Can you leave the Catholic Church?

Catholic doctrine says that you give God, the Catholic version of God, ownership of your child when you have the child baptised.  This ownership is expressed by membership of the Church both at the organisational level and the spiritual level.

Nobody denies you can leave the Catholic organisation but there is controversy though on the spiritual level.  On that level and in that way you are still Catholic.  The lowest common denominator?  This is taught through the notion that your spiritual side is marked as belonging to God and this mark cannot be abolished or erased.

Though the Church should allow and recognise defection on the human level it uses the spiritual mark thing as an excuse for banning any defection.
 
THE CASE FOR DEFECTION BEING IMPOSSIBLE

The doctrine of the mark is said to be claiming that the baptised person is ontologically different from a person who is not. That is not true. It is only a mark. If God changes the person in his nature or her nature that would be an ontological change. It would be distinct from the mark. Ontological change is really a horrendous idea. Racists operate by the principle that their race is the proper human nature and anything else is defective. As horrendous as it is to see somebody as defective or a different nature to you just because of their skin colour, it is worse to take this position towards anybody over something you cannot see, the alleged DNA or ontological nature of their soul.

The DNA argument sounds like the notion that somehow we are transubstantiated into something that makes us all one. Are we turned into Jesus or something?

Some ask the following. "One who wants to be formally disconnected from the Catholic Church obviously does not believe in Catholicism. If they do not believe, then why do care if the Church considers them to be Catholics? They do not care about anything else the Church teaches, so why should they care about this?"

The answer is usually that it is an immature attempt to hurt someone's feelings - perhaps parents, the community or the priest etc. But would those who give this answer be happy if the state recognised them as Hindus or some new religion?

The Church says that at baptism one is adopted as a brother or sister of Jesus Christ and a child of the God the Father. From this some conclude that the soul gains the spiritual equivalent of the DNA links that define a person's biological family. This view implies that defection means that you have separated from the visible Church structure but are still Catholic in the invisible sense.
 
Some say, "To not want to be counted' as a member of the Catholic Church when you were baptised into it is as illogical as 'not wanting to be counted' as the child of your biological parents because you dislike or disagree with them. Your not wanting to be their child doesn't and never can change the fact of your relationship, and you are and always will be the child of your biological parents, no matter how much you want 'not to be counted' as such." But if this were true you could stop being counted as a believing member of the Church. There is no way a believing Catholic and a non-believing Catholic can be members of the Church to the same degree. Obviously, the first is a more real member than the latter. Now, you take your body from your parents. But this is a connection not a relationship when you completely disown your parents. Also, the soul is not made of anything physical. It cannot have anything that corresponds to DNA or genes. The soul is like a function, a mind without a body.

The Church says that at baptism one is adopted as a brother or sister of Jesus Christ and a child of the God the Father. From this some conclude that the soul gains the spiritual equivalent of the DNA links that define a person's biological family. This view implies that defection means that you have separated from the visible Church structure but are still Catholic in the invisible sense.

If there is an indelible mark, it does not mean that defection is about trying to get it removed. It could be trying to get it recognised that you officially declare that you have not got this mark.  And surely you are more important than a mark!  If you are marked as a slave that mark can be made to be nothing more than a skin feature when you escape your master.

Baptism is said to take away the original sin you are born in. It is said by many Catholics that by defecting from the Church and sinning you cannot revert your soul to the state it was in before baptism. They say, "Defection is a juridical action, the sacraments an ontological one. They are not related in any way." This really means that the defection is only a legal declaration and is not real. It is like declaring a person dead when they are known to be alive. Original sin is supposed to be the absence of God in your heart which gives you an inclination to rebel against him. But mortal sinners put God out of their hearts and they can reverse the healing power of baptism so that they end up with a worse inclination to rebel than they would have had by original sin alone. You can then undo all the good baptism does.

I don't believe the attitude of 'once Catholic always Catholic' arises from the Churches lack of teaching on how to officially become not Catholic. It arises from the fact that when we are baptized and confirmed it leaves an indelible mark on our souls. No formal separation from the Church erases that.

Unfortunately, the Catholic church doesn't offer the option of leaving, claiming instead that the obligation to canon law is lifelong. See this post and the 2 links in it to Vatican sources for more information. Both links are necessary due to the change in practice last year.

If there is an indelible mark, it does not mean that defection is about trying to get it removed. It could be trying to get it recognised that you officially declare that you have not got this mark.

This doctrine is really saying that the baptised person is ontologically different from a person who is not. The difference is one of nature. This is really a horrendous idea. Racists operate by the principle that their race is the proper human nature and anything else is defective. As horrendous as it is to see somebody as defective or a different nature to you just because of their skin colour, it is worse to take this position towards anybody over something you cannot see, the alleged DNA of their soul.

The DNA argument sounds like the notion that somehow we are transubstantiated into something that makes us all one. Are we turned into Jesus or something?  We are supposed to be transed into a family that is more important and more ontologically connected than a biological family!

The whole idea of DNA for souls is really about trying to create some kind of bigoted groundwork for identity politics.  The Church forces the identity on you and treats you like its own forever.  If you are not its own then that is a grave injustice.  There is no proof and you need proof for that.  And the door is opened for those who say that Satan has a family and some people who commit certain sins perhaps gays show they have the spiritual DNA of that family.

The idea is a disgrace and parents and schools who have children conscripted into the faith by baptism the DNA converter are to blame.