This article describes a relatively new phenomenon in Europe–people seeking either formally or informally to renounce their ties to the religion in which they were baptized.
In some cases, the issue is getting removed from the state’s rolls that determine whose tax money goes where. In at least one instance (whose significance is noted here), there’s an effort to use the state to compel the church to accept one’s renunciation.
The former is merely a function of the particular form of religious establishment existing in those countries and doesn’t pose any new problems. The latter case raises some very interesting questions of religious liberty. An individual is, after all, free to give or withhold his assent to a particular set of religious propositions or faith commitments, at least from the point of view of the secular state. But can’t the church have its own conception of who is in or out of communion with it? Allowing Jean (well, Rene) to “de-baptize” himself with the assistance of the state seems to mean that the state becomes the arbiter of the church’s membership. If the state cam compel the church to recognize a person’s renunciation of affiliation, can it also make the church accept a person with whom it doesn’t wish to be in communion?
There’s more in the article, but this is enough for a Friday afternoon.
January 20th, 2012 | 2:51 pm
If the state cam compel the church to recognize a person’s renunciation of affiliation, can it also make the church accept a person with whom it doesn’t wish to be in communion?
I think this is really just an establishment issue. If the state is not forcing people to choose a particular church or religion and not forcing people to allocate a portion of their taxes to a particular church, then the state has no interest at all in the church’s membership rosters. A person can announce he has ‘de-baptised’ himself and his church can decare they still consider him baptised and the state can simply remain silient on the matter.
January 22nd, 2012 | 10:46 am
In France, the issue is really one of the interpretation of Article 31 of the Law of 9 December 1905 on the Separation of Church and State.
This appears to confer on an individual the right, not only to worship or to refrain from worship, but to join or leave an « association cultuelle » [a Church]
This has to be seen against a background of not just of anti-clericalism, but of a general suspicion and strict regulation of all associations not dedicated to the pursuit of gain. As Maitland said, “the State saw no harm in the selfish people who wanted dividends, while it had an intense dread of the comparatively unselfish people who would combine with some religious, charitable, literary, scientific, artistic purpose in view.” Both in the law and in the attitude of the authorities, one detects echoes of the famous Revolutionary declaration of August 18, 1792: “A State that is truly free ought not to suffer within its bosom any corporation, not even such as, being dedicated to public instruction, have merited well of the country.” A cycle club of more than 20 members needs official permission, readily granted, indeed, but to obtain incorporation, “civil personality,” as the French call it, is next to impossible.
January 23rd, 2012 | 9:10 pm
I think we should zero in then on what it means to have a right to ‘leave a church’. Certainly no one seriously thinks a person who decides to reject Catholicism they were raised with can be kidnapped on Sunday morning by roving gangs of nuns driving dark vans with tinted windows and forced to report to Mass.
At the same time, I don’t think the person who decides to leave can order his church to make a notation in its Baptism rolls that “Mr Smith is no longer Catholic; Baptism reversed”. The Church is free to assert that Baptism cannot be reversed. Other Churches are free to claim that their Baptisms or other ceremonies somehow trump a Catholic Baptism. So no the person who leaves his original faith cannot force those he leaves behind to alter their beliefs about his soul. So there again I don’t think we have any church-state conflict.
Where this does seem to play is where the Church is allowed to play a role in the state. For example, where some portion of taxes must go to one’s ‘Church’. When you go down that road, you get very messy possibilities like Mr. Smith leaving the Catholic Church, informing the taxman that he was ‘debaptised’ and is now a new Baptised member of the local Scientology sect and would like his money directed there. Then the Catholic Church screams that the state, by cutting off the tax money, is ‘forcing’ them to recognize ‘debaptisms’….and so it goes. All this seems to speak to the wisdom of the American concept of keeping Church and State apart. If the state has no interest in keeping track of people’s ‘official religion’, it need never get entangled in such theological questions.
January 24th, 2012 | 4:44 am
Booton
I don’t think you are distinguishing between the Church, as a society of believers and the Church as a legal corporation (an « association cultuelle »).
Now, the Church can maintain its doctrine that baptism is indelible, but can it claim that he is a member of the legal, corporate entity? That is the real issue.
January 24th, 2012 | 8:04 am
What exactly does it mean for a Church to claim a person is a member of ‘the legal, corporate entity’? In the US this means at most you’re on their mailing list for donation solicitations but that’s about it. A church can’t force you to do anything if it insists on ‘keeping you as a member’.
January 24th, 2012 | 1:49 pm
There is a (theoretical) liability to contribute in the event of the insolvency of the association.
Liability ceases a year after a person ceases to be a member, any provision to the contrary in the rules notwithstanding (Article 19), which presupposes membership is terminable. As the association is strictly limited to its objective of conducting public worship and the church building is usually state-owned, the possibility is remote. An association cultuelle is strictly forbidden to undertake any social, cultural, humanitarian or educational activities, so church members form other associations to perform these functions, some of which may qualify as charities [« association reconnue d’utilité publique »]
As each diocese is a separate association, it is common practice for people to terminate their membership of one, when moving to another. This suggests that baptism is a qualification for membership of the association, rather than equivalent to enrolment.
Membership lists (like those of any association) are open to police inspection at any time.
I rather fancy people who are pressing the matter simply wish to disassociate themselves from the body in question, rather like resigning from a political party or a club, with whose policies they have come to disagree.
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