I have to admit I’ve never given my baptism into the Roman Catholic Church a second thought. I was an infant when it happened. I had nothing to do with it and no say in it, and I’ve never considered it any sort of big deal. I always figured that at the very worst, if there is a heaven and hell, I’d be covered and would never end up in limbo like all those poor unbaptized pagans that Sister Mary Virginelle (yes, her real name) savagely beat into me lovingly taught me about in the 4th grade.
But even if I was opposed to my baptism, what was I to do about it? Baptism permanently marks the soul, or unmarks the soul, depending on how you look at it. I and all other Roman Catholics had been washed clean of Original Sin, and how can you unwash something?
And yet it seems as though there are a growing number of former Catholics who want every bit of them scrubbed clean of all association with the church, and are even suing to make sure it happens. They want to be debaptised, and to have any record of their baptism erased from all Church records. They wish to no longer be used as a Church statistic.
That’s right: debaptism. It’s a growing trend in Western Europe. There are websites that will walk you through the process (what process?). There’s an American Athiest group that debaptizes with the help of a hair dryer (ha, hair dryer, I get it, blowing the holy water off you, so funny). In other words, there are people who actually take this seriously.
The Catholic Church, unsurprisingly, is refusing to cooperate. They see the baptismal ceremony as something that permanently adheres a person to Christ, like religious cold fusion or heavenly superglue. Once stuck, you cannot be unstuck. Besides which, they say a baptismal record is nothing more than a historic document, so why destroy them? Also unsurprisingly, they’re willing to invest the time. effort and money it takes to fight these heathen atheists in court because damnit, they’re the Catholic Church.
I guess it goes back to the argument of whether or not it’s possible to unwash something, or whether it’s even worth considering. If you don’t believe in the church or god or Jesus or whatever, then you obviously don’t believe in baptism and what it represents anyway. If it’s nothing but mumbo jumbo, why not just giggle and get on with life?
On one hand I like the idea of the church legally being forced to remove me from its records, seeing as I was an unwilling and unwitting participant in the first place. On the other hand, well, I just don’t care enough. I mean, I do get some sense of glee in the idea that people are going to court over it, and that in France they’ve won some legal battles, but to fight would make the church a big deal in my life, and it’s just not. I’d love it if they couldn’t use me as a statistic, but in the end it just seems like a silly fight. I think that like all other religions, the Catholic Church has a shelf life, and it will eventually wear itself out.
In the meantime, should the whole heaven and hell thing indeed turn out to be true, a debaptism means I’d end up in limbo. And I hate waiting rooms.
What’s your take?
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