This has been suggested many times over the life of this mailing list - the fundamental difference is that sacramental records (unlike civil records) belong to the church. They don't belong to the public or to the people who have had the sacrament performed. They belong exclusively to the church . Mary Anne

But just as the public/government is "we the people" isn't the church "the people in the pews/church militant" and not just the hierarchy? I don't have a problem kissing a bishop's ring as a sign of respect for him personally and of his office, but it is a bit much than any yahoo can approach the altar rail and receive the Body and Blood of Christ without question but the sacramental records must be protected from the genealogists. Again, if that were the case then why are Chicago's records available through the FHL and Ireland's records are filmed as well(but not all of them are available through FHL)? The three main issues seem to be cost, privacy and feasibility. Cost is a moot point because Chicago did it. Privacy is a moot point again because Chicago did it. Feasibility is a moot point because many records have been microfilmed and digitized through Ancestry.com, IGI etc. Charity will not allow me to state what I think the reason is. On Dec 31, 2007, at 5:07 PM, Mary Anne wrote: > This has been suggested many times over the life of this mailing > list - the > fundamental difference is that sacramental records (unlike civil > records) > belong to the church. They don't belong to the public or to the > people who > have had the sacrament performed. They belong exclusively to the > church . > > Mary Anne > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRISH-NEW- > YORK-CITY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message