They have been "debaptized" and say why

By conviction, by reaction to positions that they do not share or to current events, French people use their right to be “rebaptized”. Here are the testimonies of our apostate Internet users

Few know it but in France, one can by simple letter ask to renounce his baptism and that this decision be mentioned in the parish registers.
Model forms for making an act of apostasy can even be downloaded from the Internet.
The "debaptized" have told us the reasons for this decision.
It is sometimes philosophical but also very often linked to the positions or current events of the Catholic Church, from the Manif pour Tous to cases of sexual abuse.

“I no longer wanted to be counted with them.

Rémi Duval, thirty years old now living in London, was baptized in layette, like many French people.

Non-practising, but not fundamentally anticlerical, it made him "neither hot nor cold" to belong "passively" to the great community of Catholics Until one day in 2013 in front of a report on the Manif pour Tous.

“A bishop explained that the majority of French people supported the movement since 70% were baptized,” he recalls.

This shortcut was the last straw that caused the clam to overflow.

For him and for many others afterwards.

With his companion at the time, Rémi inquired "personally" about a possible way to officially leave the circle.

They discover that under the Privacy Act and under the right to be forgotten, it is possible to deny one's baptism, to make one's apostasy.

It suffices theoretically for that to write to the diocese of his church of baptism.

Despite the legal battle of a resident of Caen, it is not possible to be completely erased from a baptism register.

But the diocese must indicate opposite the name of the apostate the mention: "Renounced his baptism by letter of XX/XX/XXXX".

"Unsubscribe from the club"

Rémi and his ex have even considerably democratized this meaningful approach by creating Apostasiepourtous.fr, an online generator of “debaptization” letters.

The request is pre-written, you can tick various obvious reasons or justify yourself in a more personal way.

Nearly ten years later, the creator of the site has not touched a comma even if he thinks that the page deserves to be refreshed.

It is difficult to say how much this indignation of the moment triggered effective apostasies.

The Church does not give figures anyway.

But for Sylvain, 42 years old and baptized “by tradition” by non-believing parents, who has been struggling with an internal debate for quite a few years, the site has been a “revelation!

": "We [could] "unsubscribe" in the simplest way from the world of the club, he says with humor.

No one had ever told me about it.

“I think I ticked all the boxes!” he continues.

In a few minutes, I had the sesame to be able to position myself with regard to my personal values.

And too bad if his mother was shocked.

Because of positions on homosexuality

The apostasy to which our Internet users testify is an often long journey, which ends for a host of reasons put end to end.

First, because baptism is dispensed, as Francis says, “at an age incompatible with any reflection”.

Alain doubts that, only three days old, we can give “his consent”.

Then, very often, because of the societal positions of the Church on the wearing of condoms and then on homosexuality, of which the Manif pour Tous was the catalyst.

"I am homosexual, so I don't want a homophobic religion to count me among its members", underlines Isabelle, 36 years old.

"I don't recognize myself in this church which puts certain people aside", says Philippe.

Others have more philosophical reasons, related to their reflection on religion, which leads them to be atheists or at least agnostics.

“I made an act of apostasy a few years ago because I don't believe in God and I consider the different religions as sects… which have certainly succeeded, but sects all the same!

“says Georges-Etienne.

Thierry also wanted to "officially leave the great sect", at the age of 35, remembering the "priest's lie" at his grandfather's funeral when he was 12.

Barbarin and sex scandals

Others evoke pell-mell the place of women in the institution or the obligation of celibacy for priests.

And then there is finally a reason which outweighs all the others and which serves as a trigger for the “debaptization” of those who had already listed plenty of them: the sex scandals in the church.

Rémi Duval lets his site live and rarely consults the statistics.

But he makes an unequivocal observation: “The peaks in visits are systematically linked to current events.

Eight hundred connections on March 19, 2019 when Pope Francis refused the resignation of Cardinal Barbarin, for example, some 800 visits also on October 5, 2021, the day of the publication of the Sauvé report on sexual abuse in the Church.

“Until then I had been content to define myself personally as an atheist,

nevertheless, after yet another pedophile scandal within the Church and the retrograde or dangerous positions taken by the Pope at the time, I realized that if I did not consider myself Catholic, I was still counted as such on the parish registers”, testifies Zoé who summarizes many other testimonies.

She opened up in her letter of apostasy, hoping to make the institution “react”.

Another Sylvain, 38, began to think very seriously about apostasy during the Manif pour Tous.

But he actually sent his letter "in the days that followed" the pope's refusal of Cardinal Barbarin's resignation.