It is no longer possible, it would seem, to leave the Catholic Church. Although the church in Ireland has been accepting applications to defect, many on foot of applications printed from the user-friendly CountMeOut website, it said on Tuesday that it would no longer process them. The website, which has helped disillusioned Catholics leave, has suspended offering the defection papers “until the situation has been clarified”.
In a somewhat ambiguously worded statement the Dublin archdiocese set out the situation for all dioceses: “The Holy See confirmed at the end of August that it was introducing changes to canon law and as a result it will no longer be possible to formally defect from the Catholic Church.” But, it continued: “This will not alter the fact that many people can defect from the church and continue to do so, albeit not through a formal process. This is a change that will affect the church throughout the world.”
It said the archdiocese planned to maintain a register “to note the expressed desire of those who wish to defect”. Last year, it said, 229 people had defected formally from the church through the archdiocese; the figure for this year so far is 312.
Most catholic Christians (including Anglicans) these days fail to understand that you can’t undo baptism. Once it’s done, you’re the child of God for ever by virtue of rebirth, just like you’re the child of Mr & Mrs Jones by virtue of birth, no matter how one tries to renounce, disown, deny, whatever. As C S Lewis says, behaving badly doesn’t make you cease to be a Christian, it just makes you a bad Christian.