Catholic school admission- dh is Hindu - will this matter?

[arubyinyourhands]

We live just beside an excellent, oversubscribed Catholic primary school. I am Catholic and dd is baptised. DH, dd and I go to church together every Sunday. Will the fact that DH is not Catholic be a problem re. getting dd into the school?

no

Thanks for the direct response Custardo. Some friends have suggested that he could be asked to convert - has anyone ever come across this?

No, they are only concerned about the child's religion, not the parents'. I was actually thinking recently that it is probably possible to have a child baptised Catholic and go to a Catholic school, etc even if both parents were non- catholic. Ime, they never ask about the parents religion when the child is baptised...

I can't speak for anywhere else, but my son is going to a Catholic Secondary School after the summer and the fact that dh and I are not Catholics was not a problem.

That is rubbish about being asked to convert - unless your parish priest has some weird ideas...

Oh, and my son is not a Catholic either.

If dd is baptised and regularly attending church, then that is enough for her to be counted as a catholic.

I know a Hindu mum and Catholic dad who easily got their child into Catholic school because said child was baptised and attended Mass weekly. No question of the mum being asked to convert - it would be madness in this day and age for a school to expect such a thing.

Thanks everyone - it's reassuring to hear what you have to say. It's just that if a school is heavily oversubscribed you get the feeling they can pretty much do what they want.

Somewhere in the oversubscription criteria will be a definition of terms. But even in very exclusive, hard to get into schools like the London Oratory, the criteria involve the child being brought up Catholic with at least one practising catholic parent. It shouldn't matter what the other parent is, indeed anecdotally it might even be better if the other parent is clearly non-catholic rather than being a cradle catholic who doesn't bother going to Mass iyswim.

If your DH is Hindu why does he go to a Catholic church?

Gerontius, lots of non-Catholic parents will accompany their Catholic spouses and dcs to church. My husband, a Lutheran, does (occasionally) He has no intention of converting, and disapproves of a lot of it, but he supports the choice we have BOTH made to have our dcs baptised Catholic, and send them to a Catholic school. That means encouraging them to attend Mass, which means in turn he has to set a good example by attending (sometimes).
Anyway, Catholic churches are perfectly welcoming places whatever your religion.

Fair enough then. Just wondered!

You Dh won't be asked to convert though much of the other 'advice' on this thread is plain wrong. From your point of view if the child is a practising Catholic from a practising family you won,t have a problem on the Catholicity criteria in virtually all Catholic schools.