Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Austin Cline. Atheism Expert. Austin Cline, a former regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, writes and lectures extensively about atheism and agnosticism.
Cite this Article Format. Cline, Austin. History of American Religion to Should "Under god" Be in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you haven't been a fervent Catholic, we're not surprised you are thinking of leaving.
We would say you are a casualty of this war. We hope you don't leave. In fact, that would put your soul in grave eternal danger. However, God gave us free will and we can leave if we like. We like the words of Peter when Jesus asked if he would also leave him:. Some of the best Catholics are "reverts" who suddenly returned with fervor to the faith.
When you leave the Church by a formal act. In Canon Law, this is known as "defection from the Catholic Church by a formal act" in Latin: actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica. The details of how you do this practically were recently clarified by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts on 13 March Here is the essential excerpt:.
For the abandonment of the Catholic Church to be validly configured as a true actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia so that the exceptions foreseen in the previously mentioned canons would apply, it is necessary that there concretely be:. It remains clear, in any event, that the sacramental bond of belonging to the Body of Christ that is the Church, conferred by the baptismal character, is an ontological and permanent bond which is not lost by reason of any act or fact of defection.
In fact, the church has moved to close the few openings by which the disaffected could officially register having renounced the faith. In the Vatican established rules to accommodate the growing number of defectors — as they call them there. Oddly for such a slow-moving institution, the rules were aborted just three years later. Unlike a state with its citizens or a football club with its members, the Vatican would no longer facilitate the initiated leaving its ranks.
For many parents, baptising a child is a bit of cheap soul insurance or done blithely for the benefit of devout grandparents. A one-way door. And this contract is recorded on a parish baptismal register, forever. Over time and with much tumult the church has been made to accept that a marriage might end in divorce. But not a baptism. There can be no divorcing the church. And it battles the modern world to maintain the purity of this doctrine. Yet people do want to leave.
In droves. Some of these ex-Catholics have shared their experiences online. Canonically i. It's like a family; the bonds are always there. The only possible gain you could have is emotional catharsis. I can't rule out that they might be kind enough to note your protest on your baptismal record if you wrote the parish where you were baptized but, again this wouldn't, from the Church's standpoint, mean anything to anyone but you.
I basically have long since converted to another faith and have absolutely no desire to return to the Church — therefore I want closure to that part of my past. I realize that I have been basically excommunicated since I no longer recognize the Church as a position of authority and belong to another faith.
There is a process for renouncing one's faith. It does not erase your Baptism because it is a historical fact and we Catholics believe that Baptism forever changes you.
For example, if you decide to renounce your faith and then some day regret that and come back, we would not Baptize you again, we would accept you back as a family member.
Family is a good analogy actually, one could renounce one's family but they are still your family. Once these three things happen, a note is placed in your Baptism record that says that you renounced your faith. These notes are written in pencil usually, because, as I said you can come back, when you are ready, to full Communion and we will accept you.
About AskACatholic. Mass and Adoration.
0コメント