Is defection the only way to resign from the Catholic church? Because it appears that he has been excommunicated for this action. I thought that the courts ruled a church cannot excommunicate someone who has already resigned.
the thing is that the vatican/catholic church is its own country in the middle of rome so maybe our laws (or laws from any other country) do not apply to them. maybe that ruling you are talking about is applicable to the US only under certain conditions.
but..good for them there's a way out. one way or another. the good thing about catholics is that they don't send the priests or deacons to visit you. they won't harass you if you don't attend mass. they don't have attendance rolls or anything like that so it's a lot easier to be a catholic.
resigning is more of a statement for yourself than anything else.
i know because all my family is catholic except me the dumbass who wanted to be a mormon. oh well. my teenage years are over anyway. live and learn.
Apple Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I thought > that the courts ruled a church cannot > excommunicate someone who has already resigned.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding here about this issue. The only court that I know of that has weighed in on the subject was the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Its rulings apply only to Oklahoma.
Basically what the Oklahoma Supreme Court said was that once you resign then you are not a member anymore even if the Church in question doesn't "accept" your resignation.
The point in question was that as a member of a church you have implicitly agreed to certain things such as church disciplinary procedures. Thus if the disciplinary procedure consists of announcing your sin publicly to the congregation (normally an actionable invasion of privacy issue) then you can't sue the Church because, as a member, you have implicitly agreed to it.
However, once you resign your membership, from that moment you are NOT a member and there are no protections to the church from any implied consent.
If the Mormon church were to hold a "court of love" and ex you after you resigned you'd have to show how you were harmed by this in any suit against the church. I could form the "Church of Baura" and excommunicate Apple. So what? That I and a few cronies "excommunicated" you from our "church" probably would not be something you could get damages for in a lawsuit.
All that resigning does is remove the "implied consent" that membership entailed which means that the Church can be sued if it harms you and cannot use the "implied consent" defense. But you'd have to show real harm
To go along with the above, I don't think the whole membership thing works the same way in catholicism as it does in the mormon church. First of all, catholics don't need to play the numbers game like mormons do. And to my understanding if someone stops going to mass, stops believing in catholic doctrine, and does not consider themselves catholic anymore then they are simply not catholic. No one is going to track you down. You are not considered a 'less active' catholic. The catholic church also believes that it does not have the power to revoke someone's baptism. Being baptized is not viewed as being identical to church membership.
I agree that the Catholic church does not view themselves as having the power to revoke a baptism. I believe it is still considered to be intact even after an excommunication. But inactive Catholics are still considered to be Catholic by the church. They are just viewed as being in a state of sin and would need to confess to reconcile themselves with the church.
There should still be a way to formally resign without being declared a heretic. After all, most of those who joined did so as infants through no choice of their own.
Disaffected Catholics tend to just walk away. No one is going to call you up, harass you, love-bomb you, track you down, or anything like that. You can join another church or no church, and the most likely outcome is that nothing will happen (excommunications are very rare in Catholocism.)
OTOH, if you ever want to go back, you go to confession and you're back in. In my opinion, the chuch views itself as a home where you are always welcome. You may choose to leave, but in most instances you are always welcome to come back.
I disagree. I was raised catholic and I find it infuriating that you cannot resign and get off their books. Normal churches accept that you have left, catholics do not.
I know several people who were disowned by their family for leaving their religion and joining the Mormon one. Religious bigotry isn't confined to Mormonism.
It is true that Catholicism has nowhere near the central control the Mormon church does today. However that certainly hasn't always been true. The Catholic church is arguably the largest cause of the "Dark Ages" and took a big hand in setting the human race back 1000 years. Take the crusades and only allowing clergy to read for starters.
The catholic church is historically the ultimate cult. Hey they even killed people for discovering that the earth orbits the sun - heretics!
They've just gotten too big to continue to exert the control that they'd like to - they are even ridiculous enough to say that birth control is a huge evil.
Sorry, no free pass for the Catholic church.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2012 09:45AM by ronas.
The catholic church did not cause the Dark Ages. The catholic church did not set Western civilization back 1000 years. The political and economic collapse of the Roman imperial system in the West was the cause of the Dark Ages. This is most easily seen in the fact that in the East, where the Roman imperial system did not collapse, there was no corresponding Dark Ages even though it was also ‘catholic’ (the orthodox/catholic split did not occur until the 11th century). Where do you think the Muslims got all those Greek manuscripts which they translated into Arabic? The catholic church had already identified itself with the Roman Empire and had no interest in seeing it, or the classical culture it represented, fall apart.
The centuries following the fall of Rome would have been more dark, not less, without the catholic church. The church was the main source of continuity between classical antiquity and the new Europe that was emerging, with its scriptoriums and monasteries, its continued use of classical Latin, and its role in education. It was the catholic church that brought the Germanic peoples who had overrun the Western Empire under the civilizing influence of classical culture.
+1. The fall of Rome caused the Dark Ages. What little learning there was was kept aslive by the Catholic church. There was no rule that only priests could read.
I'd never heard that one about only priests being allowed to read.
But any historian will tell you that the Catholic church pretty much ensured the continuity of civilization in Western Europe. What learning survived the fall of Rome was kept alive by the priests, monks, and nuns who copied and recopied manuscripts, invented things such as the university and the rudiments of the scientific method, and laid the groundwork for the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
The Catholic church has included -- and still includes -- many of the very best and very worst people around. It has committed horrible crimes. But it is also by far the world's oldest institution. If any other organization could survive for two thousand years, it would probably envy Catholicism's track record.
Ex Catholic, you're not on the books. Unless you practice, no one counts you. If you want to renounce your Baptism, then go play Martin Luther and write up your statement and tack it to a church door. Undoubtedly, someone will read it, chuckle and then say a prayer for you. It might make you feel better.
Not really true. I called the parish where I was born and raised and was told by the priest that there is no mechanism at all to officially resign. When the RC counts their numbers, I'm still included.
As for somebody saying a prayer and making me feel better? That's like saying I'll sacrifice a goat and you'll be happier.
My understanding is they only count people that are on parish rolls. You can ask that your name be taken off the parish rolls even if you can't formally resign from the Catholic Church. Once you are off a parish roll you're not considered for their numbers.
You could go through the whole Canon Law stuff, but why bother? It really isn't worth the time or stress. I go about twice a year, have done so decades, and no one bothers me at all.
I heard an ex-catholic comedian talking about his lack of faith. he said "Catholics don't accept that people leave them, they just become "bad catholics". If Paddy joined Islam, went to Afghanistan and joined the taliban, he would still just be a 'Bad Catholic'