I am a new catholic and I was wondering if you could give me some advice please?
To give you some background I have recently completed the RCIA and was baptised and confirmed last Easter. I found this to be a wonderful, humbling experience and it just feels really right, almost like I'm "coming home" when I attend a mass service.
I was brought up as a child without any religion but I always had a belief in God. My Dad had been brought up a catholic but I think he felt he was pushed into it a bit much as he attended a strict catholic boarding school and consequently he stopped going to church and never had me baptised. My Gran (his mother) was always a devout catholic and prayed often that I would find her faith.
Because of my belief in God I always wanted to go to a church but I never had the confidence to just turn up and I didn't know which one to go to (CofE/catholic/baptist etc). But when I gave birth to my daughter, after years of struggling to conceive and nearly losing her at the birth I just felt so grateful to have her and really wanted to go to church and thank God. Because of my Gran's beliefs I chose to go to a Catholic church and I promised her I would become a catholic before she died.
My husband is not a catholic but because we were married before I became catholic I am told our marriage is recognised by the catholic church. The problem is though he is happy for me to have faith but he doesn't want our children to be "pushed" into catholicism. He was happy to have our children baptised catholic but he wouldn't want them to go to mass (unless they chose to themselves at an older age). So at the moment I attend mass on my own. My daughter is now 3 years of age and this issue will start to become more of a problem as she starts school. I would have wanted her to go to a catholic school but my husband would feel uncomfortable about her being taught catholic beliefs as facts and about her having to complete the sacraments.
We thought our local Church of England school might be a good compromise if that's the right way of putting it as it still teaches the christian morals but is quite inclusive of all faiths and wouldn't require our children to complete their sacraments at a young age. If they attended this school I would hope to teach them gently at home "mummy believes this, daddy believes that, you choose what you want". But would that be acceptable to the catholic church?
The other issue is that to attend this CofE school you need to attend a CofE church at least monthly. Would it be a sin if I attended this CofE church once a month, alongside my normal catholic mass? Would God mind? It feels wrong in my head but my husband says I would be worshiping God and Jesus whether I went to a catholic or an anglican church so it shouldn't matter.
This is so hard, I feel like whatever I do I'm letting either my children, my husband, myself, my Gran or God down.
Any advice would be so appreciated, thank you.
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questions for catholics
27 replies
mollysmum82 · 08/10/2012 21:04
OP posts:
crescentmoon ·
09/10/2012 14:38
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crescentmoon ·
09/10/2012 14:39
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