Having recently been reading all sorts of things on the freeman of the land and lawful rebellion front, it occurred to me that some people might also be interested in the obscure but much simpler method for formally leaving the Roman Catholic church. As they count you as a member unless you convert to another faith and even then sometimes. The whole idea of being “lapsed” is somewhat of a myth. So here for those that are interested are two rather useful links.
Firstly we have a Vatican document discussing just what the criteria are for someone to formally renounce their faith. The second a rather handy Irish website that has put the whole three step process On line.
A bit late to the party with this one, and not that much to add except that when it comes to the Swiss passing a law to ban minarets we should remove the beam in our own eye rather than worrying about the mote in another countries.
For a bit of background as this is rather late after the immediate fuss has died down, the Swiss have decided that four minarets is quite enough and they’d not like any more. As far as I can tell they don’t care who wants to build them or why. Generally speaking I’m with Archbishop Cranmer on this one in thinking it a lot of fuss about not much. The Swiss from what I can gather are quite keen on restricting all sorts of things, but seem to be generally o.k. with this so that they choose to ban a specific architectural feature currently popular with a particular sect isn’t really a big deal. But segments of our press and commentariate seem to thing it’s a horrible beastly thing ushering in a new age of intolerance. Which just makes me wonder why these same people are quite happy that closer to home there is specific legislation preventing a specific religious group from naming their places of worship as they see fit, from it’s followers holding the same jobs as those of other religions are allowed and even from using traditional methods for summoning it’s devotees to prayer.
This disparity was raised in Parliament as recently as 2007, but at the time many people who are now upset with the Swiss were inclined to dismiss it as unimportant, due to the small scale of people it. The Swiss action which affected about 5% of the population caused Amnesty international to warn that violated freedom of religion but are oddly quiet on laws in this country which actually mention a religion explicitly rather than being confined to an architectural feature. Why are they not then up in arms about existing laws which are explicitly targeting a single relgion but are instead happy for this government to be merely ‘“ready to consider” changing the law‘?
If I were of a cynical mind I would have to wonder if the specific religions invovled in both incidents is what makes the difference? Though of course the more likely explanation is that a new law in another country is far more exciting than repealing old unjust laws close to home. that however doesn’t make it any less hypocritical.
Update A Guest post on More to life than shoes gives a Swiss take on thier view on the recent vote.
Via Archbishop Cranmer I discover that Roman Catholic bishops in New Zealand are to introduce swine flu precautions, though they don’t seem to have gone as far as Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster. As a very lapsed papist I find their lack of both faith and any trace of common sense quite disturbing.
Reportedly the Bishops are :
stopping parishioners receiving communion wafers on the tongue, communion wine from the chalice and from shaking hands at the sign of peace at masses in New Zealand.
Now apart from the odd lack of faith that worries about diseases being communicated via the sacraments, and I don’t recall any such precautions been taken during the AIDs scares in the 80′s. But that aide the actual risk of infection by any of these methods is so minuscule that it must surely be better to let people decide their own risk level rather than encourage communities to view each other as deadly germ factories.
Looking at each of these measures in turn:
- receiving communion wafers on the tongue – For those that don’t know this works by your sticking your tongue out at the priest and he places a communion wafer/slice of bread on your tongue. In many communities it’s quite unusual to receive communion this way. But the only obvious transmission vectors I can see are either, you sneeze on the priest a risk no matter how you receive, or the some part of the priests hand touches your tongue and than transports your germs to the next person. Now normally that doesn’t happen but if it did the priest could quite easily wipe his hands between people, and given the tiny amount of saliva that could be transferred this way if ti was a substantial risk every Catholic community would be decimated by every cold or flu that came around.
- communion wine from the chalice – Again for those that don’t know this is just what it seems you all take a sip of wine from a shared cup. The alternatives to this are no communion wine or you dip the communion wafer in the wine and then place the dipped bread onto the communicants tongue (which item one rules out). So broadly speaking this rules out half the sacrament, though liturgically it isn’t a required part. Here I can refer to groups that have looked at the matter in more detail than I such as the Orthodox church in America and Dr. Greg Kenyon M.D. who both conclude the chances are tiny and you’re more likely to get infected from your local restaurant. As with the communion wafer the transmission vector is most likely to be saliva which isn’t terribly good at such things.
- Finally shaking hands at the sign of peace this is exactly what it seems, you shake hands with those around you. Who if your church has much of a sense of community you probably know and will have either shaken hands with them on the way in or will do so on the way out (or in the pub afterwards). Everything stated about risk vectors previously applies here and can you think of any better way of killing any community spirit than by telling people to be afraid to shake hands with their neighbour?
Surely it would have been far better for the Bishops to have told people to use their own judgement, but maybe to have suggested to people generally and especially those that are feeling a bit poorly to try not to sneeze or cough over the sacraments, priests or fellow parishioners. Maybe go so far as to suggest applying a bit of soap and water to ones hands before mass might not be a bad idea? Whilst neither article says I would presume from their fear over communion that the Bishops have also cancelled all bake sales, coffee mornings and any other social activity which might cause physical contact between their flock.
I have been lapsed for quite a while now, and my theological studies were never that deep, so I apologise in advance for any misrepresentation of the Roman Catholic Church or the Bishops I may have made. But really such scaremongering amongst those with a calling to guide and protect their congregation beggars belief.
