump through the hoops in defiance of the actual fact, which is that you are not a Catholic.

ninja900 wrote: »

The bolded bit contradicts the argument you were making earlier, that one's presence on a baptismal register doesn't mean one is counted as a member. So does it or doesn't it?

I'm not seeing the contradiction; at no point does the bolded bit imply that people were regarded as Catholic because, and only because, they were baptised.

To be a Catholic, in the Catholic perspective, you have to be:

(a) baptised (in any church, not necessarily the Catholic church) and

(b) in a relationship of communion with other Catholics (which is why Ian Paisley, although baptised, is not regarded as a Catholic).

If you're baptised in the Catholic church, and they need to make a decision for some reason or other that you are or not a Catholic, there's a presumption that you were raised in communion and remain in communion unless and until there is something to show that this is not the case.

For a brief period, for certain purposes, the only thing that they would accept as showing that you were no longer in communion was the formal notification procedure that countmeout.ie would take you through. The result, of course, was that large numbers of people who were not in communion were treated as being in communion because they couldn't be arsed to go through the one procedure that was acceptable. This was wholly unrealistic; hence they dropped the rule that this procedure was required to evidence the termination of communion.

ninja900 wrote: »

The rest of the quote above is just nonsense. There was a process by which the RCC would officially recognise that one had left, they removed that process. That isn't making it easier to leave, it's making it impossible.
Just walking away from the church is not recognised by them. You yourself said that a baptised person can still be counted as a member. A baptised person is also entitled to an RC funeral.

What I want is for the RC to refuse me a funeral, if asked

Sadly for you, not being a Catholic is generally not a bar to having a Catholic funeral. The Catholic church is usually happy to celebrate a funeral for a non-Catholic, if asked. The point about not being a Catholic in this context is that you don't have a right to a Catholic funeral, but that's no guarantee that you won't be given one if your grieving relatives ask for one.

Best way to rule yourself out is to be a notorious and unrepentant public sinner on a grand scale - jailed mafia boss, Nazi war criminal, that kind of thing. If that seems like too much trouble, the next best step is to make a will leaving generous bequests to your relatives conditional upon their not having given you a Catholic funeral, and make sure that they know of this.

lazygal

A will is usually read long, long after a death. Not immediately afterwards to find out funeral arrangements. Your next of kin won't know of your wishes unless you tell them and write it.down, and tell.friends and anyone else suitable too. Before I married I'd made it clear I didn't want a religious funeral and I know my husband will respect my wishes.

Hotblack Desiato

Generous bequests to get one's way?? Unlikely to be an option. Even in death the rich go by different rules...

As for the defection system placing impositions on ex-catholics, I disagree totally.
One always had, and still does have, the option of just walking away and getting on with one's life.
The whole point of the defection process was not to get 'permission' to not be a practising catholic any more. One never needed permission for that. The whole point of it was getting recognition from the church that one no longer wishes to be considered a member. This is important to many people like me, who not only want nothing to do with that church in life or in death, but want that church to know this.

And pretty bad form if they are giving funerals to people they know have not considered themselves catholics for many years. I consider that deeply disrespectful to the deceased.

I was dismayed a while back when Maeve Binchy, a well-known atheist of many years, was given a catholic funeral. We can avoid them in life but they try to snatch us back in death.

lazygal

Tbh I'm not annoyed at the church, I'm annoyed at the families of those who are known to be atheist who still head for the church as the easy funeral option. There's a thread in the weddings section where people who say they only have church weddings to appease relatives applying emotional blackmail. When will they grow a pair? If you're letting adults away with that kind of bull no wonder the church still packs them in for hatches, matches and dispatches.

Peregrinus

ninja900 wrote: »

As for the defection system placing impositions on ex-catholics, I disagree totally.
One always had, and still does have, the option of just walking away and getting on with one's life.
The whole point of the defection process was not to get 'permission' to not be a practising catholic any more. One never needed permission for that. The whole point of it was getting recognition from the church that one no longer wishes to be considered a member. This is important to many people like me, who not only want nothing to do with that church in life or in death, but want that church to know this.

There's nothing to stop you telling them this, if you want to.

But if there's a rule saying that you must tell them this, that telling them this is the mechanism by which you leave, and that until you do tell them this you haven't left and are still "counted as a Catholic", it's obvious from both common sense and recent experience that most people who leave are not motivated to go through the process, and will still be counted as Catholics. In other words, having such a rule makes for the substantial overcounting of Catholics. The notion that they abandoned the formal process for leaving in order to inflate numbers of Catholics makes no sense at all; introducing the formal process for leaving would have inflated numbers; abandoning it enables more realistic estimates to be made.

ninja900 wrote: »

And pretty bad form if they are giving funerals to people they know have not considered themselves catholics for many years. I consider that deeply disrespectful to the deceased.

But the deceased's nearest and dearest, who might have a better sense than you of what the deceased wanted or what respect for the deceased demanded, clearly did not agree with you.

ninja900 wrote: »

I was dismayed a while back when Maeve Binchy, a well-known atheist of many years, was given a catholic funeral. We can avoid them in life but they try to snatch us back in death.

Do you know what her wishes in the matter were? And if you're taking a view on what her funeral should have been without knowing what her wishes were then who, exactly, is trying to "snatch her in death"?

Seamus Heaney was an unbeliever. He had a Catholic funeral. That was his choice. You can't assume that just because somebody identifies as an atheist that in all their views and wishes they slot into a neat and predictable stereotype.