The Church in Belgium has reported a sharp rise in the number of people asking for their names to be removed from baptismal registers. The Catholic Church in Belgium reported on a sharp rise in the number of people asking for their names to be removed from baptismal registers.
The Church’s latest annual report, published on Nov. 30, said there were 5,237 such requests in 2021, compared to 1,261 in 2020 and 1,800 in 2019.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark of his belonging to Christ.” While a person can lapse in the practice of the faith, or even renounce it altogether, it is impossible to reverse the effects of baptism.
Nevertheless, a rising move-ment in Europe promoting “deba-ptism” has encouraged Catholics to write to Church authorities asking to be removed from parish baptismal records. The movement is a consortium of several political and philosophical factions among European secularists.