I Am Officially No Longer Catholic!

A few weeks ago, I sent a letter to the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of the Parish where I was baptized asking them to indicate in their records that I am no longer Catholic, so as not to be counted among the flock. Here's the text of the letter I sent.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to request that your records be amended to reflect that I am no longer a member of the Catholic Church. I understand that this means I will not be able to receive the sacraments of the Church. Please confirm that this has been done in writing to me. I have made this decision of sound mind and body and made it known to my next of kin.

I was... baptized sometime in May or June [1976] at Holy Redeemer Church in Kensington, MD. I know that my parent's reasons for having me baptized extended beyond any divine protection they thought it would give me. It was a ritual affirming me as part of our family. I am grateful for that. My rejection of Catholicism is not a rejection of that affirmation.

I have not attended a Catholic church since I was young, sometime after my first communion. I didn't understand Catholic doctrine then. What I did know I found convoluted and contrived and still do. I was probably around 8 or 9 years old when I decided that there was no evidence for the existence of an interventionist god or a hell or heaven and no reason to try to suspend my disbelief in them.

This has not led me to hopelessness however. I have found many sources of hope in people and ideas that I have encountered since then. I became vegan around 1996 and have been inspired by ideas from Positive Psychology, Experiential Dynamic Therapy, Metaphysical Naturalism and the Jedi Philosophy, and I'm always learning more. I strive to live my life engaged with reality, as objectively as I can experience it, and to experience my emotions, relate deeply to the experiences of other sentient beings, seek out joy and be a force of good in the world.

I do not find the Catholic Church at all useful in these regards. Rather, I find it in conflict with these aims and harmful to people in many ways: its intolerance of homosexuals, lesser treatment of divorced Catholics, protection of pedophile priests and efforts against accurate sex education, reproductive freedom and death with dignity. I know that there is much good to be found in the Catholic Church as well, such as concern for the poor and the sick, but I find that the bad far outweighs the good, and I can find all of that good, without so much of the bad, elsewhere.

May the force be with you,
Maura McCormick

Here is the letter I received today:

Yay!

So my next step is to celebrate with a de-baptism ritual, complete with a blow dryer to dry away those baptismal waters. I'm thinking about what words I want on my blow dryer. I like Tom Clark of the Center for Naturalism's summary of Naturalism in the words "connection", "compassion" and "control".