"De-Baptism" -- Families' self-initiated separation from the church

As my readers know, not all of my posts are about substantive family law. Many are about parents' concerns during this age of Internet dangers to children and of other safety or social concerns. Today's post comments on the trend in Europe to separate from the Roman Catholic Church because of the church's posture and approach to the issue of sexual abuse of children over an extended period of decades by priests.

The Global Post online reports from  Belgium that "(f)aced with ever-more harrowing revelations of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergymen, Belgians are turning in record numbers to apostasy — formally breaking with their religion through a process of “de-baptism.” [My emphasis]

“ 'It has increased enormously since the cases of child abuse. It keeps going up,” said Bjorn Siffer, deputy director of Flemish Humanist-Secular Society. “We know from the bishops' secretaries that they can’t cope with all the requests they are getting for de-baptism. ' ”

Siffer says 80 people ditched Catholicism during a single “de-baptism day” in Antwerp in June and a similar number dropped out of the Church in an event earlier this year in the western city of Kortrijk.

It is reported that in Belgium’s French-speaking south says 869 people have used its help to sever links with the Church thus far in 2010, compared to 380 for the whole of 2009, and just 66 in 2008.

"The pedophilia cases play a part, but it’s more that people have had enough of the positions which the Catholic Church has taken on issues like abortion, contraception and homosexuality,"

Read Ames, Paul, "Belgium: Amid sex scandals, de-baptism gains favor." Published by the Global Post on September 14, 2010.