Formally Defected from the Roman Catholic Church?

[QwertyGirl]

It’s not a matter of belief or disbelief, but of being led (purposely?) to an erroneous conclusion. It only takes a few extra words to make clear to any reader that the number is specifically the number of people baptized as Catholics irrespective of their actual faith. To make people think an untruth is bearing false witness.

Not to mention those being counted who are no longer living.

 

[Tommy999]

Pardon me if this is a dumb question, but I was curious if there is a scriptural basis for the ‘indelible mark’ that Catholics have that non-Catholics don’t have, or do all baptized Christians who received their baptism in the Trinitarian formula have this indelible mark?

 

[RoseScented]

I can’t address the scripture question, but the reason the Church doesn’t re-baptize most converts is because all properly baptized people have the indelible mark. So it’s not something that just Catholics have.

 

[Wannano]

That is great news and would be a surprise to many people but…what is this mark?

 

[RoseScented]

CCC 1272 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark ( character ) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. 83 Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated.

CCC 1273 Incorporated into the Church by Baptism, the faithful have received the sacramental character that consecrates them for Christian religious worship.

From a Catholic dictionary I found online:

The indelible sign imprinted on the soul when the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and the priesthood are received. This sign is indelible because it remains even in a person who may lose the state of grace or even the virtue of faith. It perdures at least until death and most likely into eternity. It is a sign because it signifies that the one baptized, confirmed, and ordained bears a special and unique relationship to Christ. It is a character because it permanently seals the person with a supernatural quality, comparable to the character that identifies each individual as a distinct personality. It is finally a character because it empowers the one who receives with the abilities that no one else possesses. In essence the sacramental character assimilates a person to the priesthood of Christ. From this primary function, secondary functions flow, in increasing order of sublimity, from baptism through confirmation to holy orders.

Hopefully either of those two offerings are helpful. They answer the “what” question, but not really the “why” question which I feel like naturally would come next. I was trying to find a write up I found once that talked about the significance of marks/characters in ancient times that was helpful to me to see why it was called a mark and the importance of being marked at baptism, but I have lost it. That’ll teach me to try and be proactive.

 

[Crocus]

why it was called a mark

Just thinking about how cattle are branded with a specific, indelible, identifiable mark before being set free to wander the grasslands. Later when the individual owners want to claim them at roundup, they will recognize their own from all the others.

Baptism leaves the mark by which Christ will recognize His own adopted children.

This past Sunday during the homily, Father A. looked around saying “The more we come together, the more we learn about each other … you might be surprised how much I know about each one of you.” (Then he pointed right at me, I was sitting near the front.) “What I know about you, is that you are adopted. Yes? What do you say to that?”

I startled and questioned myself, why would he say that. My eyes went to the baptismal font and the poster above it, on which we were asked to record the date of our Baptism. Immediately I understood, and emphatically I answered “Yes!”

“Ah, you get it.” He laughed. “At the last mass we almost had a fight. The last person I asked said no, no, no …”

Yes, I am adopted by Christ, and Baptism left its mark on me, so that Jesus will recognize me as His own.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

What weight? The majority of the world is not and never has been Catholic and doesn’t much care, for example, about Church teaching. The fact that the church claims.x.million as.oposed.to y million members won’t change their minds .

And I never said that people would adopt Catholic teaching based on their membership numbers (either accurate or inflated numbers). What it can influence is perception, including (but not limited to) whether taking a certain position will put one in opposition of X million people. This is most pronounced in three areas: politics, media, and commerce. Have you ever heard of the group One Million Moms? It’s a Christian women’s organization speak out on various cultural issues. Back in 2017 they protested when Ellen DeGeneres was made spokesperson for JCPenney. This Miami Herald article showed that they had less than 45,000 followers on Facebook, making the name of the group quite an exaggeration. Politicians, media organizations, and businesses will sometimes (but not always) react to such protests. If JCPenney saw that they number of protesters exceeded the number of fans of Ellen they likely would have dropped her as spokesperson. Numbers can matter.

Now take something like the pope visiting a foreign country. Even in one where the majority of citizens are Christian he will draw a great deal of attention. Much of that comes from the fact that theoretically one in seven people in the whole world have him as their spiritual leader. Someone who would get some, but less, attention in such a visit would be someone like the Archbishop of Canterbury. And we can go down the list to where no attention comes to a non-denominational leader of 2,000 would hardly garner national attention let alone global.

For that matter, a lot.of self-identified Catholics, sadly, don’t see eye to eye with Churxh teaching eiither on some issues. And the average Catholic probably couldn’t tell you the current membership stats anyways.

Agreed but that’s not very material to the subject at hand. There was at time that Catholics were more likely to share values. The influence of the Church in early Hollywood was a testament to that power.

I do have some questions for you, if I may. Putting aside whether you think the Church gains any benefit by including people who decidedly do not wish to be counted as Catholic, would you agree:

1. That a person who was not familiar with how the Church tallies its rolls seeing something that say there are X Catholics would assume that means there are X people who consider themselves Catholic (just as they would if they saw an article stating there are X Baptists)?
2. That it is wrong to give people the wrong impression even if you think that wrong impression would not give anyone any benefit?
3. That it would be very easy that whenever there is a reference to the number of Catholics that it makes clear that tallies baptisms and includes people who have left the Church?

 

[Gorgias]

Putting aside whether you think the Church gains any benefit by including people who decidedly do not wish to be counted as Catholic, would you agree:

Not sure that there’s any real impact on “tallies” of Catholics.

On the other hand, the “benefit” is that it clears up the ground rules for those who have left the Church but wish to marry a Catholic.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Who’s “we”? Politicians? I doubt anyone running for office is going to look at the worldwide statistical number. He will look at the diocesan numbers for the state he is running in. It doesn’t matter if there are a million Catholics in the states next door if his own state only has 5000 of them.

You forget that these politicians are beholden to political parties. Even if he or she isn’t a national representative anything he or she does that puts them opposite a large group of people can have serious consequences. You also have to consider that politics means more than just elected officials. Ambassadors and other officials who deal with foreign powers have to consider those cultures even if their influence is much less domestically.

I would imagine most other people with an interest are focused on a regional number, “how many Catholics in the province of Podunk can I sell my apologetics course to” etc.

If there was no interest there wouldn’t be all of these different articles specifically about the number of Catholics in the world. The Vatican wouldn’t issue a press release each year about that number.

I’ve never concerned myself with the overall numbers of the Catholic Church. Presumably the people who are most concerned are those in charge of the Catholic Church who want to make sure the Church numbers grow or at least stay stable, and since they would have the best knowledge of how the numbers are calculated, then they’re not being misled.

One listen to Catholic Answers on EWTN each evening shows that there are a great many people who are interested in Catholic Church who possess significant gaps in their knowledge of it. And why should people have to assume it? Why can’t people writing about this subject (including the Church itself in their annual Statistical Yearbook release) take the barest minimum of efforts to make clear their unique method in tallying their membership? It’s folly to assume every single person reading it would be acutely aware of this method.

If other people want to get hung up on perceptions based on a statistic, any statistic, that can be mutated 50 different ways /snip/

Whether you feel people are overly hung up on statistics doesn’t mean that those reporting the information to have a basic duty to be both clear and accurate. Imagine if a reporter working on a story he didn’t think was important was sloppy with his facts. It simply would fly then, and it doesn’t fly in this instance.

I’ve never in my life heard anybody say, “Y’know honey, there’s umpty million Catholics in the world. With those kind of numbers, maybe they’re on to something and we should join.”

You know that I did not allude to anything like this. As I said to LilyM the influence I talked about was more of a political, media, and commerce nature.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Not sure that there’s any real impact on “tallies” of Catholics.

On the other hand, the “benefit” is that it clears up the ground rules for those who have left the Church but wish to marry a Catholic.

I have no problem with them saying that they believe that once someone is baptized Catholic they are Catholic for life provided that when they say there are X Catholics in the nation/world that they make it very clear that this is how they came up with that number. By leaving that part out it makes it seem like there are many more self-identified Catholics than there really are.

If I may, I’d like to ask you the same questions I asked LilyM. @Tis_Bearself, I’d like to ask you as well. My exceeding verbosity in my response to you didn’t leave me room in that post:

Putting aside whether you think the Church gains any benefit by including people who decidedly do not wish to be counted as Catholic, would you agree:

1. That a person who was not familiar with how the Church tallies its rolls seeing something that say there are X Catholics would assume that means there are X people who consider themselves Catholic (just as they would if they saw an article stating there are X Baptists)?
2. That it is wrong to give people the wrong impression even if you think that wrong impression would not give anyone any benefit?
3. That it would be very easy that whenever there is a reference to the number of Catholics that it makes clear that tallies baptisms and includes people who have left the Church?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Not to mention those being counted who are no longer living.

Very true! My understanding is that along with looking for Catholic baptisms to add to the number of Catholics, the Church looks for Catholic funerals to know when to say that a person is to be removed from the count. The problem is that only some of the people baptized Catholic have Catholic funerals (whether it be leaving the faith, moving away, the family not having a Catholic funeral, etc.)

The analogy I used at one point is imagine there’s a roller coaster. The ticket taker up front is diligent in making sure to have the number of people who get on the ride. At the end of the ride someone is supposed to tally the number of people leave, but in the mad rush he can’t get a head count or there’s an opening in the fence some people leave through. That night supposedly 2,000 people went on the ride and 1,500 got off it. That’s one dangerous roller coaster!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I don’t answer “leading questions,” and I’ve already made my position clear on this topic and moved on. No point in further argumentation since you clearly are not open to other viewpoints and I’m not going to agree with yours. Bye now.

 

[TotvsTvvs]

Technically you can ask to be de-baptized. Apparently that’s what some people are doing in France: Article

 

[Thorolfr]

Does baptism leave an indelible mark on all Christians or only on Catholics?

 

[TrueRomanCatholic]

I was wondering if anyone has had firsthand or secondhand experience with the process of formally defecting from the Roman Catholic Church.

You can’t. And why anyone would is beyond me. Mother Church is the only religion out there will the fullness of truth.

Plus it boosts statistics!

 

[Angannas]

Is there a procedure for those who did formally defect but now wish to return?

 

[GKMotley]

Valid baptism, all who receive it.

 

[Crocus]

Is there a procedure for those who did formally defect but now wish to return?

Of course. A good confession (and welcome back home).

Technically you can ask to be de-baptized. Apparently that’s what some people are doing in France:

The article is in error. There is no “de-baptism” despite requests reportedly being made. It is a legal document after all.

Most that might, might possibly be done, is a note on the baptismal record.

(closure, a kind of protest against the abuse scandals by not giving one’s passive approval of such actions, etc.).

I suspect this is your real issue. I hope and pray you find someone who can work through this patiently and positively with you. It would be sad to walk away from the Church that Jesus gave us as a sure guide and path to eternal life.

 

[Gorgias]

By leaving that part out it makes it seem like there are many more self-identified Catholics than there really are.

Umm… isn’t that part and parcel of any survey? In fact, isn’t that the whole point of a survey – to get a person’s self-reported answers?

If I may, I’d like to ask you the same questions I asked LilyM.

I think I already answered them.

“This issue ain’t about the numbers.”

would you agree:

1. That a person who was not familiar with how the Church tallies its rolls seeing something that say there are X Catholics would assume that means there are X people who consider themselves Catholic (just as they would if they saw an article stating there are X Baptists)?

Yep. Incidentally, that is how the Church self-reports – numbers of baptisms and funerals, numbers of folks attending Mass. (Note that this vastly under-reports, since (in general these days) only ~25% of Catholics practice their faith on a regular basis.

1. That it is wrong to give people the wrong impression even if you think that wrong impression would not give anyone any benefit?

Not sure how you’re equating “a person’s understanding of who they are” with “giving people the wrong impression”.

At best, I think you’re trying to say that the Catholic Church is being shady in over-stating its numbers. But, the Church isn’t attempting to drive its ‘tally numbers’, as I’ve said: it’s trying to gain consistency in how it deals with people who are attempting to marry within the Catholic Church.

1. That it would be very easy that whenever there is a reference to the number of Catholics that it makes clear that tallies baptisms and includes people who have left the Church?

How, pray tell, would the Church know the number of people “who have left the Church”? It’s not like there’s a process for doing so, nor is it reasonable to expect that such a process – even if there were such a process to be had! – would entice folks to line up to go through the process! Some would, mind you – in particular, the folks who are really, deeply angry with the Church would, as some way to “stick it to the Church” (or at least stick out their tongues at the Church as they leave) – but, by and large, many (most?) would just leave, without bothering with any formal process.

 

[Thorolfr]

Valid baptism, all who receive it.

So does a valid Baptist baptism (or Lutheran or Methodist or Episcopalian, etc.) leave a different indelible mark than a valid Catholic baptism? If all valid baptisms leave the same indelible mark, I’d think that this would make it impossible for someone to stop being a Christian, but not impossible to stop being a Catholic.