You can attend any parish you wish. Registration is not required but if you feel that you would like to register at a new parish you may. Most parishes will perform the sacraments for you if you are registered with them. Your parish of record will always be the one that you live in the boundaries of.How do I leave my local Catholic Church Parish? This does not necessarily mean I am leaving the Catholic Church, only my local Church Parish.
Is there a letter I send?
Thanks
Notify the office. It is extremely important to keep up with the data base in your Diocese.You move.
Parish membership is determined by your address, looking at where you are on a map and seeing which parish’s territory you live in.
Some parishes (especially in the United States) want people fill out paperwork to “register”, but this practice carries no legal significance and is not even that common in most of the world.
The best thing to do is to have your geographic pastor (assuming you are currently attending your geographically assigned parish) address a letter to the pastor of your chosen parish that it’s OK for you to change parishes.How do I leave my local Catholic Church Parish? This does not necessarily mean I am leaving the Catholic Church, only my local Church Parish.
Is there a letter I send?
Thanks
Yes. Well stated! Thank you !The best thing to do is to have your geographic pastor (assuming you are currently attending your geographically assigned parish) address a letter to the pastor of your chosen parish that it’s OK for you to change parishes.
For example, this kind of process is required in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Parishioners in the AD of Philadelphia must receive the the Sacraments of Initiation in their home parishes. And one must have their canonical pastors permission to marry. So permission to officially change parishes must be official.
However, in some smaller parishes, they don’t enforce their canonical boundaries (or at least the parishes take care of the paperwork behind the scenes with no questions asked.)
Even if you don’t need the letter in your diocese, it’s good to have in case a future Bishop decides to enforce the canonical boundaries due to resource issues.
Now, if you are not worried about funerals, parish cemeteries, communion for “shut-ins”, visitation at hospitals, being elected or appointed to the pastoral committee or parish board of trustees, weddings, baptisms, first communions, and/or confirmations… just simply go to whatever parish you wish to attend. You can always attend mass and confession at any Catholic Church.
But the other sacraments and services are typically and canonically limited to geographic parishioners due to resource management. And because a pastor is responsible for ALL souls in his territorial (or personal) parish (even the non-Catholics), just like a Bishop is responsible for ALL souls in his diocese.
I pray that this is helpful.
God Bless!
No, Ack is correct. You move. Registration does not determine what parish you belong to. It’s determined by where you live, or in some cases, your ethnicity.You don’t need to move. Simply start attending other parishes find one you like then join that one. Tell them at your old parish to take you off their membership. You only need tell the secretary.
This does not really apply across the board. Depends on your Diocese.No, Ack is correct. You move. Registration does not determine what parish you belong to. It’s determined by where you live, or in some cases, your ethnicity.
This is important in some areas, such as marriage where permissions need to be issued. Other areas include dispensations which are reserved to one’s pastor. Such an authority lies with the priest of the parish in which you live, not where you are registered.
The only way to canonically switch parishes is to move.
Actually, moving is not strictly necessary. While you’re correct that technically a given address “falls” within a particular parish, it’s not necessarily a “requirement” that you attend that parish. When we lived in the U.S. when I was little, my parents attended their “home parish” at first. That lasted until they found out the parish was run like General Motors. They started attending another parish outside of town. We attended there until we returned to Canada some years later. The priest at this parish became a family friend.You move.
Parish membership is determined by your address, looking at where you are on a map and seeing which parish’s territory you live in.
Some parishes (especially in the United States) want people fill out paperwork to “register”, but this practice carries no legal significance and is not even that common in most of the world.
It’s really more than preference and fellowship. The parish priest has certain powers not possessed by other priests, such as the power to dispense from vows or obligations. If your parish is the one where you live, then one can register anywhere as much as he likes, but registration does not make him a canonical member of his parish. Residence does. Now, as pianistclaire mentioned, there may be exceptions as laid down by the Conference, but to my knowledge, there has been no exception made to the definition of parish member laid down in Canon Law.I believe that requirement was removed. We do belong to our geographical parishb but for a few years did not. We attended a parish that celebrated a Tridentine Mass as well as the English. All we needed to do was to subit a letter of resignation to our former parish and another letter to the new one,
When we did go back, we just re registered.
One reason is when for example you’re hospitalized it’s more convenient for your geographic parish priests or Eucharistic ministers to visit when you are close by. The other parish wasn’t that close and had only an older pastor, while we were lucky enough to have two priests.
It’s also easier to attend parish activities and get to know people better when you live nearby, especially when bad weather intervenes.
However, if you’re more comfortable in another parish nearby, I’d register there.m some have more youth activities than others, and if you have children that’s important.
Notify the office. It is extremely important to keep up with the data base in your Diocese.
If you register in another place, your membership can/will not be noted in the National database until you are off the register of your present parish.
This impacts
Plus, it’s common courtesy.
- the cost of envelopes for your parish
- the ability of your Pastor to verify or not verify your eligibility for sponsorship for Sacraments ( he may not know you by sight…he may have to rely on the database and say “well, he’s not even registered here! I can’t speak for him, his pastor should!”
- tracking of your contributions for your tax records
- whether or not you get notices via phone, mail, or Archdiocesan mailings as counted as within a particular parish. The parishes are “taxed” by their Diocese based upon the numbers of their membership. Your past parish may be unfairly taxed for your presence if you don’t notify them. How would they know you left? They may be charged for the Diocesan publications for your household as well.
- People have a tendency to ask for favors and special consideration based on their membership. (like: my neighbor is in the hospital Father, can you go see her?)
You are far more likely to get more sympathy if they know you are active in the parish and can see you on the rolls.- people come to me all the time and say “My child was Baptized in Kalamazoo, can you get proof of Baptism for me, she wants to get married in a nearby parish.” Before I make that long distance call to assist them, I look it up.
Maybe some people think there is no legal significance, but as a practical matter. YES.
I work in a parish. This info is used often. Quite often.
I wonder if there is particular law in the United States extending some powers of the pastor to other priests, because attending Mass outside of one’s parish is so widespread here. I’m thinking of something like when Pope Benedict allowed priests at WYD 2011 to remove latae sententiae excommunications resulting from abortions, which normally can only be removed by the bishop. From what I understand, many (most?) bishops in the US have given their priests the authority to reverse such excommunications routinely.Mass attendance is usually not an issue. The issues start to arise when you need the power of the pastor, e.g. dispensations, or if something comes up that requires the awareness or even approval of the parish priest (e.g. marriages).
It’s also worth noting that parish and regional catholic schools often offer tuition discounts official, registered members of their parish or pastoral area. Registering in your parish is often how you are eligible for those discounts.This is interesting, because your diocese seems to track these things much more closely than mine (I assume you’re in the United States, as I am).
Our diocese estimates the size of each parish by counting the number of people attending Mass at every parish on a certain day of the year. Tax recordkeeping and mailings are done by individual parishes rather than the diocese. The diocese’s yearly fundraising appeal has its own mailing list, rather than using the records collected by the parishes.
At my parish, the only real effect of registering is getting pre-printed envelopes. I think only around 30% of the regular Mass-goers at my parish are registered (and the remaining 70% includes some frequent donors who donate by check).
What is the “national database” that you’re referring to? I can see how sacramental record-keeping would be far easier with a national database, but I didn’t think there was such a thing.
Archdiocese of Atlanta.This is interesting, because your diocese seems to track these things much more closely than mine (I assume you’re in the United States, as I am).
Our diocese estimates the size of each parish by counting the number of people attending Mass at every parish on a certain day of the year. Tax recordkeeping and mailings are done by individual parishes rather than the diocese. The diocese’s yearly fundraising appeal has its own mailing list, rather than using the records collected by the parishes.
At my parish, the only real effect of registering is getting pre-printed envelopes. I think only around 30% of the regular Mass-goers at my parish are registered (and the remaining 70% includes some frequent donors who donate by check).
What is the “national database” that you’re referring to? I can see how sacramental record-keeping would be far easier with a national database, but I didn’t think there was such a thing.
Yes, it is, pretty much U.S.-style. However, I’m not aware of any particular law that ties registration with canonical parish membership here either.I wonder if there is particular law in the United States extending some powers of the pastor to other priests, because attending Mass outside of one’s parish is so widespread here. I’m thinking of something like when Pope Benedict allowed priests at WYD 2011 to remove latae sententiae excommunications resulting from abortions, which normally can only be removed by the bishop. From what I understand, many (most?) bishops in the US have given their priests the authority to reverse such excommunications routinely.
I doubt most parish priests know offhand who lives within their parish and who doesn’t, and the issue of jurisdiction is serious enough that it could invalidate any dispensations and sacraments that are performed improperly. (Perhaps Canon 144 would make a dispensation valid even if a pastor wrongly assumed that a person lived within parish boundaries – I am not a canonist so I’ll have to pass here.)
(Edit: I see you are not in the United States. I wonder if Canada is similar to the United States here; more specifically, if parish “registration” is common in Canada, and if Canadian bishops allow their priests to reverse the aforementioned excommunications.)