The Vatican has revised its own canon laws to keep
people from formally defecting from the Church, panicked by the huge
numbers leaving over the child abuse crisis.
The Church claims — based on baptismal records — that it
has a billion adherents worldwide.
But by preventing people from
formally declaring that they have rejected their Catholicism, the Church
can continue to inflate the level of its support, thereby retaining
power and influence based on these misleading figures.
The Irish website CountMeOut, which has, until the
change, made the process of formal defection a simple matter of filling
in a form, has suspended its operations until the Church decides what
the changes in Canon Law mean for those who wish to ditch their
Catholicism.
In response to pressure from the Irish media, the Archdiocese of Dublin released this statement:
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. 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. The Archdiocese of Dublin plans to maintain a register to note the expressed desire of those who wish to defect. Details will be communicated to those involved in the process when they are finalised. Last year 229 people formally defected from the Church through the Archdiocese of Dublin. 312 have done so, so far this year.
The news that no one is allowed to leave is obscured by
the Church now introducing a kind of "wish list".
As an alternative to
the formal process, the archdiocese said it planned to maintain a
register of those expressing a desire to leave the church.
But Paul Dunbar of CountMeOut claimed the withdrawal of
the formal defection procedure had implications for a person’s right to
freedom of religion and association.
Mr Dunbar said the changes to Canon
Law left the situation “open-ended” and it remained to be seen whether
the church was in breach of the Data Protection Act, which requires
organisations holding personal data to keep accurate records.
Meanwhile, a similar defection-facilitating website in
Finland — which enables secession from the Evangelical Lutheran Church —
saw a record number of people make use of their services recently.
The
eroakirkosta.fi website saw 2,633 leave the church in one day – well up
on the previous record for one day of 1,049 in 2008.
Between 2003 — when the service was set up — and 2007,
it gathered 100,000 resignations.
The next 100,000 came within two and a
half years.
At the current rate, the number of resignations will hit
300,000 by Christmas 2012.
While roughly eight out of ten Finns belong to the state
church, actual attendance at services is at a much lower level, and
many remain inside the church — something that also involves an
obligation to pay an annual parish council tax — largely to be able to
get married in church.
Numbers have been declining steadily as the
society becomes increasingly secularised.
Every church member in Finland
pays a special tax to the church amounting to between 1 and 2.25 per
cent of his or her income, so the eroakirkosta site is costing the
Church many millions of euros in lost taxes.
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