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Because I was baptized as a Catholic and raised as a Catholic, even though I now reject central doctrines and teachings and choose membership in another denomination am I still officially a Catholic?

Salvation: Yes

Oh boy! So, if you are "lucky," you are baptized Protestant or Orthodox and then you are off the hook? But I think there is a catch. Is it not true that the Catholic Church considers any validly baptized Christian Catholic, which means most mainline Protestants and all Orthodox are "incomplete" but legitimate "Catholics"?

I mean the idea that one is ontologically changed into a "Catholic" by Baptism is historically and theologically ridiculous. You are not "saved" by baptism; you are cleansed so that you may enter the Church. And if you are an infant your godparents vouch that you will be raised in faith.

You have to be baptized AND believe in order to be a Christian. This article almost makes it sound as if there is some kind of "transubstantiation" that takes place when you get baptized, being hijacked by the Holy Spirit! This is preposterous! You think the Holy Spirit would accept you knowing that you will reject him? If so, please explain.

Love does not force, or else it's not love. This motu proprio sounds more like force than love.

My husband and I were both raised Catholic. For me, that meant 12 years of Catholic education. We raised both of our children in the Catholic Church. In the late 90's, when our son was planning to get married, we went to visit the priest. At the time, our son was a college student. The priest asked him directly if he had been attending church on Sunday while he was away at school. Our son squirmed a little and answered no, he had not. The priest's response stunned me - "In the eyes of the Church, you are no longer a Catholic and cannot get married in the Church". I was speechless! It was like being told I was no longer an American or no longer a "Southerner"! I felt like being Catholic was a part of one's heritage. It never occurred to me that it could just disappear.

It is fine now. All of us now attend another denomination and feel very comfortable in our faith.

Dear RnMomof7,

“Because I was baptized as a Catholic and raised as a Catholic, even though I now reject central doctrines and teachings and choose membership in another denomination am I still officially a Catholic?”

It depends on what you mean by “officially.”

It's quite likely that if you're no longer registered in a parish that you're no longer counted as a Catholic. Thus, when the Church says that there are sixty-umpteen-million-and-so-many-hundreds-of-thousands of Catholics in the United States, it's quite likely that you're not part of that number. Our parish purges its rolls every couple of years, and once you're out, you're out. If the pastor doesn't see you around at Mass on a regular basis, or if the accountant doesn't note that you're giving anymore to the parish, you're likely to be purged from the rolls. If you don't re-register in another Catholic parish, then you're no longer officially counted as a Catholic.

However, juridically and ontologically, you're still a Catholic. For all eternity. That means that you're still subject to Catholic canon law, and it means that the mark on your soul that makes you Catholic will persist for all eternity.

In this life, unless someone comes back to the Church, it probably doesn't mean much. It's not likely that a fallen-away Catholic will care much about Catholic canon law or the rulings thereof, so what's the difference?

In the next life, if the Church turns out to have been right all along, and the fallen-away Catholic, well, not so much so, then the consequences may not be so insubstantial.

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