I count myself as extremely lucky to have a group of super talented, smart, interesting friends all over the world. Many of them are doing amazing things that make me really proud of them.
One such project from some of those friends is CountMeOut. Put together by two Irish friends of mine, Cormac Flynn and Grainne O’Sullivan (and Paul Dunbar, who I don’t know but I am sure he is also awesome), who I was fortunate enough to meet while they were on their OE’s here in New Zealand.
Through CountMeOut Cormac, Grainne and Paul have made the process of removing yourself from the Roman Catholic Churches register relatively simple.
Why is this important? Because if you were baptised as a Catholic you will continue to be counted as a member of the church, regardless of what you might now think or believe. The resulting artificially high proportion of the Irish population considered part of the Catholic church is one of the primary reasons that the church is afforded such a strong supporting role in the provision of state services. There is a much more detailed explanation of why this is important along with FAQs on the site.
As I understand it, the thing that was the ultimate catalyst for these guys to create the site was the publishing of the Ryan Report, a detailed investigation of child abuse in Irish institutions.
Being a Kiwi I am not going to pretend to have any right to comment on whether defecting from the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is a good idea or not. I am proud of my friends for standing up for something they believe in, and actually doing something about it. They have used the Internet to both educate people, and make an otherwise laborious process significantly simpler.
They are already picking up some coverage from the mainstream media over in Ireland, and have had around 300 people complete a declaration of defection in less than a week. It seems as though they will succeed in both raising the issue, and creating some change.
I am inspired.
Photo of the beautiful interior of the Cathedral of Saints Patrick and Felim from slinky2000 on flickr.
