Melkite - Petition for Excommunication - Question

[Cristiano]

If one cannot believe what the Catholic Church teaches, it is his duty to leave. I commend you for not being of the cafeteria (lukewarm) variety of Catholic who Jesus promises to vomit out…

You are stating something that is completely the opposite of what the Catholic Church teaches. It is immoral for Catholics to say something like that.

 

[Apotheoun]

Just wondering.

If you no longer believe then why not just stop going? Why do you feel that you have to go through all this work?

It does seem a bit odd to go through all this effort to get excommunicated.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

It does seem a bit odd to go through all this effort to get excommunicated.

Yes, especially given the fact that excommunication does not do what the OP wants. Excommunication does not remove one from the rolls of the Church.

Excommunication, as stated elsewhere in this thread, is a disciplinary action that is used to move the excommunicated person towards repentance and return to full communion with the Church.

There is no process any longer that removes a person from the rolls of the Church.

One of the reasons for this is the very fact that there is no such thing, that is there is no official roll of membership kept by the Church anywhere.

You are a member of the Church, a member of the body of Christ, by baptism. There is no way to remove a baptism.

 

[Filii_Dei]

The Bishops flex their political muscle by claiming to represent a voting block of Catholics whose numbers would be one less if my name were not on a diocesan roll. It is they who are making statements that I don’t believe in. What I want is not to be counted as one of their statistics. Catholics of all people should understand the principal of undesired agreement by association, being the ones who are so adamant about not supporting birth control even indirectly through health insurance.

I fear your decision to leave the Church arises from a misunderstanding of what the bishops do. The bishops do not claim to represent. They are not elected politicians - not Senators, not Representatives, not Members of Parliament.

What they do is lead. To be precise, they lead the people to God’s truth, which has been given to us through Holy Tradition, but I think you won’t care for that explanation.

What matter’s is this: Nobody is forced to agree by association. That would subvert the free will we are all given by God to submit freely to the truth and values He has given to us, but if people choose to dissent from the values their bishops teach, then that is their own account with God. It is not in our place to blame the bishops for doing their job.

 

[File_Not_Found]

I fear your decision to leave the Church arises from a misunderstanding of what the bishops do.

I don’t want to sever my ties just because of the increasing sociopolitical dealings of the Church in matters of state. I am also in profound disagreement with the presuppositions and propositional doctrines which form the philosophical foundations of not just Catholicism, but Christianity and Abrahamic Religion in general.

 

[File_Not_Found]

Is the contraception teaching your biggest problem with the Church? Anyway, best wishes!!

Besides contraception, there’s the way they handle the abortion and personhood issue and gay marriage.

Regarding homosexual rights, I refer to the following:

In December of 2007 at the 41st World Peace Day, Pope Benedict made a speech. The AGI Network had a news link which quoted him as saying, “whosoever, even if unaware of the consequences of their actions, stands in the way of the family (based on a marriage between a man and a woman) renders a peaceful community at risk, nationally or internationally, since they weaken what is, in actual fact, the main ‘agency of peace’ on earth.” The implication is that homosexuals are as much a threat to world peace as terrorists.

In December 23 of 2008, in his end of the year address, Pope Benedict made comments that supposedly had to do with “gender roles” and the environment, but could have easily been interpreted to imply that homosexual relations are as “destruction of God’s work” as the destruction of the rain forests and global warming.

Mon Jan 11, 2010 Reuters reported that in Benedict’s address to the diplomatic corps the main theme was the environment and the protection of creation. Again, a link between homosexuality and environmentalism was implied. Benedict said, “Creatures differ from one another and can be protected, or endangered, in different ways, as we know from daily experience. One such attack comes from laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes," he said…."I am thinking, for example, of certain countries in Europe or North and South America,” he said.

His reference to discrimination was clearly aimed at gay-rights legislation either enacted or proposed in several part of the world.

In December of 2008, the Vatican opposed a UN resolution to decriminalize homosexuality because it claimed it would lead to the decriminalization of same-sex unions. The French resolution, which was supported by all 27 members of the European Union, had nothing to do with gay marriage. *It was about stopping jail and the death penalty for homosexuals. *

UK Daily Mail Online reported that in his 2012 New Year address to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican, Benedict said that gay marriage is one of several threats to the traditional family unit that undermines the future of humanity itself. The last time a leader made such comments about a group of people being a threat to the future, they were rounded up and put in concentration camps as a final solution. Makes me wonder if the Pope agrees with Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina. He suggested an electric fence.

It’s not hard to read between the lines of such thinly veiled sentiments. The implication is that instead of being protected from discrimination, homosexuals should be treated like terrorists and global warming. Victimless behaviors between consenting adults should be punished like crimes of violence and abuse.

It was just recently in the newspaper that a local Catholic priest made a speech at a rally about the healthcare law bemoaning the fact that the government has made it safe for *homosexuals *and others he disagrees with on social issues to walk the streets.

Comments like the above from the Pope and clergy can be used to justify bullying, gay-bashing and in some countries, retention of the death penalty. They won’t really ever stop abortion or birth control, but they just might be able to prolong the mistreatment of homosexuals for a long time to come.

 

[Caspar]

Is there a way I could have myself permanently excommunicated from the Melkite Church? I understand it is possible to write a letter to the Vatican requesting such. Might there be a similar process for the Eparchy of Newton, especially if I wrote a letter stating grounds for excommunication such as being a non-theist who supports contraception, early-term abortion and gay marriage?

If so, who would I write to? Could I have my name removed from all their records?

Thanks.

Perhaps instead you should simply go to confession and weekly liturgy?

 

[File_Not_Found]

I am curious, you said non-theist.

I don’t call myself an atheist because atheism is most often equated with scientific materialism. I am not a materialist.

Also, I don’t think most atheists know the difference between a belief system, a disbelief system, a suspension of belief system and a suspension of disbelief system. If they did, I don’t think they would define their beliefs as a “lack of belief”, but as an unwillingness to suspend disbelief. Non-theism is simply the least contradictory term I have found to use so far.

Do you believe in a non-personal deity?

My current views are informed by the following Buddhist schools and Non-Dualist philosophers. See comment at the end.

Mahamudra: Going beyond conceptual limitations, projections, mind productions and imagination.

Madhyamika: Avoidance of extremes of nihilism & eternalism, existence & nonexistence, etc.

**Dzogchen: ** The view that duality and non-duality are inseparable but distinct, with non-duality defined as the recognition that existence and experience is permeated by the qualities of both form and emptiness, which are constant flux. Clear perception of form, emptiness and non-duality as aspects of existence results in a primordial freedom from grasping with the mind.

Nagarjuna’s negative dialectic. With the aid of these four alternatives (affirmation, negation, double affirmation, double negation), Nāgārjuna rejects all firm standpoints and traces a middle path between being and non-being.

All things exist: affirmation of being, negation of nonbeing.
All things do not exist: affirmation of nonbeing, negation of being.
All things both exist and do not exist: both affirmation and negation.
All things neither exist nor do not exist: neither affirmation nor negation.

Nisargardatta’s distinction between consciousness and awareness: Consciousness comes and goes, is of the nature of duality, always has an object and is always “of” something. Awareness is the singular background of the void upon which the existing sense of presence appears. Awareness shining through consciousness is that by which I know that “I am”.

Abhinavagupta: “The being of all things that exist in awareness (including their self-being) in turn depends on awareness” - which is more primordial than the “I” which is consciously aware.

I traded a Platonic/Aristotelian ontology of “being” for a field-dynamic phenomenology of reflexive awareness/subjectivity.

So far, this philosophy has not led to the discovery of any independent, substantial, separately existing, thoroughly individualized, unchanging, controller or agent that I would call a deity, personal or impersonal.

 

[LilyM]

Besides contraception, there’s the way they handle the abortion and personhood issue and gay marriage.

Regarding homosexual rights, I refer to the following:

In December of 2007 at the 41st World Peace Day, Pope Benedict made a speech. The AGI Network had a news link which quoted him as saying, “whosoever, even if unaware of the consequences of their actions, stands in the way of the family (based on a marriage between a man and a woman) renders a peaceful community at risk, nationally or internationally, since they weaken what is, in actual fact, the main ‘agency of peace’ on earth.” The implication is that homosexuals are as much a threat to world peace as terrorists.

In December 23 of 2008, in his end of the year address, Pope Benedict made comments that supposedly had to do with “gender roles” and the environment, but could have easily been interpreted to imply that homosexual relations are as “destruction of God’s work” as the destruction of the rain forests and global warming.

Mon Jan 11, 2010 Reuters reported that in Benedict’s address to the diplomatic corps the main theme was the environment and the protection of creation. Again, a link between homosexuality and environmentalism was implied. Benedict said, “Creatures differ from one another and can be protected, or endangered, in different ways, as we know from daily experience. One such attack comes from laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes,” he said….“I am thinking, for example, of certain countries in Europe or North and South America,” he said.

His reference to discrimination was clearly aimed at gay-rights legislation either enacted or proposed in several part of the world.

In December of 2008, the Vatican opposed a UN resolution to decriminalize homosexuality because it claimed it would lead to the decriminalization of same-sex unions. The French resolution, which was supported by all 27 members of the European Union, had nothing to do with gay marriage. *It was about stopping jail and the death penalty for homosexuals. *

UK Daily Mail Online reported that in his 2012 New Year address to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican, Benedict said that gay marriage is one of several threats to the traditional family unit that undermines the future of humanity itself. The last time a leader made such comments about a group of people being a threat to the future, they were rounded up and put in concentration camps as a final solution. Makes me wonder if the Pope agrees with Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina. He suggested an electric fence.

It’s not hard to read between the lines of such thinly veiled sentiments. The implication is that instead of being protected from discrimination, homosexuals should be treated like terrorists and global warming. Victimless behaviors between consenting adults should be punished like crimes of violence and abuse.

It was just recently in the newspaper that a local Catholic priest made a speech at a rally about the healthcare law bemoaning the fact that the government has made it safe for *homosexuals *and others he disagrees with on social issues to walk the streets.

Comments like the above from the Pope and clergy can be used to justify bullying, gay-bashing and in some countries, retention of the death penalty. They won’t really ever stop abortion or birth control, but they just might be able to prolong the mistreatment of homosexuals for a long time to come.

Ah yes. So some mean nasty Catholic leaders have made some comments that aren’t quite warm and fuzzy towards our homosexual brothers.

Have you ever seen their condemnations of theft? Unjust war? Adultery? There are plenty of them, some very scathing towards the perpetrators of such deeds. Sin isn’t pretty and its ugliness cannot always be glossed over in the interests of bing politically correct.

By the way, there are leading politicians of all stripes who have been very scathing towards homosexuals too. Same with leading teachers, doctors, policemen. I suppose you refuse to have anything to do with any politicians, teachers, doctors or policemen as a result?

After all, anything any member or members of an organization says must necessarily be a statement made on behalf of the whole, no? And so the whole needs to be condemned because of the questionable statements of a few.

 

[File_Not_Found]

Have you ever seen their condemnations of theft? Unjust war? Adultery?

Unjust war? Victimless behaviors between consenting adults do not merit the same condemnation as violent atrocities and war crimes. Theft? What are homosexuals robbing you or anyone else of? Adultary? How do stable, monogamous homosexual relationships defraud anyone’s trust? Lying? It is a lie for a homosexual person to tell themselves there is no such thing as a homosexual person and then spend their whole life in a futile attempt to amputate and/or suppress, repress and ignore an authentic part of their human psyche. But that kind of self-dishonesty is exactly what the Church expects of homosexuals.

 

[File_Not_Found]

There is no official membership roll kept by the Catholic Church. The Church, afaik, does not even count its members. The local Church, as in the diocese, keeps a count of registered members. That is each parish has members that are registered to it. This is kept so that the diocese can determine the amount each parish must contribute to the diocese.

So again, there is no place you can go to see the names of all those who are considered Catholic by the Catholic Church.

Thank you for explaining this. I have already terminated membership at my former Melkite parish. Sounds like there is really nothing else that can or needs to be done.

 

[File_Not_Found]

Again, I appreciate everyone’s participation, even those who gave me a chance to disagree with them. All the best.