Straight-Talking Request for removal from Catholic membership

 
Declaration of Defection from the Roman Catholic Church
(Actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica)
Name:
________________________________________
Address:
________________________________________

________________________________________
Father's Name:
________________________________________
Mother's Name:
________________________________________
Date of Birth:
________________________________________
Date of Baptism:
________________________________________
Diocese of Birth:
________________________________________
Parish of Baptism:
________________________________________


 
I am writing to request removal of my name as a member of the Roman Catholic Church and request that I be recognised as having formally defected from the Church. Under Canon Law, (canons 1086, § 1, 1117 and 1124) I can leave the Church by formal defection and this I intend to do.
 
I am aware that then I will be free from Church obligations and laws as Canon 1124 puts it: "Without the express permission of the competent authority, marriage is prohibited between two baptised persons, one of whom was baptised in the Catholic Church or received into it after baptism and has not defected from it by a formal act, the other of whom belongs to a Church or ecclesial community not in full communion with the Catholic Church."
 
I state I wish to fulfil the following rules for formal defection:
 
"For the abandonment of the Catholic Church to be validly configured as a true actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia so that the exceptions foreseen in the previously mentioned canons would apply, it is necessary that there concretely be:
a) the internal decision to leave the Catholic Church;
b) the realization and external manifestation of that decision; and
c) the reception of that decision by the competent ecclesiastical authority.
 
It is required, moreover, that the act be manifested by the interested party in written form, before the competent authority of the Catholic Church: the Ordinary or proper pastor, who is uniquely qualified to make the judgment concerning the existence or non-existence of the act of the will".
 
This notification was approved by the Supreme Pontiff, Benedict XVI, who directed that it be transmitted to all Presidents of Episcopal Conferences.
 
PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR LEGISLATIVE TEXTS
ACTUS FORMALIS DEFECTIONIS
AB ECCLESIA CATHOLICA
Vatican City, 13 March 2006
Prot. N. 10279/2006
 
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20060313_actus-formalis_en.html
 
I wish to formally defect because I know in my heart that I am not a Catholic and I refuse to be listed as one.
 
I was "initiated" without my consent by baptism into the Church. This initiation is null and void. Even if I had made a choice, I would have not have been making a properly informed decision so it would be invalid. Every major Catholic doctrine is so obviously wrong that the default position is that the choice is as invalid as a woman marrying a man who she doesn't trust or know just to spite her parents.
 
A child that is baptised a Catholic but raised a Lutheran is not considered Catholic. How much more am I not a Catholic when I freely renounce and separate from that faith and Church?
 
Roman Catholic Scripture supports the view that though the ceremony of initiation took place and the ceremony cannot be undone or made to not have happened the initiation certainly can be reversed. For the Jews, circumcision was entry into their religion. For Catholics, this rite has been replaced with baptism which Church doctrine says initiates the person into membership of the Church. We must remember too that Judaism is considered to be God's true religion but which refused to go to its fulfilled and complete stage: Catholicism. So if the Bible says the initiation gained by circumcision can be lost the same is true of baptism.
 
Anyway the Bible says that circumcision is no use any more if the circumcised person is not a believing and obedient Jew. It says that in fact the person is not a Jew and his circumcision is really uncircumcision. I do not believe in the religious claims of the Church and I do not obey the faith or practice it thus my baptism and the membership of the Church the Church says it conferred has effectively been renounced. I only wish to undertake this process of formal defection to confirm this.
 
Even if baptism removes sin and unites one to God it does not follow that it is initiation into the Catholic Church or Catholic community. You do not consider babies baptised as Presbyterians to be real members of the Catholic Church and you have a rite done up for admitting them as members should they leave Presbyterianism for Catholicism so why did you label me?
 
Babies can't be validly married because they didn't consent - so how could babies be made Catholics - don't you claim that it is more important to be Catholic than to be married?
 
I wish "Formally Defected" to be written in my baptismal register.
 
I am making an informed choice for I cannot agree with Catholics that their Church is the one true Church of Jesus Christ. I have read ________________________________ (list a few good websites or books (please no The Da Vinci Code!) that deal with Catholic errors - be careful to choose ones that are professional and careful and that consider Church replies to criticisms of its teaching - eg, Why I Became an Atheist by John Loftus).
 
I know it is not fair to myself or to the Church to let myself continue be registered as a member when in fact that is not what I am. Please let me know by letter that I have been removed from membership and have been declared to have formally defected. Thank you.
 
Yours faithfully
 
 
 
 
Signed______________________