First holy communion in a mixed marriage

[locomum83]

So I'm in a mixed marriage. I'm catholic and my husband is Church of England. We have two daughters, eldest is 8 and attends an integrated primary school which offers sacramental preparation.
My husband doesn't agree with first holy communion, says 8 is too young, and the child is brainwashed etc. so therefore won't let her do it. I attended catholic primary school and made all my sacraments and don't obviously feel the same way.
My daughters best friend at school is making her first communion tomorrow, same day really my daughter should of been doing hers, and as a very spiritual girl, loves to pray and attend church etc, feels a bit bewildered and left out as to why daddy won't let her.
I take them to mass occasionally and other times we all attend Church of England services together with their dad.
It upsets me that she won't have this experience and if she chooses Catholicism as an adult she won't have been through the whole process. I'm not sure what the answer is. Has anyone been through similar?

Well are your kids bapatised into a Catholic Church or CofE. Did your DH agree up bring the kids up as catholic?

Is he actually C of E - I mean is he a practicing Christian?

Yes, he would be practicing, not attending weekly necessarily, but does attend, we do as a family, but would certainly follow Christian values. He just doesn't like Catholicism, is happy that I take the kids to mass on occassion but doesn't want them to identify as such

Why is it important that your dd does this. And what makes you think she's spiritual? Is she not just mimicking you? It's obviously important to you but kids mirror behaviour so presumably she's just copying you and doing things because she knows it pleases you?

What is important is your daughter makes any decision. That's more important than doing this with her friends as an experience.

I'm concerned about his anti-Catholic stance though, and I say that as someone who is CofE. It would make me very uncomfortable.

So he's a practising Anglican but thinks Catholicism is brainwashing?

He has issues. And they can't really be about the extra verse on the Our Father, the CofE credo ('I believe in the holy catholic church') or the transubstantiation (or not) of Communion. There's something deep seated and unpleasant in there.

A "mixed marriage"? Are we back in the 1970s?

Why have his views superseded yours? His opinion should not carry any more weight!

Bit equally, her opinion doesn't outweigh his.

Did you agree which religion you would raise any children in before you had them? Which religion were they baptised in?

OP I guess you are in NI or possibly Scotland? Nobody in the rest of U.K. (at least not in England and Wales )would talk about a ‘mixed marriage’ or feel so strongly either way about this issue.

Your DHs attitude towards your religion is strange and unpleasant. Especially from the perspective of a present day English person. The vast majority of people really don’t distinguish or care about the minute differences between the rituals in different christian churches.

You absolutely have the right to choose which religious ritual you want to follow, of course. However, it’s a bit odd to say your daughter is spiritual and should therefore have a catholic communion. As others have pointed out, a child of that age is not naturally drawn to a particular ritual but gets their ideas from those around them. If you want her to have a catholic communion you need to be self aware enough to realise it’s to satisfy your own sense of what is right.

You should let your DD decide if she wants a FC or not. Which religion was she baptized into?

Very observant of you, and also correct. Communion isn't to satisfy me at all. Some of her classmates had had it through school and she didn't and she's asking questions

Christianity. In the Trinitarian tradition, to be precise - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A baptism in either is recognised fully by the other.

I can understand his point, in a way.
As parents, you presumably made a decision to have her baptised, and promised to bring her up as a Christian. It seems that you have agreed to expose your dc to both Catholic and CofE traditions, and let her decide when she is old enough which denomination she wishes to make her own (and of course she might not choose either).
To my mind that seems reasonable to decide when she is quite a bit older and a bit more critical thinking, rather than at 8, wanting a pretty white dress and a party like her friend. 8 seems young to be making decisions about your beliefs and questioning doctrine etc.

However, taking First Communion doesn't somehow make her bound to that decision for the rest of her life - there are many people whose parents took them to mass / enrolled them in a Catholic school as dc, who do not attend Church at all as adults.

He is being ridiculous. His argument can be satisfied if she chooses confirmation.

I'm CofE, DH is Catholic. DS did FHC at 8 and takes communion when he comes to church with me. It does confuse the odd visiting priest 😉
However he will wait until he is older to make a choice about where to be confirmed (or not) rather than the standard age for either of around 13.

I should add that DS really wanted to do FHC

Yes, thank you that's the kind of insight I was hoping to find. She was baptised and will make confirmation most likely COE but I wondered when she would be able to have communion in the RC church if she had never had FHC?

My DH is RC and I am another Christian denomination. Our children have been brought up Catholic. We married in a Catholic Church and I agreed not to prevent them being raised as Catholics They were always perfectly aware that I don't believe exactly the same things though and we have always openly discussed the differences.
I also feel that 8 is too young for first Communion so none of our children did it until they were in year 6 and more capable of making their own decisions. They were also confirmed later than average, at 16/17. They didn't go to Catholic schools and all the preparation is done via Church not school here anyway so it wasn't a big issue.
Presumably there is some kind of mechanism to prepare older children for first Communion even in places where it's still the norm for it to be done via school? There are loads of reasons why a child might not do it at the same time as the rest of their class. It's not like if you miss your "slot" that's it forever. If when your DD is older she still wants to do it then I'm sure she will be able to.

Apologies misunderstood! Can see you mean at what point later on can she make FHC if not now. Whenever, she’ll just be older than other communicants.

I assume that she would only be able to take communion in a catholic mass after she has had her FHC, from experience (Protestant in catholic schools), tge Catholic Church don’t recognise a confirmed Protestant for communion purposes (although generally Protestant churches will recognise catholic FHC). This is due, as was explained to me, to the fact Catholics believe in transubstantiation, Protestants in consubstantiation. I’m not sure how it would work out trying to believe in both though.

Have you spoken to your priest about taking FHC if your DD was baptised into the Church of England?

So she isn’t baptised catholic?

I am 99% sure she can’t do her catholic FHC if she isn’t catholic.

although reading your posts it isn’t clear if you are talking about catholic FHC? From memory c of e does it much older so I automatically thought catholic at 8.

She can.

Maybe it was our priest then as he wouldn’t allow anyone who hadn’t been baptised catholic to do FHC 🤷‍♀️