Ex-Catholics being counted as Catholics

[SAVINGRACE]

If I trace this portion of the conversation back for a minute, theropod noted that it would be good to keep a tally of active members of the Catholic Church in a way most people understand it (meaning not counting every single person who was baptized). SAVINGRACE agreed but noted that the method by which one counts active member should be determined by the Church. I followed up by noting that at the very least if a person states in writing that they no longer wish to be considered an active member then they should not be considered an active member.

Again this is all to try to determine who should and shouldn’t be considered an active member apart from one’s baptism. So I apologize, Reuben J. I’m not sure what you mean.

There is no escape. We keep you forever. Not in a cultish sort of way though.

Seriously, you are asking an impossible question. The Catholic Church cannot consider it because it does NOT have the authority to “rescind” baptisms. The individual does not have the authority to “rescind” their baptism.

No one on earth possesses that authority.

It’s like asking the Church to change their Teaching on abortion, marriage or divorce. The Church does not have the authority to change it.

It shocks people that the Church and we the believers truly and honestly believe that divine Tradition and Doctrine cannot be changed. Ever.

These were established by Christ. He has spoken.

 

[pepipop]

In principal, this is an accurate manner in which to record Catholic Church numbers.

As who gets babies baptised Catholic, in the first place - most obviously their parents who it is assumed will be practicing - in addition to adult converts.

Hence, if there are ‘greater’ numbers of non-practicing Catholics, in the statistics, these will not be continuing to baptise their children into the faith, and hence the numbers of Catholics baptised would be dramatically dropping, each year.

This however does not seem to be the case, at present.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth#Roman_Catholic_Church

*Church membership in 2007 was 1.147 billion people[5] (17% of the global population at the time), increasing from the 1950 figure of 437 million[6] and 654 million in 1970.[7] (17% of the global population at the time) and the 1970 figure of 654 million.[8] On 31 December 2008, membership was 1.166 billion, an increase of 11.54% over the same date in 2000,[9][9] and slightly greater than the rate of increase of the world population (10.77%). The increase was 33.02% in Africa,[9] but only 1.17% in Europe.

It was 15.91% in Asia, 11.39% in Oceania, and 10.93% in Americas.[9] As a result, Catholics were 17.77% of the total population in Africa, 63.10% in Americas, 3.05% in Asia, 39.97% in Europe, 26.21% in Oceania, and 17.40% of the world population.

Of the world’s Catholics, the proportion living in Africa grew from 12.44% in 2000 to 14.84% in 2008, while those living in Europe fell from 26.81% to 24.31%.[10] Membership of the Catholic Church is attained through baptism,[11] and from 1983 to 2009, if someone formally left the Church, that fact was noted in the register of the person’s baptism.

Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiles the Vatican’s yearbook, said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that “For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us.”

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population—a stable percentage—while Muslims were at 19.2 percent. “It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer,” the monsignor said.[12] Muslims in 2010 represented as much as 23.4% of the total world population and this is expected to increase to 26.3% by 2030.[13]*

 

[Tommy999]

Theoretically, what happens in the following scenario?

1. A person is born into and is baptized in the Presbyterian Church (or another Protestant faith tradition that the Catholic Church accepts as a valid baptism),
2. The person later converts to Catholicism.
3. The person after a few years decides to return to his original faith tradition.

Does that person remain a Catholic according to Catholic Church, even though he was baptized elsewhere?

Just curious.

 

[SyroMalankara]

Theoretically, what happens in the following scenario?

1. A person is born into and is baptized in the Presbyterian Church (or another Protestant faith tradition that the Catholic Church accepts as a valid baptism),
2. The person later converts to Catholicism.
3. The person after a few years decides to return to his original faith tradition.

Does that person remain a Catholic according to Catholic Church, even though he was baptized elsewhere?

Just curious.

yes and no. Depends wbos keeping the tally and for what purposes. For the Yearbook, yes person is Catholic. For registered parishioner, probably no. For the priest in his territory, the Parish priest is still Liable to persons spiritual care

 

[Tommy999]

yes and no. Depends who is keeping the tally and for what purposes. For the Yearbook, yes person is Catholic. For registered parishioner, probably no. For the priest in his territory, the Parish priest is still Liable to persons spiritual care

Thanks, SyroMalankara.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

Another scenario then…

A person was baptized Catholic and later ordained as a Jesuit priest.

He converts to the Episcopal Church and his ordination is acknowledged by TEC. He is a practicing Episcopal priest (as well as a member in the church).

Who gets to claim him as a member and as a priest? Both churches?

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Another scenario then…

A person was baptized Catholic and later ordained as a Jesuit priest.

He converts to the Episcopal Church and his ordination is acknowledged by TEC. He is a practicing Episcopal priest (as well as a member in the church).

Who gets to claim him as a member and as a priest? Both churches?

Since Holy Orders is one of three sacraments that confers an indelible mark on the soul, I’d say Catholic. His baptismal certificate is a Catholic one.

 

[Thorolfr]

Correct. People like you and I are counted by the Catholic Church as part of their overall numbers and membership as if we were still active adherent in their faith since no differentiation is made between current and former Catholics by the church. Despite it being at best inaccurate.

That’s why when it says on Wikipedia, for example, that the Catholic Church in the US has 69.4 million members, that number is basically useless when trying to use it to compare the number of Catholics in the US to the number of members in other denominations such as Baptists or ELCA Lutherans or Episcopalians, etc. In fact, in doing such a comparison, many people who, for example, no longer consider themselves Catholic and now attend an Episcopal church would be counted twice, once as Catholic and once as Episcopalian.

One person was recently telling me that the Episcopal Church and the ELCA are “small churches”, especially when compared to the Catholic Church, but the number of people counted as Catholic is really extremely inflated since many of those people are non-practicing or have joined another religion or denomination. Most other churches tend to remove people from their roles who become inactive.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

Since Holy Orders is one of three sacraments that confers an indelible mark on the soul, I’d say Catholic. His baptismal certificate is a Catholic one.

And yet he is on the rolls of a parish and listed in the numbers of Episcopal priests, which is counted very carefully. My guess is that he would NOT be counted as a Jesuit in a specific province.

 

[Reuben_J]

Another scenario then…

A person was baptized Catholic and later ordained as a Jesuit priest.

He converts to the Episcopal Church and his ordination is acknowledged by TEC. He is a practicing Episcopal priest (as well as a member in the church).

Who gets to claim him as a member and as a priest? Both churches?

It is not who claim him. Nobody can do that without the consent of the individual, same as nobody can force a man to believe or to sin.

The right question is: how does the Catholic Church view this?

Again with the principle of indelible mark of a Sacrament on a person, the priest in question is still a priest but without faculty, meaning he is not allowed to administer the Sacraments. Outside of that, what he does in the Episcopal Church, is obviously his own business.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

It is not who claim him. Nobody can do that without the consent of the individual, same as nobody can force a man to believe or to sin.

The right question is: how does the Catholic Church views this?

Again with the principle of indelible mark of a Sacrament on a person, the priest is question is still a priest but without faculty, meaning he is not allowed to administer the Sacraments. Outside of that, what he does in the Episcopal Church, is obviously his own business.

Yet we are talking both levels of ‘counting’. You may claim an indelible sacramental mark, both as a baptized person and as a priest. I want to know, as I believe the OP does, what the Catholic Church does numbers wise. If the RCC is claiming 1.2 billion members, and the definition of a member is anyone who was ever baptized in the Catholic Church or converted at one time, then they should know that those numbers are also being used by others.

Father ex-Jesuit, therefore, is being counted twice. But my guess is that only by the RCC and not the Jesuits.

Interesting.

 

[Reuben_J]

Yet we are talking both levels of ‘counting’. You may claim an indelible sacramental mark, both as a baptized person and as a priest. I want to know, as I believe the OP does, what the Catholic Church does numbers wise. If the RCC is claiming 1.2 billion members, and the definition of a member is anyone who was ever baptized in the Catholic Church or converted at one time, then they should know that those numbers are also being used by others.

Father ex-Jesuit, therefore, is being counted twice. But my guess is that only by the RCC and not the Jesuits.

Interesting.

Yep, that’s right. Catholic inventory would be by Baptism, notwithstanding that some of them may not be practicing Catholics. That’s how the Catholic Church does it. The only thing is, the ex-Jesuit would not be in the Church payroll.

As for the number, I agree with you, someone may be counted twice, by the Catholic Church and the new church he is now.

 

[Thorolfr]

Here’s something kind of interesting from a Wikipedia article:

"There are 69,436,660 registered Catholics in the United States (22% of the US population) according to the American bishops’ count in their Official Catholic Directory 2013.[1][2] This count primarily rests on the parish assessment tax which pastors evaluate yearly according to the number of registered members and contributors…According to Albert J. Menedez, research director of “Americans for Religious Liberty,” many Americans continue to call themselves Catholic but “do not register at local parishes for a variety of reasons.”[32] "

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_the_United_States

I’m not sure if “ex-Catholics” or non-practicing Catholics would continue to be registered in a parish and be counted in the 69 million number even if they no longer attend that parish?

 

[KnitNut]

I’m a little confused. What are the “Yearbook” baptism numbers used for? Is it sort of like the old McDonald’s restaurant signs, “22 million served”?

I’m also curious, if it’s just a count of baptisms and not persons registered with/participating in the church life…do they count deaths? I mean, every baptized person eventually dies. So while I suppose there are hard(ish) numbers of funerals performed by the Catholic church…what of the millions (billions, whatever) baptized who leave the Catholic church (okay, “stop practicing” the Catholic faith…why do I keep hearing that ‘Hotel California’ song in my head…) and die without acknowledgement of some sort by the Catholic church? It would seem that the “X Billion Catholics” number bandied around all the time may be as useless as that “Over 30,000 Protestant Denominations” canard that’s so popular these days.

Any numbers guys/gals want to take a stab at this? Because just keeping a running tally of baptisms seems kind of a weak metric to tout.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

The record of Baptism in the Church is important because it is her duty to bring the straying flock back, not by force of course but that should not rule out the Church from making an outreach to them. So from the Church point of view, the tie is never completely cut off. Of course the person concerned can always refuse any visit, contact or outreach from the Church, like what many of you here do.

I understand that the Church wants to keep a door open, to always extend a hand to those that have left. But that’s the key: Those that have left. These are people who have pulled up their stakes and gone somewhere else to fill their faith needs. Rarely is such a move done lightly and often it comes with great struggle. These struggles should not be dismissed, and certainly should not be dismissed by serious misrepresentation. And it most certainly is misrepresentation if what is written gives the impression (intentional or not) that John Smith when asked would say “I am a Catholic” when he would really say “I am a Presbyterian.”

As I said I personally have no qualms with the belief that the Church believes that what happened to me in a baptismal ceremony 42 years ago has left an indelible mark on my soul. I, and many like me, just feel that the Church and/or media favorable to the Church have including us to increase a membership number against our wishes and against the commandment regarding false witness.

No need to apologize. So far the discussion is good.

I think so too. We’ve gotten a wide variety of voices as well as focus on different aspects of this issue.

edit: Baptismal or Confirmation record, sometimes required for marriage or becoming Godfather/Godmother purposes to ascertain one is truly a Catholic, the bureaucracy can be quite exasperating sometimes, can be retrieved from the Church even if the baptism was done 70 - 80 years ago. So that kind of record is often useful. And there are many lapsed Catholics who come back, become active in the Church and participate in it.

I must admit not having a great deal of concern of the difficulty in verifying one’s membership in the Church so much as the impossibility of leaving membership of the Church (again, not from a metaphysical standpoint but from an earthly commonly-defined use of membership). I agree that there are those that leave the Church then later return, but for those that don’t it’s only fair that they be accurately be removed from the tally until they do.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

There is no escape. We keep you forever. Not in a cultish sort of way though.

Maybe in a possessive ex-girlfriend sort of way

Seriously, you are asking an impossible question. The Catholic Church cannot consider it because it does NOT have the authority to “rescind” baptisms. The individual does not have the authority to “rescind” their baptism.

No one on earth possesses that authority.

It’s like asking the Church to change their Teaching on abortion, marriage or divorce. The Church does not have the authority to change it.

It shocks people that the Church and we the believers truly and honestly believe that divine Tradition and Doctrine cannot be changed. Ever.

These were established by Christ. He has spoken.

Those like me who don’t believe in a soul wouldn’t be interested in an un-baptism. It would be a ceremony we don’t subscribe to in order to counter an earlier ceremony we don’t subscribe to.

For those non-Catholics who believe in a soul, they would either find the earlier baptism invalid (as the Catholic Church does with baptisms done by a select portion of other Christians) or would accept the baptism but not feel that it renders a person’s soul forever Catholic.

No, to leave the Catholic Church is not a request to take back a baptism but a recognition that one is no longer an active member of the Church. If the Catholic Church wishes to tally its members solely by baptism it may do so, but it must also understand that if it doesn’t make quite clear this unique methodology will give people the wrong impression as to how many people are active members of the Church. Those article writers quoting from the Yearbook must also state accurately this methodology lest they too would give the wrong impression of the many who through struggle and introspection have made this leap.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

In principal, this is an accurate manner in which to record Catholic Church numbers.

As who gets babies baptised Catholic, in the first place - most obviously their parents who it is assumed will be practicing - in addition to adult converts.

Hence, if there are ‘greater’ numbers of non-practicing Catholics, in the statistics, these will not be continuing to baptise their children into the faith, and hence the numbers of Catholics baptised would be dramatically dropping, each year.

This however does not seem to be the case, at present.

I know just from my circle of friends alone that the assumption that having children baptized means that the parents will be practicing members of the Church is a false assumption.

Besides wouldn’t a process like one that was in place until recently that allowed for renunciation of the faith help give a more accurate and up-to-date count than one that works on generality and is essentially a generation behind?

 

[LilyM]

I understand that the Church wants to keep a door open, to always extend a hand to those that have left. But that’s the key: Those that have left. These are people who have pulled up their stakes and gone somewhere else to fill their faith needs. Rarely is such a move done lightly and often it comes with great struggle. These struggles should not be dismissed, and certainly should not be dismissed by serious misrepresentation. And it most certainly is misrepresentation if what is written gives the impression (intentional or not) that John Smith when asked would say “I am a Catholic” when he would really say “I am a Presbyterian.”

As I said I personally have no qualms with the belief that the Church believes that what happened to me in a baptismal ceremony 42 years ago has left an indelible mark on my soul. I, and many like me, just feel that the Church and/or media favorable to the Church have including us to increase a membership number against our wishes and against the commandment regarding false witness.

I think so too. We’ve gotten a wide variety of voices as well as focus on different aspects of this issue.

I must admit not having a great deal of concern of the difficulty in verifying one’s membership in the Church so much as the impossibility of leaving membership of the Church (again, not from a metaphysical standpoint but from an earthly commonly-defined use of membership). I agree that there are those that leave the Church then later return, but for those that don’t it’s only fair that they be accurately be removed from the tally until they do.

Doesn’t make sense. I have a bìological mother, who always and forever will be entitled to call herself my mother and claim me as her child. I can disown her all I like, change my name, get legally adopted by another woman. Nothing she or I do will change that relationship or render her unentitled to say that she is my mother and I am.her child.

What misrepresentation is going on? Where is the Church or anyone else claiming that every baptised Catholic on its records is practicing or self-identifies as Catholic? How are such things even to be accurately calculated or reported? Not all who stop practicing will inform their diocese in writing, and not all who.are practicing will register with a parish or what have you. Not to mention there are huge variations in what individual Catholics would count as being ‘practicing’ or indeed being ‘Catholic’.

For us being Catholic is an objective fact, like one’s biological parentage, and not a.subjective one as you seem to think it should be.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I’m a little confused. What are the “Yearbook” baptism numbers used for? Is it sort of like the old McDonald’s restaurant signs, “22 million served”?

I’m also curious, if it’s just a count of baptisms and not persons registered with/participating in the church life…do they count deaths? I mean, every baptized person eventually dies. So while I suppose there are hard(ish) numbers of funerals performed by the Catholic church…what of the millions (billions, whatever) baptized who leave the Catholic church (okay, “stop practicing” the Catholic faith…why do I keep hearing that ‘Hotel California’ song in my head…) and die without acknowledgement of some sort by the Catholic church? It would seem that the “X Billion Catholics” number bandied around all the time may be as useless as that “Over 30,000 Protestant Denominations” canard that’s so popular these days.

Any numbers guys/gals want to take a stab at this? Because just keeping a running tally of baptisms seems kind of a weak metric to tout.

There is a two part article that discusses 3 different methods by which to calculate Catholic membership. The first part it talks about comparing baptisms with Catholic funerals. The second part talks about the strengths and weakness of getting data straight from the individual parishes and briefly touches on phone surveys.

I should note that I got that article from a link in this article on Slate.com called “Counting Catholics” which touches on the difficulty of doing just that.

 

[Reuben_J]

I understand that the Church wants to keep a door open, to always extend a hand to those that have left. But that’s the key: Those that have left. These are people who have pulled up their stakes and gone somewhere else to fill their faith needs. Rarely is such a move done lightly and often it comes with great struggle. These struggles should not be dismissed, and certainly should not be dismissed by serious misrepresentation. And it most certainly is misrepresentation if what is written gives the impression (intentional or not) that John Smith when asked would say “I am a Catholic” when he would really say “I am a Presbyterian.”

As I said I personally have no qualms with the belief that the Church believes that what happened to me in a baptismal ceremony 42 years ago has left an indelible mark on my soul. I, and many like me, just feel that the Church and/or media favorable to the Church have including us to increase a membership number against our wishes and against the commandment regarding false witness.

I think so too. We’ve gotten a wide variety of voices as well as focus on different aspects of this issue.

I must admit not having a great deal of concern of the difficulty in verifying one’s membership in the Church so much as the impossibility of leaving membership of the Church (again, not from a metaphysical standpoint but from an earthly commonly-defined use of membership). I agree that there are those that leave the Church then later return, but for those that don’t it’s only fair that they be accurately be removed from the tally until they do.

You are right and I understand your point of view. You ask a question in this thread, and I tried to answer. Probably not very accurate in details, different parishes in different countries may do the recording differently, but in principle the record of Sacramental Baptism and Confirmation is right.

As for the accuracy of the census in each parish, no red blood Catholics would assume it perfectly accurate. There are death and parishioners leaving it may not be sufficiently updated.

In my parish, which is a very big one (an archdiocese) such census would be done once a while so I believe the record of the number of parishioners in the parish is quite reliable.

The number of parishioners and record of Baptism are two separate things though. I am not sure what statistic is being used, but nowadays, the size of parishioners in individual parish may reflect the number of Catholics in it. If the parish does not do a census, and rely on its Baptismal record, then the margin of inaccuracy is very big.

As for those leaving the Catholic Church, you have my sympathy, I understand it is your choice and I certainly never dismiss that choice. It is not an issue to me.

As for misrepresentation, I really have no idea what is its purpose. To me it is not important. If it is accuracy that is required, then government agency would certainly be the place for information.

As for practicing Catholics, I have often shared in this Forum about empty pews during masses. The rate we are going, we will be wiped out in years to come. But we cannot say they are not Catholics even if they do not come to church.

I am often in the ministry visiting lapsed Catholics in our parish, from my experience not once we were turned away. They still want us to pray in their home but you would not see much of this type in the church.