Nonbelievers: Get Excommunicated from the Catholic Church

[Submariner]

If you are a believer in religiosity, don’t bother reading further to avoid getting upset. I’ve had 12 years of parochial school, so I have BTDT and understand why you believe in gods. This post is directed to non-believers that would like to take action against the church.

The roman catholic church (RCC) claims to have 65 million members and those inflated numbers were used in part to sway the illiterates in the red states to believe Kerry should not receive holy communion and should be excommunicated (Google “Kerry communion” for 88,900 hits http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=kerry+communion and “excommunicate Kerry” for 3560 hits http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=excommunicate+kerry ). I believe the catholic bullshit heaped on Kerry regarding the excommunication/communion issues during the 2004 campaign was in part responsible for believers sticking with the Bush to continue the crusade to kill thousands of muslims.

As apparent, islam and christianity are both equally phony belief systems, so I do not support one over the other, but I am very bitter that my former church leapt over the line between church state and is cause for the idiot and chief to steal another election under false pretences. To counter the right-wing zealot christians, I have started the process to have myself excommunicated to lower that 65 million member number down to a realistic level, and I hope millions of lapsed catholics will do the same on their own or as part of a nationwide organized movement that I would gladly enjoin.

To that end, I just spoke with the pastor of the church in Cambridge holding my baptism, holy communion, and confirmation records. He is going to pull them and send them to me, and will contact the archdiocese of Boston to see if I should send my excommunication demand letter to the archdiocese or directly to the pope at the Vatican.

The church will try and say excommunication does not come quickly (they want one to be VERY sure they understand the faith-based consequences), but do not let them delay the excommunication process for their religious reasons. In my angry mind, it will just be a ploy to keep their membership numbers up, when in reality the RCC has lost the moral high-ground to deny excommunication since they crossed the line between church and state.

Good luck with your excommunication process if you decide to go that route, and I will re-post on this subject as the process moves along. We need to drive the roster number of catholics down so when polling for the next election cycle gets into gear, our displeasure with right-wing repug christianity influences in the political system will be heard and hopefully acted on during the next election.

Here is one of the Kerry excommunication articles: http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=32830

And a Kerry communion article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/06/politics/main610547.shtml

[moggie12]

1. How does the Catholic Church "count" Catholics?

Do they count only those registered in a parish?

[Submariner]

3. They count the number of parishioners

that have been baptized catholic and that number remains whether one is a lapsed catholic or not. It is my understanding that the only way to get off their roster is to get kicked out of the church.

[moggie12]

6. So if my baptismal papers are still on file from 45 years ago,

I still get counted??? What if I'd died since then?? How would they know (I'm confused)

[frankly_fedup2]

7. I'm Methodist and what they do is keep your name on the books . . .

where you were baptized. If you are not a practicing/paying member for quite a while, the books are updated, and for some reason your name gets taken off. (with emphasis on paying).

[moggie12]

8. LOL-Catholics are also financially-minded

That makes sense -- thanks for clearing that up

[Submariner]

10. In my discussion with the Pastor today

he said my 57 yr old baptism records are on file in his basement, and that I am on the books as a full fledged catholic until a death certificate is forwarded to the parish.

[moggie12]

14. No kidding??!!

That could inflate the number of "Catholics" in the US by a huge amount!! Some could be dead, some could be simply not practicing...

[Walt Starr]

19. They damn well better not be counting me!

I was baptised Catholic as a baby. I never did catechism, was confirmed, or received communion.

I had not choice and they damn well better not be counting me as a Catholic!

Of course, what would be the point in excommunicating me if I never received communion in the first place?

[frankly_fedup2]

2. Pope Pius (sp) XII would not even excommunicate Hitler when he . . .

was slaughtering the Jews and claiming to be a Catholic. I think this pope was known as the "war pope." Sound Familiar.

Also, I came upon an article regarding what the current pope thinks of Bush. It's about from two years ago. He, basically, says Bush is the Antichrist.

Here is the link.

<http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_9_27/ai_10888188>

Sorry, that link won't work. Try this one.

<http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_9_27/ai_108881880>


Also, check this one out for the home page. Is it just me, or is the lady with the big smile and the red lipstick at the top of the page needing a shave across her upper lip? It looks rather strange to me? But, what do I know. lol

<http://www3.telus.net/catholicnewtimes/ad.html>

[Submariner]

5. Got a file 404 not found for your link

My feeling is that the catholic church did not learn it's lesson from the Hitler days. The pope should have admonished Hitler from the pulpit and screamed from the rooftops just like the pope should be doing now condemning Bush for his slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents because they do not believe in his god. The vatican seems just as quiet during this war just as they did during the 1930's Germany time period. The church and religion are just tools of the government to justify the slaughter.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. I don't think this is a good strategy

we can't think of the Church as a monolthic entity working against us.
There are lost of disagreements on a lot of issues and we don't need to to make it look like we are 100% opposed to the Church.
There are a handful of Church spokesmen villanizing us, but we also have allies in the Church.
Let's use them to our benefit.

[Submariner]

11. I agree that believers should use the church as a tool

to keep alliances until such time that the majority of religions fade into the history books (probably another century or two before science nails the christian/islam coffins shut). Now, as a devout non-believer, I have to take the track to dissemble faith-based fallacies so I could not work within the alliances you infer.

But whatever it takes to unseat the christian right from guvmint control I'm all for it.

[Vinnie From Indy]

9. I Hope They Validate Parking! n/t

[Lugnut]

12. So I'm still being counted, huh?

I never thought they counted members by baptismal records. I assumed it was by church membership rolls and I'm on none of those. Just in my immediate family there are six people who are being counted improperly. :wow:

[Sgent]

13. Add one to me as well....

What about some Catholic hospitals that baptize every child born?

I know St. Francis in Memphis used to do that, and my parents were p*ssed. My mother did her rotating internship there and liked one of the OB/GYNs.

Huh, so am I still counted as Catholic even though I've been inside a Catholic church twice -- both for weddings?

[CatholicEdHead]

15. That was back in Apr 2004

Here is the group that is trying to excommunicate Kerry and 4 other Democratic Party figureheads and one no-name Republican.

http://www.defide.com/

It was a "unoffical" Vatican response by some Theologician.

http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=1&art_id=25815

In his interpetation, all Catholics who are not "pro-life" e.g. "pro-abortion" are automatically excommunicated. That is not the OFFICAL view (so far).

Yes, it is petty, yes the people involved have WAY too much time on their hands, yes it is splitting the church. The church knows this is a fiscial issue more than anything, and will not want to excommunicate around half or more dioceses.

Most of this rukus comes from lay goups, who would prefer a return back to before Vatican II, and not from Rome.

[DalvaThree]

16. This isn't going anywhere

[Submariner]

18. "This isn't going anywhere"

That's what I thought about the Dubya campaign, and look where that punk asshole is now. I thought "who would vote for an ignorant serial liar AWOL punk coward who was an absolute failure in the business world and had, or has, an alcohol and drug problem."

Minority opinions start small. We had to drag the conservatives out of slavery and into the civil rights era...like so many other progressive initiatives, and we will have to do the same with their faith-based myths of reality.

[GreenInNC]

17. Catholic Church wouldn't take me

About four years after I got married (civil ceremony), my wife decided she wanted to go back to church. She was raised Catholic so we decided to go to the local church. I was raised Presbyterian but figured what the hay.

We got into it and I started RCIA classes to join the church and my wife started the annulment process of her first marriage so we could get married in the church. My classes got done and I was two weeks from joining when we found out there was a snag in my wife's annulment. The priest said he could not let me join until the annulment was complete because in the churches eyes, we were living in unrepentant sin.

I said to hell with them and we became Episcopalians.