not giving in

[conway]

My husband is catholic but not very religous and I am C of E and not very religous.
My husband wants our 8 year old to take his holy communion . I feel that this is pointless as we rarely go to church and that it would take up a lot of my son's valuable football time.
I think he is just doing this to please his mum.
We are both not wanting to give in.
What do I do ?

you are right he is wrong

What does your son want?

He doesn't want to do it as saturday morning is his day for football.

You are right, he is WRONG!

You are right because your son doesn't want to participate in superstitious claptrap, so your H is wrong to try to make him.

I'm not Rman Cathlolic so may be wrong...but surely your son would have to take vows? And how can he do this if he doesn't believe? Surely your Dh woudln't want him to lie?

and who would be his sponsor if none of your family are religious?

I always thought that where faiths are different, children were brought up in the faith of the mother.

I attended my Goddaughter's Holy Communion (I am not catholic myself), it was a big event with plane loads of people arriving from Ireland. Is this what your MIL has planned?

They had a big party afterwards, the drink flowed and family who hadn't seen each other for a long time caught up.

I think my husband would like that as he likes parties.

fwiw, I am a Christian and dh is an atheist and my take on it has always been that a child is brought up in the faith thathe or she wants to be brought up in. Bit pointless to ask an 8yo to stand up and make promises he has no intention of keeping; I would say that is close to dishonest.

I did have my children christened in the Lutheran church as babies, but that involved no promises on their part, and none on ours that I did not feel able to keep. If they want to be confirmed, that is absolutely their own decision.

Holy communion is a Serious Thing to all Christians who take it, but most of all to Catholics: you really must not take it unless you are in a state of grace, and I can't imagine that repeating vows you do not believe in can count as a state of grace.

so why don't you ask your priest

tell him that you , you husband and your child are "not very religious"

you rarely go to church

your son would rather play football than take his first Holy Communion as its more valuable

but your Dh and your MIL woudl like a party

so you were wondering if you could use his church as a venue?

BTW, if your son does not attend an RC school, when would he do the preparation classes?

Oh - can I add on and ask your advice as I'm in a similar position to you conway.

My dh is Roman Catholic - I'm not a Christian. To please his mum I got married in their church but dh and had agreed long ago that our children would have access to their traditions (mine is a few faiths) but leave it up to child as to if and when we help them take it forward.

However, mil and dh really want a catholic baptism. Given dh never goes to church and mil just wants another excuse to parade ds and organise a huge party - no doubt in her country - and my family marginalised as per usual. I'm really not keen. And I didn't grow up with one religion and I think that was fair for my parents.

However, someone has just told me that a baptism does not make someone a Catholic but there's also first communion and also confirmation (my dh had to be confirmed to get married).

Is this true?

Apart from mil taking over and their complete lack of faith but big on their traditions and family pride, I don't want all this fuss if he isn't going to go to church for the next xxxx years. Not only that if he were baptised but doesn't carry it through but later wishes to marry a Catholic, doesn't the fact that he's batpised mean he has to then get communion and confirmation (whereas I didn't as I wasn't a baptised anything and so had to have a dispensation) even if he's then not a believer.

So apologies for lack of terminology but you seem to know about this and I'm genuinely interested - all I can get out dh and mil is oh there's a moth and it's someone in purgatory (and I don't actually know what that is), and what a shame poor poor ds not being allowed such a great thing and the entire village want to know why it hasn't happened.

I did speak to the local church when he was ababy re playgroup but they said he had to be baptised to attend. I've done nothing since.

Baptism DOES make you a Roman Catholic; the Holy Communion and Confirmation come later, at about 7 and 13, but a child must be baptised first.

Your DH is reneging on his earlier promise; not good. Your DS isn't "not being allowed" anything; your agreement was that you would leave it up to the child.

Conway, you are right, your DH is wrong.

giveitago, I am RC and my husband is technically christian but doesn't believe in god. When we got married, he got permission to marry in the RC church, but he also had to sign a document to say that our children would be brought up as catholics. Not sure if you would have done the same? If your son was baptised and didn't have communion and confirmation and married a catholic later, he would just get dispensation to marry. And think it is the weirdest thing that you weren't welcome at the baby group because your child wasn't baptised, what did they do, check baptismal certificates on the way in?? Bizarre!

Iam

Re the local church - I approached them purely for baby toddler groups - lots of them are church based.

I did sign something (in another language) which I believed meant I wouldn't stop the Catholic element bringing up ds as a Catholic. To be honest I don't care about that piece of paper as 1. DH and I had agreed earlier that wouldn't force anything on our kids and also my dh has taken almost no notice of a few of the marriage vows which I though were more important!

It was my dad who said that a bapitsm doesn't mean the child is part of the religion (he's CofE - don't know if this makes a difference). So no, I'm not happy, however, I am happy to hear that if someone is just baptised they can still get a dispensation if they are no longer a believer but want to get married to a believer and won't have to 'finish what they started' which was the impression I was getting.

One to think about.

I would consider it as being from two very different religions sort of means I'm lightweight about them. But it does mean fit in with most things and that's what I want my son to understand and accept.

And I suppose ds could then eventually go to a Catholic school if need be. However, it's not my belief and also I do take these things seriously and don't just want a big how off party from ils and then no spiritual instruction if you know what I mean.I'd rather have it here in the UK at the local church which where I assumed he's continue going to be properly be a Catholic, invite mil and an intimate family dinner after. Are all Catholic baptisms big affairs or can they be just family?