requested excommunication through church
Offline I've sent two requests to the church I attended and received first communion, confessional and catechism through asking them to excommunicate me from the Catholic faith.
No one's gotten back to me.
Should I go knock on their door?
Oh, I should point out that the reason for me wanting to be excommunicated is based upon what the fellow who did the blasphemy challenge was going, stating aloud for everyone to hear that he denies the existence of the holy spirit - showing that he's not afraid of some make-believe fire and brimstone place to encourage others to follow. I sure have.
If I get myself excommunicated by the church, I can show others that I'm not afraid of their imaginary consequences.
thanks for reading!
Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right
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I'll do it for you.
*lights some candles*
*clears throath*
"We separate *insert name*, together with his accomplices and abettors, from the precious body and blood of the Lord and from the society of all Christians; we exclude him from our holy mother the church in heaven and on earth; we declare him excommunicate and anathema; we judge him damned, with the devil and his angels and all the reprobate, to eternal fire until he shall recover himself from the toils of the devil and return to amendment and to penitence !!!!"
"So be it !"
There you go.
Seriously though, I think you need to be a gay bisshop or something for that to happen. You can try getting de-baptised. I hear there's paperwork for that.
As a former Catholic, I had never thought about actually requesting to get excommunicated. Hehehe, sounds like it might be a fun thing to try. However, there are different types with different consequences :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication
Check out this excerpt :
Offenses that incur excommunication must be absolved by a priest or bishop empowered to lift the penalty. This is usually the local ordinary (bishop or vicar general) or priests whom the local ordinary designates (in many dioceses, most priests are empowered to lift most excommunications otherwise reserved to the bishop, notably that involved with abortion).
The Catholic Church, especially during the Middle Ages, was obliged to issue formal pronouncements of excommunication in regard to officials and monarchs who had personally excommunicated themselves from the Catholic Church. After the Protestant Reformation, in which many people left the Church and formed new denominations, many princes announced the separation themselves and the practice was discontinued.
An analogous penalty, interdict, arose as a form of excommunication of a whole area, barring celebration of the sacraments in a town or region.
Before the 1983 Code of Canon Law, there were two degrees of excommunication: vitandus (shunned, literally "to be avoided", where the person had to be avoided by other Catholics), and toleratus (tolerated, which permitted Catholics to continue to have business and social relationships with the excommunicant). This distinction no longer applies today, and excommunicated Catholics are still under obligation to attend Mass, even though they are barred from receiving the Eucharist and from taking active part in the liturgy (reading, bringing the offerings, etc.).[2] Indeed, the excommunicant is encouraged to retain some relationship with the Church, as the goal is to encourage them to repent and return to active participation in its life.
In the Middle Ages, formal acts of public excommunication were accompanied by a ceremony wherein a bell was tolled (as for the dead), the Book of the Gospels was closed, and a candle snuffed out - hence the idiom "to condemn with bell, book and candle." Such ceremonies are rarely, if ever, held today, but exactly the same principles apply. Only in cases where a person's excommunicable offense is very public and likely to confuse people is a person's excommunicated status even announced, and that usually by a simple statement from a Church official.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
I think it is funny when atheists do this, all be it tongue and cheek.
It reminds me of when the Vatican threatens politicians or even their own clergy when they do something the Vatican doesn't approve of. They hold no government law status power to jail people for dissent, nor can they force someone to conform to them. The only thing they can do is cut off money to a particular person or location that receives money from them.
If a gay priest, for example, wants to start their own church and say "screw the Vatican" he can, there is nothing legally stopping him. If a Catholic Priest wanted to start a Church where they could get married, they can. If a Catholic Church wanted to ordain women, they can. The Vatican cant stop them from practicing their religion the way they see fit. It is a hollow threat and bullshit and nothing but a tactic of fear.
"We will kick you out of the club if you don't do things our way"
That is as stupid as when Christians threaten to kick me off their websites, as if somehow the internet would cease to exist if I couldn't post at their website.
If you get kicked out of a bar or club, it isn't like you cant go to another bar or club or start your own.
I loved the atheist "de-baptism" stunt pulled last year, and I too, a former Catholic, would see getting kicked out of their Church a badge of honor.
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Just go to mass one day and throw water balloons at everyone or something. Then rant and rave about how Jesus is purely mythical and they all belong in the nut house for even believing he was ever on earth. Remind them the Roman Emperors Augustus and Tiberius, NOR anyone else during the 33 years the bible CLAIMS Jesus was here, ever even MENTIONED the existence of this Jesus.
They'll kick you out real fast!!
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Well, I agree in principal with the above. However, with significant concern.
I don't think the issue of leaving the club comes up for Catholics anywhere nearly as often as it does for protestants but if a priest does decide to break with the parent organization, I would think that the same rule applies across the board.
Specifically, who gets custody of the good stuff? Specifically, who has the right of title to the church real estate and other tangible goods? Also, when the protestants do this, there are often cases where the ownership of the congregation is at question.
I run into this myself because I still have friends and family who are Anglicans. They are constantly breaking up and reforming over some of the really stupid points that you raise. The thing is that when a schism happens, can the new fan club claim civil ownership of the buildings and other property? Or had that stuff been bought by the parent church (regardless of the fact that the funds had been raised locally)? If a whole congregation left at one time, that would be hard enough to figure out (not really but since this is patently silly territory they get to argue over that crap anyway)?
Now what happens when the congregations splits along doctrinal lines? Does the largest of the two groups get preference? Does the group that sides with the local priest get preference?
Seriously, it has come up at least a dozen time in the past thirty years that a hundred people have left the main body along with the priest and the remaining half dozen have appealed to Canterbury claiming the right to keep everything for themselves. I would tend to think that a Catholic schism would probably proceed along similar lines.
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