Church authorities across Europe would face “significant legal uncertainty” if the European Union’s top court adopts the line proposed by the body’s Advocate General when it rules on whether a Belgian diocese must erase baptismal register data on request, an EU bishops’ commission said Monday.
The Secretariat of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union issued the warning Oct. 5 after Laila Medina, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, issued an opinion in the closely watched case known as C-12/25 Bisdom Gent.
Medina’s opinion is non-binding but could give an indication of how the Court of Justice will resolve the case in its final judgment, which could potentially be issued in late 2026 or early 2027.
COMECE’s Secretariat said it was “concerned that, if confirmed, the orientation provided by the opinion may create significant legal uncertainty for ecclesiastical data controllers in every EU member state.”
“This is particularly serious because such uncertainty would strike at baptismal registers, which are a central pillar of the Church’s internal functioning and organization, and are vital to enabling it to carry out its mission,” it said.
Medina published her 22,000-word opinion Oct. 1, as the Court of Justice prepared its ruling, which will be binding on the EU’s 27 member states and their national courts.
The Latvian national argued that an individual “has, in principle, the right to have his or her personal data erased from the baptismal register where the controller fails to demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override the interests, rights, and freedoms of the data subject.”
She said that national courts would need to make complex, case-by-case assessments by weighing a complainant’s “right to respect for private and family life, his right to protection of personal data, and his freedom of thought, conscience and religion” against “the autonomy of the Church and its freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”
COMECE’s Secretariat acknowledged that the opinion did not recognize a “general or automatic right to erase data from baptismal records.”
But it expressed concern that the opinion rejected the current practice in Belgian dioceses, where the Church responds to requests for deletion from baptismal registers by striking through an entry and adding an annotation recording the data subject’s wishes, rather than erasing the text.
COMECE’s Secretariat said: “The Advocate General thus distances itself from the fact that — across diverse legal systems and state-Church relations models — consistent national jurisprudence in the EU member states has accepted this practice as an entirely adequate legal solution in case of erasure requests concerning baptismal registers.”
“Erasing the name and surname of the baptized person from the record of a baptism entirely deprives the registration of the baptism, as such, of its meaning, value, and purpose. This crucial aspect seems to have been neglected.”
An Oct. 2 Court of Justice press release presenting Medina’s opinion said: “The data must be rendered illegible to the extent necessary to ensure that the person is no longer identified or easily identifiable, while information concerning the fact that a baptism took place at a given place and time may be retained.”
“This does not require the physical removal of pages from the register. Appropriate measures may be used to conceal the relevant data while leaving other information intact.”
COMECE’s Secretariat argued that the opinion overlooked the impact of erasure on third parties. In a position paper issued Sept. 4, COMECE had noted that baptismal entries also contain the personal data of the minister of baptism, the child’s parents, and two godparents, who also have a legally protected interest in preserving the integrity of the record.
COMECE’s Secretariat also described as “unconvincing” the opinion’s suggestion that retaining an individual’s data in a baptismal register could cause emotional distress.
It said it hoped the Court of Justice would “establish a more favorable line with regard to the protection of baptismal registers from erasure” when it issues its final ruling.
The case emerged in March 2021, when an individual asked Belgium’s Ghent diocese to delete their data from all files, including the baptismal register, citing the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, a 2018 EU data protection law.
The Catholic Church teaches that “baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark of his belonging to Christ.” While a person can lapse in the practice of the faith, or even renounce it altogether, it is impossible to reverse the effects of baptism.
In April 2021, the Diocese of Ghent added an annotation to the baptismal register, noting that the individual “left the Church” on that date. Two diagonal lines were drawn across the baptismal entry.
When the diocesan authorities explained that a note had been added to the entry, the individual insisted on the deletion of their data and made a complaint to the national Data Protection Authority.
In December 2023, the Data Protection Authority ordered the Ghent diocese to comply with the complainant’s request.
The data authority said that the diocese argued it was necessary to preserve baptismal records to prevent possible identity fraud, for example, if a person who was already baptized sought to receive the sacrament for a second time, in contravention of Church teaching.
The data authority recognized the Church’s concern, but argued that the complainant’s interests took precedence over those of the Church. The diocese appealed the ruling.
In December 2024, the Brussels Court of Appeal (Market Court) said that the case raised questions concerning EU law that should be addressed by the Court of Justice. It posed five questions to the court in Luxembourg, including whether the GDPR must be interpreted in the light of the right to religious freedom and whether a note saying a person has left the Church constitutes erasure of their data.
Once the Court of Justice issues its ruling, the Market Court will be expected to apply the decision to the Ghent diocese dispute.
In its September 2026 position paper, COMECE said that a ruling requiring the erasure of entries contained in baptismal registers “would constitute a serious infringement upon Church autonomy and institutional freedom of religion.”
It said: “In many member states, such a requirement to erase would even give rise to a conflict between the obligations arising under the treaties and those arising under concordats, with many of the latter having been concluded at an earlier date.”
“Furthermore, canon law is recognized under national law in a number of member states. Therefore, the impact that these proceedings will ultimately have in the other member states should be taken into account.”
Could someone explain to me why deletion from baptismal records is so bad? I get that it's an important historical record etc, but that's not the prime concern of the Church. Surely the worst that could happen is someone has to be conditionally (re)baptised?
Tbis is a genuine question - I'd really like someone to explain it to me