Simplifying my religion...

[Ultralight]

Yesterday I emailed the Catholic Diocese in Columbus. I asked them to remove me from the official rolls of Catholics.

Now, after having read up on it, they will instruct me to write an old fashioned letter to a Bishop. In this letter I have to state that I request to be removed from the rolls and that I am an apostate who has abandoned both the Catholic church and Christ himself.

At this point the Bishop ought to send this message up the ranks and then the church will excommunicate me on grounds of apostasy.

Anyone else go through this?

I just don't want anything at all to do with such a horrible organization. Being a atheist/"lapsed Catholic" is not distance enough. I want full excommunication.

[SteveinMN]

Most Catholics I know (DW and several friends) just left the Church; some went to other religions; others did not. Apparently they feel that was enough distance, and, honestly, maybe it is. They don't list "Catholic" as a preferred religion anywhere, they don't get mailings from the diocese (or associated groups like the Catholic Spirit [local diocesan newsletter]), etc. But if you need their piece of paper, apparently you'll have to jump through their hoops.

[Ultralight]

But if you need their piece of paper, apparently you'll have to jump through their hoops.

I want them to stop counting me in their roster.

[rosarugosa]

I honestly could not be bothered. I didn't do anything, which was just the right degree of simplicity for me.

[Lainey]

Interesting because I'd been wondering for years if the number of Catholics was exaggerated. For myself, my siblings, my cousins, and so many others, we were baptized Catholic but fell away in our teens or 20s and never returned. Yet we're likely still being counted officially as Catholic by the Church.

[ToomuchStuff]

I want them to stop counting me in their roster.

So they move you from the one roster, to the needs saved roster?

[Tenngal]

in the UMC, a letter is all it takes to be removed.

[Teacher Terry]

Sounds like too much trouble.

[Float On]

In this letter I have to state that I request to be removed from the rolls and that I am an apostate who has abandoned both the Catholic church and Christ himself.

At this point the Bishop ought to send this message up the ranks and then the church will excommunicate me on grounds of apostasy.

.

Love the twist - that it's all your fault and not the church's fail in communicating the love of Christ to it's members or their failure of discipleship.

[Williamsmith]

My cynical nature spawns disgust with a Church, any church, that makes official separation a task that borders on extraordinary effort. The cynical part of me would point out that the governing authorities of such churches enforce an involuntary per capita apportionment which is nothing more than a head tax on each official member of its various churches. As such, it continues to enrich its government even though its membership dwindles. The burden of paying the apportionment falls on the remaining active members to make up for the ones on the rolls who don’t belong there. Failure to remit these taxes brings hardship upon the churches in question in the form of lack of support from its governing bodies. Not sure Christ had such compulsory giving in mind when he said the Lord loves a cheerful giver.