Remember that Italian atheist lawsuit I told you about over the weekend? Well, I can’t read Italian, but I recognize the word “disinformazione,” and that’s apparently what they (the UAAR) think that I, World Net Daily, and Alliance Alert are offering up. If you can read Italian, have a look, and let me know what they said about me!
August 18, 2008
The Reformed Pastor 
August 18, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Dude- you got dissed in italiano! Gotta save that one for the scrap book!
August 19, 2008 at 2:25 am
Hi there,
I am an Italian atheist. The point UAAR is making is that – simply put – you got it wrong. UAAR is *not*, by any means, pursuing the end of baptism. We believe that it’s unfair to baptise children, since they cannot agree (or disagree) with that practice at their age, but it never crossed our mind to issue a lawsuit against that (which would be utterly silly, in my opinion).
The Italian laws state that baptism has two main consequences:
– the name of the child is filed in some registry, and the child is accounted for as “belonging to the Catholic church”. When the Catholic church speaks to the government in official occasions, it says that 95% of Italians are catholic based on these figures.
– a baptised is considered a Catholic subject (which, roughly speaking, means that you should do what priests tell you)
Several nonbelievers (therein including myself) think that it’s unfair to be accounted for as catholics, and have started (as grownups) to demand the church to remove their names from those registries. The first attempt to do that, years ago, actually required a lawsuit to be filed, both because there were no antecedents in that matter *and* because the priest who handled the thing was a bit unwilling to oblige (to put it mildly). The sentence that followed stated that we have the right to demand such a thing from the church, and that’s all we wanted.
Our present campaign for “sbattezzo” (rouhgly: “unbaptism”) stems from that. We believe that many nonbelievers do not even know that they can be canceled from those registries, and we simply want them to know they can.
August 19, 2008 at 2:28 am
and, by the way, G. Amato knows that too well. So, it’s “disinformazione”, plain and simple.
August 19, 2008 at 6:47 am
Dear Reformed Pastor, if you lived in Italy you would have to do the same thing that our atheists friend do otherwise you’ll be automatically booked as a catholic in every civil register record!!! Did you know that? Well, if you didn’t, that’s “informazione” for you. Ciao.
August 19, 2008 at 7:20 am
Gano replied for all of us. Just let me say that Italy, although being no longer a good place to live in, is still a democratic and constitutional country, and freedom-killing laws still would be not approved. You must have a really bad opinion about Italy…
August 19, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Carlo–I’ve taken one trip to Italy, and I actually have a really high opinion of it. I loved my time there, and hope I can go again!
Gano: I don’t know Italian law, obviously, but I suspect that no one is “required” to get their children baptized, si? Just about everyone does, for various reasons, but there’s nothing to prevent them (you) from abstaining. Oh, and Marco, somehow I doubt that if I was baptized in a Presbyterian church, I’d be registered as a Catholic. Am I wrong about that?
One other thing–I should have made clear that I knew the AA article was wrong when it said that you were trying to “get rid of baptism.” I know it’s just infant/child baptism that you object to, and I should have clarified that. Thanks to all of you for coming by and commenting, and for your civil way of doing so–a lot of American atheists could learn from you!
August 19, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Hi, I’m one of the guys of Uaar website news. It’s better to give some informations about this piece of news you published here, because it’s seriously uncorrect.
The way you presented this piece of news “made clear” almost nothing: on your first post you said that “most atheists and agnostics” are (speaking simple) “good and tolerant” towards believers, but presenting ironically “these guys” (the Uaar) with an opposite attitude, then cutting and pasting simply the piece of news from ADF. The message that me and other people read through these lines was just that the Italian atheists and agnostics want to “ban baptism”, choking the freedom of believers to baptise their children. But it’s not the point.
Speaking clearly, it’s just not true that Uaar was promoting a lawsuit to “ban” Christian baptisms for children in Italy.
Let me explain this story, adding other informations. Ten years ago – more or less – one of Uaar’s members has promoted in Italy – individually – a lawsuit in front of the Italian privacy guarantor to allow people critical against the Church, atheists and agnostics (adult and free willing – not children, clearly) to erase their names from the baptismal registers for not being considered Catholic Church members. It’s just a matter of privacy laws, not a counter-rite or stuff like that. That’s what is called “debaptism”. The guarantor allowed in the 1999 to write – near the name of the person who wants to be “debaptised” in the baptismal registrers – his willing to not be considered as a member of Catholic Church. The praxis is accepted by Italian civil jurisdiction as a right of unbelievers, and Italian privacy guarantor make the priests respect the decision of individuals that choose for “debaptism”.
It’s just an individual choice, and no one wants to obblige people to ban baptism for their childern. As atheist, in my opinion, I think that every one of us has to choose with responsability and free willing if he wants to be baptised or not, and I don’t like childern baptism, that I consider as a constriction – because a children of few days or months just can’t choose. Thinking cynically, this is the common way of spreading religions and I’m not surprised, but I don’t want to annoy you starting a debate about it. The important thing is that “debaptism” for adults doesn’t means that we want to ban this praxis within families of belivers.
We only explain on our website precedures to follow to accomplish “debaptism” freely and individually in Italy (as download a form letter to fill and send to the church where you have been baptised, and informations about this legal battle). We don’t follow as associations lawsuit of that kind, just answering to the help questions.
This piece of news you posted is “new” for us, too. It’s not present in Italian medias (where it could be easily debunked, just reading our website), and it sounds really strange that was spreaded only in English – apparently from an Italian attorney, Gianfranco Amato (he’s the member of a center political party). You should search seriously who has spread this news, to verify the source.
Thank you for your attention.
August 20, 2008 at 1:16 am
Of course you’re right David, so I have to amend the “informazione” I posted as following: unless you are lucky enough to live in or near Turin, where to my knowledge the only Presbyterian parish in Italy is located… Anyway my point was: “sbattezzo” is a misnomer. It’s just what you need to do here if you want to change your religious affiliation, something that doesn’t work in the same way if you go to another country.
August 20, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Doesn’t objecting to infant baptism infringe on the rights of the parents to bring their children up in the way they want? All denominations that actually do infant baptism have a rite in which the child takes those promises on for him or herself – the person can always chose not to do that.
August 21, 2008 at 2:27 am
@ Kate
Maybe it does. We might also wanto to count in the right of a child not to be bothered by things she/he can’t understand (and possibly would dislike when she/he grows up), but I am not going to start a discussion about this – it’s simply not the point.
Actually, what UAAR is after is objecting to the *civil effects* of baptism, i.e. the consequences according to the Italian law. The Catholic Church claims to represent 97% of the Italians, since 97% of Italians were baptised. More likely figures suggest catholics are between 80% and 90%, the difference being (mostly) due to people like me, who became atheist later on during the course of their life.
I was baptised, and I stopped believing in god when I was 11. I even got my “confirmation” (guess it’s the right English word for the sacrament, but I am not sure) at 13 – just because my family wanted me to – myself thinking that it simply was a meaningless rite. I demanded my will not to be considered a catholic to be annotated on the registry two years ago, aged 34, and I succeeded.
We are for freedom of choice, and we think that it’s unfair that the Catholic Church claims to represent everyone who didn’t bother to send a letter. Belonging to an organization is an act of will, and unless you explicitly state it (in your full capabilities, i.e. as an adult), you should not be counted in, no matter what your parents believe. Would you consider to be fair that a trade union (or a political party) stated that you are one of their lot (unless you formally state you aren’t), just because your parents wanted you to when you were ten days old?
Then there’s another matter, more subtle, but certainly not to be overlooked. A sentence from an Italian court (although rather far in the past) absolved a bishop accused of “defamation” (hope it’s the right English – I am no expert of legalese) of a married couple because they were not married according to the christian rite. The bishop declarations caused them actual problems with their community (they ruined their business). The bishop was absolved by the court, and the motivation was that, since both the two were baptised, it was the bishop’s liberty and right to tell them what was right and wrong, and they should have conformed to that.
Here’s the point: does my parents’ will allow a bishop to slander me and ruin my business? Isn’t this an abuse? How do I defend myself from that?