Posted by:
bona dea
(
)
Date: October 24, 2010 11:30PM
packleader5 Wrote:
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> I think the point here is that both the Catholic
> church and Mormon church do not remove people from
> their numbers. Now, I know how the Mormon church
> works with that---My husband is an ExMo, and we've
> had to send certified letters saying we sold our
> souls to the devil himself to get "taken off" the
> list---and even that is not complete, because our
> now adult children who were born to his Mormon
> marriage to his ex-wife, now deceased--even our
> kids get harassed on a regular basis, even though
> they live in three different states (and no one is
> in Utah). The kids stopped attending church when
> their mom died---at the ripe age of 4, 5, and 6.
> They are now 21, 23, and 24 and they get contacted
> regularly--- THAT doesn't happen in the Catholic
> church...
>
> BUT---when the Mormon or Catholic, or probably
> every church, says things like, "We're up to 8
> gazillion members," I wonder how many of those
> members have left the church, but are still being
> counted on the rosters? I grew up
> Lutheran--switched to Methodist as an adult---but
> in both churches, when you give up your membership
> in one church, you are taken off their "count."
> In fact, in the Lutheran church, it used to be
> that if you didn't take Communion at least once a
> year, you'd be taken off the rosters. I don't
> know if they still track that or not.
>
> So--it's interesting--how they keep that "roster"
> thing going and who does all that record keeping?
>
>
> And why? I mean, maybe I'm not understanding
> it---but does God really care how many Mormons,
> Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists,
> Muslims, there are? I think He probably has
> bigger things to worry about.
According to an article I read in Newsweek or Time years ago, Catholics take you off the rolls if you haven't attended for a year. This was in an article about how the Morg inflated its numbers and they were comparing the Morg to other churches.I can't verify it but that is what I read. At any rate I don't know any dead Catholics who are kept on the rolls until their 110th birthday. That is what the Morg does unless someone officially notifies them that a person has died.Now if a poll is taken asking people their religion, some inactives, in any church, could declare themselves a member, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they are on church rosters.My dad was an inactive Catholic. He was never contacted or harrassed and was never on the local parish roster even though he had been baptized. However if yo uasked him his religion, he would,say 'Catholic"/