Does a Catholic Church need both parents permission to baptise a child?

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My son is 14 and lives mostly with his Dad since my recent separation. Ex recently told me that DS has been exploring his faith and that my ex and his mother are going to baptise our son in a Catholic Church. My ex has not attended church in all the time I’ve known him and we had a secular wedding. He’s always been a man of science and there’s never been any mention of religion before. This is all out of the blue. Ex was raised catholic though and attended a Catholic Church.

Does a church need both parents permission to baptise a child? I’m happy for my son to explore his faith, I would never stop him getting baptised, it was more that my ex told me that his mother and himself had decided and that it was happening. He did not ask what I thought or if it was okay to baptise our son.

AIBU in thinking I should have been asked first? Or at age 14 it is our son’s decision without parental consent? I’m happy for him to explore his faith etc. He is currently heavily aligned with his Dad and his Grandmother but that’s a separate issue.

On a separate note, I used to be a pagan as a teenager, our son knows this and now calls me a “dirty pagan” and won’t discuss church with me.

I am, yes it’s all very crap 😔

As a (lapsed) Catholic (converted as an adult) I heartily agree with you. We were taught to respect all other faiths. Perhaps the young man could use his time in confession to discuss the lack of respect to his mother with his priest … 😉

He does yes. I’m lucky if I see him for an hour a week on some weeks but that’s another issue.

As PP have said, as a 14 yr old this wouldn't be classed as an infant baptism and it would be more his decision. I also agree his behaviour towards you and attitude are the most concerning parts of this. As are your ex's intentions to use this to turn him against you.

If he's really serious about becoming a Catholic, you could point out to him that according to the ten commandments he should be honouring his father and mother and breaking any of the commandments is a sin. Food for thought for him really!

And generally, you're supposed to attend Mass weekly on a Sunday, although you can attend on alternative days if you can't make the Sunday. So there's no reason for him to go Saturday especially if that's supposed to be your day with him as ideally it should be Sunday anyway.

I'm sorry to hear that it looks like your ex is weaponising a religion in this way. It all sounds awful and from what youve said, none of them seem particularly committed to Catholicism anyway if they're not even doing the bare minimum of attending weekly Mass.

Do you know if he intends to follow up with the other sacraments like Communion and Confirmation? Baptism is the first step. He sounds like he needs to go to confession given what he's saying to you, but I'm not sure what that stage that is for a person of that age, I forget. Catholics are taught to respect our parents (5th commandment) and other religions , so that behavior is not on. It's not on in any faith or none to be honest

With the beat of intention and I know this is hard and I don't know the back story of your ex and his family and their treatment of you.

But you need to get angry. Tell your son to watch his mouth when he is speaking to you or he can fuck off back to his dad's.

When your ex berates you for how you have supposedly spoken to your son, dont interact put the phone down. If your son is old enough to decide to be baptised then he is old enough to communicate with you on visiting etc.

Walking on egg shells does not mean they will treat you better, they eill treat you worse. Do not give them power.

Also a word of caution, in some circles conversion to Christianity is seen as a rebellious act of countering the current culture and is not done for faith reasons but to "be different" and stick two fingers up to society. The Andrew Tate types. Be sure to see what his attitudes to other issues are and if there's any malign influence there. A person with a true interest in Christianity would not be treating you like this.

We used to try to get my Dad to let us go to Saturday evening Mass so we could go to the pub afterwards with our cousin (now a priest!)

He often dragged us to early Mass on a Sunday as well though

More seriously he is the generation of seekers and searchers who are looking for real community and a way to make sense of a complex, dangerous and unstable world. Lots of teenagers and early 20s are finding their homes in religious observance regardless of of their actual beliefs. Religion can be a stabilising factor for a kid dealing with a difficult family breakup.

wait it out, don’t let him respect you, support him in safe choices

They baptised me and brothers at 10 mins notice when grandma had us for a morning (mum in hospital). My mum and dad were atheists and went crazy 😂- So yes, they certainly used to do this.

An acquaintance was baptised by his grandfather, using the holy water from the stoup just inside the door, so no, he doesn't need your permission. (In my example the Church tied up the loose ends later, but Kim's baptism was legitimate).

Sorry OP, this sounds part of a wider issue.
I don't think you can stop him, whatever you say to ask him to consider and reflect on his choices will likely be used against you and push him further away.
It sounds like his Dad abd Grandma are exerting controlling influence against him. You may have to wait this one out. Hopefully when he gets to 18 he will go away to uni and be exposed to a wider variety of views and learn to differentiate between fact and opinion.

And what does his priest say to him referring to you like that?