A Question of De-Baptism
When I was on my Mormon mission in Italy, a young lady who was considering baptism into the Mormon church announced her desire to first officially resign from Catholicism. We were in the middle of an English class at the time, and all the Catholic students laughed at her, asking her how she proposed to do such a ridiculous thing. It’s not like the Catholic church keeps an enormous database of all the millions and millions of persons who have been baptized and confirmed into the fold; what was she going to do, go to the little parish church she was raised in and scratch her name off the baptismal register? The laughter pealed loud and long at that idea.
How little I knew back then. I’m not sure I was aware of the process for resigning from the Mormon church, let alone the Catholic one. In the intervening seven years, I have formally resigned my membership in the Mormon church and have seen other friends do and contemplate the same. How narrow-minded of me to assume that Catholic atheists were any less stubborn and tenacious than I am: here is an article/thread on secularism.org.uk about the struggles of Catholics (and the less successful struggles of Anglicans) to have their baptisms and confirmations annulled, wiped out or repudiated. And what does it boil down to? Locating the parish of your birth and coercing the priest to write a note in the margin stating that you have renounced your membership. Ah, the Old-World quaintness of it all.
The jury is still out on whether you will continue to be counted in Catholic membership statistics, but then, that’s true for resigning as a Mormon as well—the Mormon church’s centralization gives the deceptive impression that resignation should be a quick, easy and final process, but let’s not kid ourselves: once you have a Mormon membership record, you will always have a Mormon membership record; and once you are counted in the membership statistics, you will continue to be counted, until you are dead, or until you are over the age of 110, whichever comes first. Religion doesn’t quite know what it means to let go, does it?
One last note: in response to one Catholic’s request to renounce his membership, the diocese replied, “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, but of course, this will not concern you since you no longer believe in that.” Such a tongue-in-cheek (or sarcastic?) reply couldn’t be further from the self-important Mormon bishops who try to browbeat you into giving up your quest for getting your name removed, or even the patronizing “An Invitation to Come Back” pamphlet the Mormon Church sends out to those who do successfully resign. But all that is behind me. And soon, hopefully, it will also be behind another of my friends.
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March 31st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Hey, I saw you commenting on one of my favorite blogs (slanted) and gave up a happy cheer. MBC was my freshman roomie (soooo fun). Sorry to hear that your exit from official mormon status was such a pain.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Yeah, I found her through Voice of Reason, another hilarious “spinster librarian in Utah” blog. We single, almost-thirtysomething Utah librarians need to stick together. :D
The resignation process was a hassle at the time, but in retrospect it went much quicker and easier than it might have. The reason I was thinking of it now is that I have a friend who is starting the process and had an altercation with a ignernt Utah Mormon bishop about what the proper procedure is. Bishops just don’t seem to know anything about a person’s legal right to dissociate themselves from the Mormon church, which I think is a huge failure on the part of whoever trains them.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:35 am
are you sure you’re still counted? I mean, you still have a membership record with a note (chose to blot name from records, will summarily spend eternity in hell, or Mormon equivalent thereof). But I’m not sure the resigned are actually counted in the official stats.
The Mormon Church is dodgy, but they are sticklers for records. I’m guessing those who have their names removed aren’t counted, but are still tracked.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:58 am
Yes, but the numbers they announce are also very shady. A few of the larger problems: members the Mormon church loses contact with continue to be counted until they are 110 years old, even though, if the church has lost contact with them, the majority would presumably not still consider themselves Mormon. This is borne out by the fact that there are enormous discrepancies between the Mormon church’s figures and self-reported religious adherence.
Second, in some years there isn’t room in the official statistics for loss of members to death, let alone excommunication or resignation, which makes one wonder how honest they are about reporting excommunication and resignation when there is room for them, and how much is just the death rate.
I personally believe that the evidence points towards resignees and “excomminiquees” still being counted, or at least not being consistently removed from the statistics. However, since the Mormon church is so secretive about its numbers, it’s impossible to know for sure.
August 31st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
i believe you can’t be baptized too many times. just to be safe. just to be sure. a little dial soap always helped! damn how many times was i baptized? a lot of dead people owe me a debt of gratitude… and you too i bet sean.
i don’t care what the mormans think i am. just so happens i am on their books still i and i get the occasional visit from the missionaries still. i get rid of them quickly enough by saying
“i haven’t been to church in “x” amount of years.”
“oh really we had no idea.”
” i appreciate that you are good people but i am more likely to shake your faith than you are to stir mine so if you wish to take that chance… come on in.”
if the say they will come in i inform them that i have discussions in my home… i don’t listen to lectures. if they are willing to give me equal time, they can come in. if they still choose to come in, i make sure they know my dictum that i would be more likely too shake their faith was my way of saying they’re wasting their time here. if they still insist on staying [and none have made it this far.] i may just send them back a couple of missionaries with questions they didn’t have when they left that morning. for the record i call myself an agnostic.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
That’s awesome, Willy. I should try that out on the missionaries sometime. Except with my luck, they’d take me up on it, and then I’d have to talk to them, which I usually have no interest in doing. Ah, well.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:47 am
i have no interest in talking to them either sean… nor do i have any interest in shaking their faith… but once i lay the idea out there, i have to be willing to let them decide if they want to enter my home or not. since i do not live on neutral ground, they would be taking their faith into their own hands! :D
September 12th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I’m with Sean on this one…I’ve had my fill of being “tracked” and “traced”. Maybe when I get to be your age Willy, I will follow your lead, but for now, I prefer to be left alone…I like what you said though…it has given me food for thought! Love you both!