Kicking the Habit

Sickened by the Church's cover-up of sexual predators, a growing number of lapsed Catholics are breaking ties with Rome completely. Now, an internet campaign is making it easier for people to let the church know exactly what they think of its criminal behaviour.

Valerie Flynn, 12 May 2010

The astonishing catalogue of sexual and physical abuse of children uncovered by the Ryan and Murphy reports has disgusted and disillusioned many Catholics. It's one of the many reasons Mass attendance is plummeting in Ireland. But for some people, merely distancing themselves from the Church isn't enough. Which is why hundreds of Irish people are opting to formally renounce their membership of the Catholic congregation.

Statistics for the country as a whole aren't available, but already this year 288 people have applied to defect from the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. Of these, 86 defections have been completed and 202 are currently being processed.

Those who want to leave the Church for good are assisted by a nine-month-old website, CountMeOut.ie, which provides all the documentation you need to formally ratify your defection.

Gráinne O'Sullivan (30) is one of the site's founders. Like many Irish people of her generation, she grew up in a Catholic family but membership of the Church never tallied with her own beliefs.

"I felt separated from the Church, especially its views on homosexuality and on women. It wasn't relevant to my life," says Gráinne.

"My mammy baptised me because her mammy baptised her. They baptised me partly because it would make life easier. Everyone else on the road was baptised. But we [Count Me Out] don't think that's the future of Ireland anymore, blindly going along with religion."

Last summer, after reading the Ryan report, Gráinne's friend Cormac Flynn decided he wanted to leave the Church. However, the process proved to be quite difficult as all the relevant information wasn't available in one place. Cormac and Gráinne set up Count Me Out to address that difficulty, and after a few weeks the third of their number, Paul Dunbar, came on board.

Count Me Out is an internet phenomenon through and through, arguably Ireland's first really successful one. It harnesses the web's hugely under-exploited potential for campaigning and social change. There have been over 100,000 visits to the site since July 2009. Around 10% of visitors download the defection forms. Unsurprisingly, it scooped the award for ‘Best Social Campaign' at the 2009 Irish Web Awards.

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