SirLance

Well, grumpy, I think that there are a lot of "ex" Catholics who have left for reasons of dogma & ritual, such as marriage in the preisthood, or because they are disgusted about the sex abuse scandal. Most of those are probably still considered members by the Church, and probably don't care.

For the non-Catholics out there, you should probably understand that there aren't formal membership roles that are kept in some central repository. All records are kept at the parish level in something called the baptismal register. This is where all the sacraments a Catholic has taken are recorded. So, there's a record of my baptism, my confirmation, my marriage, and now, my “defection ab Ecclesia catholica actu formali.”

My point is that other than the Bishop I wrote, and the administrator whom he had send a letter to my parish of baptism to make said entry, no one really knows I left. No report is going to go back to anyone saying, "Oh, shit, we lost one."

Nobody in Rome can punch a button and find out if anyone besides me has even done this. I didn't do this for them, I did it for me. I wanted this to be formal, because I needed that formality, and not because they require it.

Again, I really appreciate all the support I've gotten from my fellow TFP'ers. I wish my wife were handling this as well as you guys are...

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