To think people should't take part in religious ceremonies that they have no respect for

[Vintagejazz]

I was at my niece's first Holy Communion in Dublin today and the behaviour in the Church was absolutely shocking. People chatting throughout the Mass, standing up taking photographs durng the ceremony despite the priest having requested at the start that people wouldn't do this, allowing toddlers to scream and roar without taking them outside, and basically treating the whole thing with no respect whatsoever.
If people don't have any belief and don't see First Holy Communion as a sacred religious event, that's fine. But why take part and ruin it for the people for whom it does have some meaning (not to mention the huge discourtesy to the teachers who had spent months planning, organising and rehearsing so that the event would be meaningful and lovely).
It was awful and someone back at the lunch afterwards told me they were at a Holy Communion last week where the noise was even worse.

Why do people do this? No one's putting a gun to their heads and fording them to take part. Either treat church ceremonies and services with respect, or don't partake.

I was christened and had my first holy communion. If me ad my Dsis were screaming in church, my mum would take us out as it is extremely disrespectful to the people who are in there praying and listening to the Word of God.
if a priest has said "please no pictures" hold off to the end. You wouldn't speak at a wedding service, so why at a communion? not good.

When I said people without respect for the ceremony shouldn't partake I was thinking of the parents of the Holy Communion children who were ignoring requests by the priest and snapping away with cameras throughout the ceremony and standing up at solemn moments to get a better angle.

yes that's unacceptable behaviour and I see what you mean. Sadly there do seem to be a lot of parents around who behave like this at any event.

Having said that - if it's so bad they need to look at how the whole thing is being organised - smaller groups, very clear expectations with people being asked to leave if they don't follow - clearly stated points for photo ops to decrease photos during service would all possible help.

I agree. It's a pity that grown adults have to be told these things, but I really think people involved with the running of Churches are going to have to start making it clear that certain behaviour is not acceptable during the ceremony.
I was at a wedding once where a couple were sitting with their arms around each other, exchanging the occasional kiss. It just looked really inappropriate and as if they thought they were in a club or a pub.

Here's the link to the Ross O' Carroll-Kelly column from this weekend's Irish Times that was mentioned upthread.

It's funny but terrifyingly accurate

Greenstone that article was great! Our school has been in the grip of communion fever for months with families scrambling to book the best restaurants, get hair appointments, etc. It makes me glad that when I was little the only preparation was putting old bed sheets in your hair the night before to get ringlets.
Op YANBU I think children have an absolute right to be in the church but if they're disruptive then you take them out. As for parents, I really think the school or church should provide some guidance on what's appropriate.

Ah yes, remember how simple Communions used to be. In my day you went around your aunties' and grandparents' houses to show yourself off in your white dress and got a few bob from them. There were no dinners in fancy restaurants, bouncy castles, mums getting fake tans and manicures, stretch limos and all the other stuff you here about nowadays. And guess what, everyone behaved themselves in the Church as well.

Maybe it is just where my family go to church? My niece and nephew were all confirmed about 7 years ago, and there was a simply party afterwards in a local hall. And maybe others went to restaurants, i don't know, but there were certainly no limos outside of the church.

Certainly in the UK, until religion is rightly recognised as the pointless mumbo jumbo that it is and discrimination against adults and children who don't believe or pretend to believe in it ends, religious types can go whistle if they expect people who have no respect for it not to begrudgingly turn up and not feel obliged to be courteous and respectful.

Really Castillo. You would go to a church wedding and chat through the ceremony and allow your child to run around the place. Because you think religion is 'pointless mumbo jumbo' and so what if it's important to the other people partaking in the ceremony.

This is an interesting topic and something i have been pondering, given that I have just come back from a First Communion in Ireland. I was similarly bewildered at the ostentation and the lack of consideration given to the meaning behind the whole sacrament. People were, at least, reasonably quiet during the Mass but photographs, with flash, were being taken during prayers and the actual receiving of communion and many of the female guests had obviously gotten confused and thought they were going to a cocktail party or ball, given the amount of fake tan, glittery maxi dresses and false nails on display. I don't honestly know why people even bother with these photos btw because they are mostly taken from too far away and in haste so you mostly get a good view of the hair of the person in the two in front.

I am Irish btw and Catholic, not particularly religious but things like these spectacles truly turn me off. This brilliant column in Saturday's Irish Times, although meant to be tongue-in-cheek, is not too far off what is happening is many households all over the country at the moment:
www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/do-you-know-how-difficult-it-is-to-get-a-window-cleaner-on-this-side-of-the-city-in-communion-month-1.1797096

Don't even get me started on the money and the presents? Since when was it normal to get remote control cars and football kit for your First Communion?

Well, you know what they say. Hell is other people.

Haha, nice try but since a wedding is not purely a religious ceremony and has meaning outside any religious dressing that gets put on it it's not really the same thing. First holy communion, mass and other such rituals that parents have to do to convince the authorities that their children are suitably brainwashed so don't get discriminated against don't deserve any respect from those who dont really want to go to them.

How is a child who doesn't make their Communion or go to Mass 'discriminated against'?

Vintagejazz if you dont know how non catholic children are against in Ireland then you cant have a very good idea of how the education system works.
The vast majority of primary schools are Catholic (about 90%). It is the stated policy of these schools that Catholic children are given preference. Since the they are very often the only schools in their area, and since many areas have a high demand for school places this has the result of non Catholic children being at a disadvantage in getting into state funded schools. For this reason many Irish parents who are non practising or non believer feel they have no option but to christen their children, which results in many children being presented for Communion who are from families with no real religious interest.
This is a situation completely of the Churchs and states making. If the scholls were made non denominational you would find a drop in children making communion as they would have to actively seek religious instruction for them outside school hours and would only do it if their was a genuine interest rather than the current situation where it is given as standard during school hours.

• discriminated against

I meant in the UK LaymeDown. It was in response to another poster.

I agree in Ireland there is an issue for non-catholics when it comes to finding schools for their children.

Excuse the confusion. Your Op referred to communion in Dublin so I assumed you were discussing the situation in Ireland.

i took it that the other poster was discussing Ireland as well.

I think that the set up of the education system resulting in pressure to christen and the Catholic education available as standard is the reason for the attitude to the sacrament. If people are forced into a religion pretty much against their will or because its too difficult to opt out, it is natural that they are not going to have much respect for it.

If they were so inclined the Church could change this easily. They dont which suggests they would rather maximise membership than maintain sober and sincere partaking of the sacrements.

Communion is based on a complex and controversial theological theory and I would argue 7 or 8 is far to young for it anyway. I would be willing to bet that nearly everyone in the Church whether adult or child, practising or not had very little idea of the significance of the sacrement.

Schools that discriminate on religious grounds are widespread in the UK.

Well surely the best way to tackle that is through lobbying for change. Ruining religious ceremonies for those who practise that particular religion is hardly a fair, or indeed tolerant, solution.

People try to lobby for change. Our PM says that 'we are a Christian country' so it doesn't look like it's working.

Thankfully, I moved to a country with proper separation of Church and State.

Castillo people don't misbehave at these occasions as a protest against organised religion. They misbehave simply because they are lacking in manners and common decency and consideration for other people.

I personally object to Holy Communion, and none of my DC will be doing it.

My DN had hers on Sunday, and I declined to go (without going into my reasons, just made excuses), but it was very frowned upon, so I think that actually, quite a lot of people do feel they have a 'gun to their head'.

I must say though, that the few occasions I have attended Catholic services, I have always found them quite lively, with lots of screaming children, running around, chatting etc. I thought it was quite refreshing.

OP, this article about a Protestant boy being punished at an Irish school for not attending Holy Communion is a good example of how non Catholic children are discriminated against in Ireland.

Tbh, as a Catholic myself, I don't mind wee children getting a bit boisterous. If they're having an absolute screaming fit and nobody can hear a word, that's different.

At my DN's first communion recently people were holding up ipads to video and photograph the ceremony (when they'd been asked not to) and I found that pretty crass, a lot worse than a few rambunctious babies occasionally whooping. The ostentation and make up on wee girls is ridiculous. Not nice at all. But that's just my view - each person celebrates their child's communion in their own way, I guess.

Lobby for change . Of course we do that but the pace is glacial. My children attend a multi-denominational school. It is one of a handful in the country. In order to ensure a place I put their name down at birth. It is a single stream with 28 places in Junior Infants each year. After a decade of campaigning we have got permission to build a two stream school. This will hopefully be completed by 2016. DS1 started last September. There were 350 children on the waiting list. Where do you think the rest of those children went? These are children whose parents at a minimum had an interest in them attending a non Catholic school and the vast majority will have ended up in the parish Catholic school. Most of them will have been christened, to ensure against the strong likelihood they wouldn't get into the multi denominational and therefore needed to go to the Catholic school.
Once in the system they will be instructed for communion within the school day, as after all they have signed up to a school with a Catholic ethos (despite having no choice). These are the kids who in three years will be making their communion. Probably some of their parents will treat t more as a day out than an important religious occasion and who can blame them? It was a path they were forced to follow.
There is no reason for them to be as rude as the people you encountered but its a bit much for the Catholic Church to get OP faced about disinterested people partaking of sacraments when they engineered it that way.