More than 500 Belgians have signed an open letter demanding to be “debaptized.” The letter was addressed to the papal nuncio (ambassador), the primate of Belgium, and seven Belgian dioceses.
The demand follows a recent tense visit that Pope Francis paid to the country, which is historically Catholic but which has become highly secular and has a strained relationship with the Church today.
During the visit, Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo publicly but diplomatically scolded the pope for the priestly sex abuse scandals that have hit the country: “Numerous cases of sexual abuse and forced adoptions have undermined trust. You’ve committed to a just and fair approach, but the path is still long,” he said, adding, ‘Ministers of the Church work with conviction and charity, but if something goes wrong, cover-ups are unacceptable.’”
At the University of Louvain, the pope offered a critique of feminist ideologies, stating, “What characterizes women, that which is truly feminine, is not stipulated by consensus or ideologies, just as dignity itself is ensured not by laws written on paper, but by an original law written on our hearts.” He also stated, “It’s ugly when a woman wants to be a man; no, she’s a woman!”
This prompted an angry response from university officials, who expressed “incomprehension and disapproval of the position expressed by Pope Francis regarding the role of women in the church and in society,” calling it “deterministic and reductive.”
On the flight back to Rome from Belgium, the pontiff was asked by a Belgian reporter about a tribute he had paid to the country’s former King Baldwin, who had resigned for a day rather than sign a law authorizing abortion.
In part of his response, the pope stated, “Women have the right to life: to their own lives and the lives of their children. Let us not forget to say this: abortion is murder. Science tells you that within a month of conception, all the organs are already there. A human being is killed. And doctors who engage in this are—permit me to say—hitmen. They are hitmen. This cannot be disputed. A human life is killed. Women have the right to protect life.”
Currently Belgium is considering a law that would further liberalize abortion, allowing it up to eighteen weeks. Though Pope Francis was speaking about the former king and did not allude to this law, his remarks were taken as a commentary on it, with De Croo calling it “absolutely unacceptable for a foreign head of state to make such statements about democratic decision-making in our country.” He stated that Belgium “does not need lessons on how our parliamentarians pass laws democratically. . . . Fortunately, the time when the Church dictated the laws in our country is long gone.”
Citing these factors, some Belgian organizations began calling for people to join in the “debaptism” movement, and the open letter was drafted. Within three weeks, 524 had signed.
There is no Church ritual for debaptizing a person. Baptism makes an “indelible spiritual mark” and cannot be undone (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1272), but advocates of “debaptism” demand that their names be removed from the records that the Church uses to keep track of who has been baptized.
The Church’s standard practice when such requests are received is to provide a marginal note of the request in the baptismal records but not to remove the person’s name. This is in part in case the person wishes to re-embrace their faith in the future, since baptism can be administered only once.
However, this has not satisfied some, and Europe’s data protection laws have been invoked regarding the matter, both in Belgium and in other countries. Thus far, the results from the courts have been mixed.
Although the permanence of baptism is a settled point of Catholic doctrine, the issue of disassociating oneself with the Church is more complex, and the Church does not presently have clear rules governing this area. It is possible that situations like this one—especially if the matter is taken up at the level of the European Union—might prompt the Church to clarify the matter and what is and is not possible.