babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
That's a good letter Joey, and I'd like to use a similar structure for mine, which I hope to get done by next week. Even if it's not read, i like to put things a bit in context, and offer reasons. I'm an old alter boy myself, and my parents were quite active in the parish. My Dad was organist and choir director for decades, and wrote two masses himself.
My own letter wiil touch on some of your points, as well as mentioning my lesbian sister who was finally able to be married by a UC minister after a 30 year relationship.
One thing about the church, is that they never throw anything out. Maybe someday they'll sit down and look at what people had to say in these letters if they get enough.
I'll post it when it's ready to go.
I don't think you can say that as a generalization. Some may be, most aren't.
Agreed.
Huge parcels of Indigenous land were "granted' to churches, in reality in a fiduciary relationship like the Crown's. The land was gradually laundered - ie, sold to third parties - and the churches and governments and corporations profited.
This land laundering scheme by the powers that be is a story older than Canada, and it is still happening today. Kevin Annett exposed the 'sale' of Ahousat lands on Vancouver Island to MacMillan Bloedel in the '90's.
There is still a lot of unceded 'church land'.
Church of England on brink of 'losing' 24 million 'members'
excerpt:
Watch this Sky video and read the news report at Times Online about nurse John Hunt who is trying to get his baptism into the Church of England rescinded, with the support of the National Secular Society.
The case is significant because it could ultimately cost the Church of England and the other Anglican churches in the UK nearly all of their 25,336,000 official members, as recorded by the World Council of Churches, as counted by the Wakeham Commission on reform of the House of Lords and even by the Anglican Communion itself.
excerpt:
In the modern era of human rights, how long can a religious body continue to claim privileges based on a religious ritual carried out on babies when most of those babies once grown do not continue to practise the religion? Or does Anglicanism at that point become a matter of ethnicity rather than faith?
Another response to Joey Ramone's letter, after I posted it to a feminist discussion list:
Subject: Re: CHOICE - Papal infailability debunked
Thank you for posting this and congratulations to your friend, "Mr. JR" on his decision. The response from the Officer of the Bishop made me laugh out loud - in other words, since JR won't "play nice", he will no longer be "baptized" and entitled to enter heaven (the schoolyard run by bullies).
Note that the definition of the word "apostasy" includes "a total desertion of or departure from one's ........principles.........."
So does this mean that anyone who "deserts" the catholic church has no principles?
One has to *abandon* any principles one has in order to "belong" to this club run by men, for men and about men.
It should be clear by now that the catholic church puts more value on a bunch of cells than it does on the people who walk this earth.
"Suffer the little children" indeed!!
Claire
On 18-Mar-09, at 3:03 PM, martin dufresne wrote:
> Dear Parleuses,
>
> A formerly Catholic ally in Hamilton has authorized me to share this
> letter he sent a few days ago to his local Archdiocese, in view of
> the recent pronouncements by Joseph Ratzinger at the Vatican.
> I think it speaks for itself. Many friends of mine are sending such
> letters these days.
Interesting. Apparently "It is not possible to cancel your baptism as such, since baptism is regarded by the Church as leaving an indelible mark on the soul...".
The best we can do is renounce the church and have an asterix beside our names in the baptismal registry noting that we have renounced. This site confirms the appropriate procedure for renouncing adherence to the Church: http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showkb.php?org_id=1551&kb_header_id=33981&kb_id=33251
A poster on this site says that if you want something more formal than the simple email exchange procedure I used, apparently you can get a form from the church, fill it in, and get back a form signed and sealed by the bishop confirming your departure.
I read somewhere that you can also write to the church advising that you an apostate, describe the nature of your apostasy, and ask to be excommunicated. That's kind of appealing too.
It really has to be public, within the civil society that the Christians are impacting with their demands, otherwise the bishops can just write their own ticket, give us whatever runarounds suit their ends.
I really like what is happening in London with the Anglican Church being raked over hot coals and can see legal challenges rearing their learned heads.
Sudden rise in apostasy applications in Québec
Absolutely amazing. One diocese got 50 applications last month alone, where normally they get about 20 per year!
Yes!
And a great Op-Ed was published in the same issue of Le Devoir: "Notre certificat d'excommunication s'il-vous-plaît!", signed by 26 Quebec women and men. It had a huge impact on French talk radio yesterday.
The Montreal diocese, where this apostasy movement started, even refuses to divulge the number of apostasies received do far (and still escalating).
But given the fact that Quebec City is the heartland of old-school Catholicism and has 30 times the usual number of apostasies, Montreal must be seeing hundreds if not thousands of Catholics formally refusing to be counted among the flock anymore when the bishops brag about 83% of Quebecers identifying as Catholics.
Check out my own Phillip K. Dick-inspired response to the article linked by Unionist here.
BTW, the Mouvement laïque du Québec makes the point that you don't have to ask for an apostasy, you tell them, period. This is nothing like an excommunication they would be deciding on. This is why the MLQ doesn't include a Reasons: box in the form you can download from their site. You simply serve the good bishops notice and they can't use your name anymore.
Don't underestimate the huge change this thing is turning out to be for French Quebec society. I think Ratzinger blew it big time... There are even some people calling for a schism with Rome for the Quebec catholic church to survive...! Radio-Canada's Maisonneuve à l'écoute radio program had a good forum on Wednesday.
I've spoken about this with quite a few people, and I brought it to the attention of a few people who didn't know about this.
I fully intend to leave the RCC, but right now simply isn't the time for me. :P
Schism with Rome ... YES!!
And send all the Orders back to Rome, because they answer to no one here.
I'm stunned by the size of this movement, the articles posted above (thanks). Must be the right time. Renouncing the church is amazing, folks.
But I'm sure happy to see the suggestion too that Catholic Churches in Canada break entirely with Rome. halleluja!
I wasn't aware that Catholic Universities in the US (some? all?) have done just that, and woudja look at this ... !
Ralph McInerny: "Is Obama Worth a Mass?"
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/content/view/1346/
Now that the abortion president will be honored and feted and listened to at Notre Dame’s commencement, the question becomes, who will say the commencement Mass?
...
No event was more crucial for Catholic universities than the infamous 1967 Land O’Lakes statement in which the assembled presidents of Catholic institutions declared their freedom from the supposedly baleful influence of Catholic orthodoxy. They would continue to call themselves Catholic, but the definition of the term was constantly under construction. And this by institutions whose task is decidedly not to define what Catholicism is. And now we have come to the point where the University of Notre Dame is publicly excluding itself from allegiance to and acceptance of one of the most fundamental of Christian moral truths, mentioned explicitly in the Didache and again and again over the centuries. Abortion is an essentially evil act, both from the viewpoint of natural morality and from the explicit teaching the Church. There is no way in which an individual, a politician or an institution can finesse that fact.
By inviting Barack Obama as commencement speaker, Notre Dame is telling the nation that the teaching of the Catholic church on this fundamental matter can be ignored. Lip service may be paid to the teaching on abortion, but it is no impediment to upward mobility, to the truly vulgar lust to be welcomed into secular society, whether on the part of individuals or institutions.
But look at this ...
Civility and MoralityBy Brad Miner
When The Catholic Thing published Ralph McInerny's "Is Obama Worth a Mass?" the article received an unprecedented number of comments - each of which it was my responsibility as Senior Editor to approve. Most were thoughtful, temperate, and heartfelt, but a few lacked a kind of fundamental graciousness that made them either unpublishable or printable only with our reluctant sadness.
And ... interesting if true here too ...
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/anti-catholic-campaign-hits-argentina-2519384"The church counts all those who've been baptized as Catholic and lobbies for legislation based on that number, so we're trying to convey the importance of people expressing that they no longer belong to the church," said campaigner Ariel Bellino, a member of an atheist group and a former Catholic.
Heh, scary/funny, martin!