How does one go about renouncing DC's baptisms?

[TheYearOfTheCat]

My 2 DC (4 yrs & 2yrs) have been baptised as Catholics, as it is my DH's faith.

I am an ardent aetheist, however I agreed to have our DC baptised because it was so important to my DH.

As a result of this week's revelations concerning the Catholic Church's activities in Ireland (which tbh was common knowledge by many people, including myself - however even I had no idea of the extent and complicity of the church authorities) I no longer want my DC associated with this organisation. My DH (with sadness) agrees.

So how does one go about renouncing their faith? Given my DC's tender ages, it is probably inaccurate to describe it as faith - it is more a case of membership of the church.

Due to their ages do you really have to formally renounce their faith as you say it isnot faith is it.

It's a bit frivolous but how about this?

You just don't take them to church.
It is something they then make up their own mind up about when adults.

I think it is important to understand that they were baptised as Christians, ie welcomed into the Christian church as a whole, not just the Roman Catholic church. If you no longer want to have any association with the Roman Catholic church, then you simply stop going to church, and/or remove them from any Roman Catholic schools or other groups that you go to. If you or DH are currently members of a particular congregation, then you may be able to have yourselves removed from their membership list. In the CofE that would be called the Electoral Roll, I don't know what the RC equivalent is.

You don't have to renounce baptism to separate yourselves from the RC church.

Yes, just stop going to church. I was a baptised and confirmed catholic but havent been to church for many years. I am also an atheist but dont feel the need to offically renounce catholicism.

its all a bit ott imo.

just stop going to church

and don't sent them to a RC school

If you don't believe it is real then the baptism means nothing, and there is no need to renounce it.

I don't believe in plonking children into a faith anyway - I am all for letting them make their own minds up when they are old enough.

Isn't it a case that baptism just sort of cleanses em, and they need to go through confirmation to actually become proper Catholics, so all you have done is cleansed them of past evils (y'know the terrible badness that all babies are born with ), their future is still clear for them to choose.

That is spoken as a pagan with very little knowledge of the Catholic faith, so could be pure bollocks.

I think you should have thought a little harder before having them christened but now that it's done why not just forget about it rather than fiddle about "renouncing" it.

Did you really not know how rotten the catholic church was until last week??

I was brought up catholic in Ireland. I was christened, first communion-ed and confirmed etc and I've rejected it all and am very strongly atheist.

My dd (7 months) hasn't been christened and won't be. Nor will she go to a religious school.

Let them make up their own minds as they grow up and begin to question the world around them as I plan to with dd.

I can see the OP's point of view about wanting to make a bit of a gesture against the horrors of abuse within an institution - bit like deciding to boycott Asda/News International/Nike/Barclays for their bad practices, you want to kind of slap them in the chops with it or at least make a public declaration that they have disgusted you so much you will no longer support them. SO maybe the Debaptism Certificate I linked to further up might be handy: print one out and send it to the Vatican.

Baptism is a sacrament which essentially - iirc - means it is between you and God, and has nothing to do with the intermediaries, such as the priest or the church.

Eg, suppose you were given communion (also a sacrament) by a priest who had lost his faith and believed that all the prayers he said were rubbish, it would still count as Holy Communion.

I think. Please correct me if wrong someone.

Therefore your DCs' baptism should be nothing to do with the church organisation itself.

Also to consider are the godparents' views. They made promises on behalf of your DCs as well, to help them towards their adult faith.

cut and pasted this bit about sacraments:

"Sacraments are effective ex opere operato, i.e. effective on account of the work itself. As expressed by professors of sacred theology, the phrase conveys the fact that the sacrament signifies what it accomplishes, and it accomplishes by signifying. During the 4th century some otherwise orthodox Christians asserted that the effectiveness of the sacraments depended on the holiness of the minister. In other words, if the presbyter baptizing was in a state of sin, his baptisms didn't "take." These Christians eventually broke off from the wider Catholic Church, and were called "Donatists." The Donatists, situated primarily in North Africa, asserted that bishops consecrated by sinful bishops weren't really bishops at all. St. Augustine and others spilled a lot of ink to refute this position regarding sacraments, which is characterized in the Latin as ex opere operantis, i.e. sacraments are effective on account of the one doing the work. While the Church calls her priests (and all Christians) to high standards of holiness, the sacraments are effective independent of a minister's holiness because a perfect God is ultimately providing the sacramental grace, not the imperfect human minister."

Draw your attention to the last line:

a perfect God is ultimately providing the sacramental grace, not the imperfect human minister

"Therefore your DCs' baptism should be nothing to do with the church organisation itself"

Balloon Slayer - I really don't think you can extricate the sacrament from the church that easily.

Also the godparents promises? All that fire and brimstone gubbins about renouncing the devil?? Their role should be to support, advise and guide the children as they grow up - this doesn't necessarily have to be within a religious setting.

Maybe not, but as I don't think it looks as if Baptisms can be renounced, I thought it might be of some comfort to the OP to think the Baptism bypassed the church itself.

And whatever you think of godparents' promises, the godparents do make vows, before God - and are supposed to take them seriously - that they will help steer the child towards confirmation. If the godparents of the OP's DCs are very devout Catholics they may see it as their duty, as part of these promises, to oppose the OP renouncing her child's baptism. I would imagine they would have to be pretty rabid to do so, but there are some people like that! I thought it worth a mention.

It would certainly be a matter of courtesy to mention their feelings to the godparents, unless they really know that the godparents couldn't care less.

Given that the catholic church can and does excommunicate people, I wonder if you can excommunicate yourself?

Ah I think I misread your original post Balloon - my apologies

I think ultimately the godparents (who I presume are friends and family) have to respect the OP and her DH and their decision. Hopefully they would do so rather than rabidly opposing them!

It is a big responsibility for the godparents but it is one that can still continue in the role of mentor, advisor and guide as the dc's journey through life.

To be honest I think the role of godparent these days is very much diminished anyway.

I don't know any godparents who do anything other than send a birthday card with a tenner in it once a year! And I come from a big Irish catholic family!

Thanks for the link SolidGold.

Bunny - re your question 'Did you really not know how rotten the church is?' - The answer would have to be I have always had grave reservations about a) some of the beliefs & practices - for example, I think confession was / is a tool of social control, purgatory , vast ostentatious wealth in the face of dreadful poverty . . . . amongst many many more;

and b) the activities of some of the clergy, and the fact their authorities just shifted them around to new turf. However, as I said, even I am shocked and revolted by the sheer scale of the torture, rape and complicity that has been revealed by the report of the Commission.

To the poster who said I should have thought a bit more before I got my DC baptised - believe me, there was a lot of debate and thought before it was done. There was a lot of pressure to baptise from DH's family - 2 aunts are nuns, and MIL is as devout as they come. My MIL was scandalised because both DC were old enough to walk to the alter. One of the compromises we came to was that the wording in the ceremony was amended so that there was no 'evil' to be cleansed from my DC, and we didn't have to reject satan.

Balloon - thanks for the quote - however, as I don't believe in any of it anyway, the sacrament, to me, is meaningless no matter who performs it.

The thing is, we are from NI, so baptism in a particular church is used as a label of belonging to one community or another - so it is not just a matter of the DC stopping going to church.

It was me who said about thinking more TYOTC - sorry . I didn't mean it in an accusatory way, I know family pressure can be intense.

I'm from N.I too (whereabouts are you from btw?) and mine and DP's decision not to have dd (7 months) christened has elicited everything from raised eyebrows to full on condemnation at home from friends and family (you can imagine!).

All that talk of evil and renouncing satan just exemplifies for me how ridiculous the whole charade is. Purgatory, original sin, transubstantiation - I mean COME ON .

I was brought up catholic, went to convent school the whole nine yards but began questioning it all as a teenager and have ended up a dyed in the wool atheist

= no offence taken.

We are in E Belfast. What about you?

I've been in Leeds now for almost 8 years but originally from Omagh - I'm a culchie