The EU’s data protection laws may require a church to delete a baptismal record, say the bloc’s Catholic Bishops, and are appealing against such a requirement on religious freedom grounds. EU data protection rules have often been criticised for being too far-reaching.

The Bishops’ agency in Brussels, COMECE, just published a position paper on the subject and submitted it to the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ).

This is in response to a case in Belgium where an individual informed a parish that he was renouncing his membership of the Church and asked that all records be deleted, including the record of his baptism.

The parish agreed to amend the baptismal register, to note his formal departure, but not scrub the original record.

A civil court, however, ordered that the record be deleted and the Church has appealed the case to the EU level to clarify the GDPR directive.

In the paper, the Bishops say the register is not a list of members, but rather a record of a historical event, sealing an indelible mark of faith on the person.

“Requiring the Catholic Church to erase the data contained in it, thereby intervening directly in its organisation, would constitute a serious infringement upon Church autonomy and institutional freedom of religion.”