A Collective Apostasy movement in Argentina is encouraging Catholics to renounce their faith.
The movement, led by the Argentine Coalition for a Secular State, began a week after an anti-abortion choice Senate vote sent thousands of Argentinians out into the streets to protest.
The Church lobbied against the legalised abortion bill. Every year, about 500,000 illegal and unsafe abortions take place in the country.
Since the abortion rights vote, at least one woman has died from an attempt to perform an abortion on herself.
The Collective Apostasy movement is aimed at weakening the hold of the Church in Argentina; about two-thirds of Argentinian people are Catholics.
A manifesto from the movement has been posted on social media.
It says: “Obtaining the vote for women, the divorce law, marriage equality, the gender identity law, the assisted human fertilisation law, the law of integral sexual education, the dignified death law were all done fighting clerical power, which seeks to have total dominion over our minds and bodies.”
Hundreds of people gathered in Buenos Aires on Saturday to oppose the influence of religion on Argentine politics.
The gathering centred on a signature drive for Argentinians wanting to renounce their affiliation to the Church through a form that will later be given to the Argentine Bishops’ Conference.
Organisers hoped thousands would officially register their desire that the Church not interfere in Argentine politics and that their names be eliminated from its registries.
“We are receiving the apostasies of all the people who want to renounce their ties to the Catholic Church,” said one of the organisers, Maria Jose Albaya.
Source
- Crux Now
- Alternet
- Image: Flash News