CountMeOut was caught out this week amid uncertainty about whether Catholics can still defect from their church.
IT IS NO LONGER possible, it would
seem, to leave the Catholic Church.
Although the church in Ireland has
been accepting applications to defect, many on foot of applications
printed from the user-friendly CountMeOut website, it said on Tuesday
that it would no longer process them.
The website, which has helped
disillusioned Catholics leave, has suspended offering the defection
papers “until the situation has been clarified”.
In a somewhat
ambiguously worded statement the Dublin archdiocese set out the
situation for all dioceses: “The Holy See confirmed at the end of August
that it was introducing changes to canon law and as a result it will no
longer be possible to formally defect from the Catholic Church.”
But,
it continued: “This will not alter the fact that many people can defect
from the church and continue to do so, albeit not through a formal
process. This is a change that will affect the church throughout the
world.”
It said the archdiocese planned to maintain a register “to
note the expressed desire of those who wish to defect”.
Last year, it
said, 229 people had defected formally from the church through the
archdiocese; the figure for this year so far is 312.
Among those
who wanted to defect this year is Alan Grace, a 25-year-old from
Wicklow, who sent his formal application in July.
“They had all the
paperwork by July 27th. They sent me a letter saying they got it, but
they haven’t formally accepted the application. I’d be very angry if I
now couldn’t leave.”
The reasons for canon-law changes are set out
in Omnium in Mentem, an apostolic letter issued in April.
It removes
from the code of canon law all references to formal defection that were
introduced to it in a 1983 revision. Included in that general revision
was a look at the sacrament of marriage.
It introduced a dispensation so
that the marriages of estranged former Catholics – who had defected, it
was deemed – could be considered valid.
This, however, caused pastoral
difficulties throughout the universal church, as it became unclear what
formal defection actually entailed.
Consultations began in 1997,
resulting in the Omnium in Mentem letter. What its removal of all
references to formal defection means for people wishing to leave is
“totally unclear”, says Paul Dunbar, a founder of CountMeOut.
“Essentially, from our point of view, it looks like defection is wiped
out.”
The website, which was set up last year, had an online form
that applicants could fill in, print out and send to their dioceses.
It
claims that more than 12,000 people have filled in the form. Asked
whether people who want to leave the church would care whether it
recognises their defection, given that they presumably don’t believe in
its teachings, Dunbar says that, in fact, many people take its teachings
seriously and want nothing more to do with them.
“For many it is
very important that the church recognises they have left and removes
them from the baptismal register. We have several questions now for the
church, which we will be hoping to have clarified next week.”
Among
these are whether those who have already defected can continue to
consider themselves non-Catholic, and what exactly the church means when
it says people can still defect, “albeit not through a formal process”.
A
spokesman said the church was clearly stating “the truth that being a
baptised a member of the church cannot be undone”. While the baptismal
register can be amended, the baptism cannot.
“A Catholic can formally
register disassociation from the church but the reality of baptism
stands. Baptism leaves an indelible mark.”
In other words, it would seem
that though one can still decide not to participate in the Catholic way
of life, the church views baptism as irrevocable.
Alan Grace
believes this has implications for freedom of religion and expression,
and says babies should not be baptised when they have no say in the
matter.
“I would never have my children baptised. I don’t believe Jesus
Christ would want a church like the Catholic Church.”
SIC: IT/IE