Namaste
Today I have decided to formally start my apostasy/excommunication process from the Roman Catholic Church.
After having done some googling (*lol*) in Portuguese (I was born here but lived abroad for quite a few years so I'm still not familiar with certain areas of language, especially such specific/technical terms like religious ones...), I came up with the following piece of text (now translated it to English):
""I, XXX YYY, bearer of the Identity Card number 12345678 from 00/00/0000, from the Arquivo de Identificação de Lisboa (Lisbon's Identity Archive) (as you can see on the attached document [[attach a photocopy of ID card]]), would like to, in a free and fully conscious manner, request, in conformity with the canonical norms that regulate it (cf. can. 124-126), for an actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica to be processed, having as a consequence a full rupture with the vincula to the Roman Catholic Church, including its faith, sacraments and pastoral community.
Therefore, and in the conjugation of two elements - an internal act and its corresponding external manifestation (the elaboration of this request) - I kindly request that the information in my baptism records (cf. can. 535, § 2) is updated in order to explicitly mention a "defectio ab Ecclesia catholica actu formali”, and thus fulfill my will to excommunicate from the Roman Catholic Church.
Yours sincerely,
XXX YYY"
I realise apostasy from the Catholic Church is usually a troublesome process, as they don't seem to like it much, so any suggestions as to how to improve my text before sending it off are very much appreciated.
I'm about to send an email to "the church" (got an email address off their Contact section in their Portugal website) asking whom should I send off my letter to. I've read some conflicting information - some sources claim you should send it to your current local parish priest, and some claim you should send it to the priest who baptised you (I don't have a clue who he is...), so I'd like a reply from them so I may also quote it in my letter.
Another fairly sensitive issue is - I want to take this decision, but I don't want my parents to know about it yet. I should be able to actually include some note in my letter requesting that absolute privacy is kept about my decision outside the "paperwork system" of the Church, shouldn't I? I mean, so that the local priest doesn't run off to my parents or grandmother talking to them about it...if there's "doctor-patient" confidentiality, there ought to be "church-involved person" confidentiality too.
Thanks in advance for any comments, help, feedback, etc.
Much love to all!
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