we discussed having kids & the religious issues that would surface. me personally, i don’t want to impose religion on my children like that. even though she’d want them to practice Islam as much as possible, i feel Catholicism & Islam can work together as a way of life. i.e. if you consider what Catholics AVOID in life & what Muslims focus on DOING in life to be good. remember, Mohammad Rasul was very much influenced by the Bible. i really respect tradition n’ all, but i feel religion is secondary in a relationship.
Bold is mine.
Whoah my friend. Religion is as much part of a person’s identity as is their national origin and their ethnic heritage. If it were as “you feel” you woiuld not be having this conversation with your girlfriend. But’s not as you feel. The reality is the faith is more central than one thinks, even the lack of faith.
Whether you have faith or you lack it, it defines you and it determines the choices that you make. The Muslims have a very honorable reason for their concern in this matter. They share this concern with Catholics and Jews alike. Religion is not an accident that can be relegated to what we feel. It is what it is.
We can lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that it’s not important or that it’s secondary to a relationship, but the reality is that most relationships are built upon a shared belief system. When that is not present, they collapse.
This happens in marital relationships, relationships between friends, and relationships between nations. Religious beliefs is the most powerful of all beliefs in human beings. I’m speaking now as the son of a Catholic father and a Jewish mother. This was never a point of compromise in my family. It was either or.
Either you accept my faith or I will not marry you. That was the either or between my parents. Eventually, they had to accept that one faith would dominate the home and the other would take a back seat, but that both could not and would not co-exist as equals. To do so would be a show of lack of faith on the part of both persons. It would show a lack of faith on the part of my Catholic father to believe that Judaism and Catholicism were equal. It would be a lack of faith for my Jewish mother to believe that they were equal. Since each had to maintain the primacy of his/her faith, the only option was to decide which faith was going to dominate the life of the family and the second party would practice his/her faith privately.
This was a hardship for both. I suggest that you rethink your position about faith being secondary in a relationship. If you intend to marry a person of faith, it’s not going to be secondary. It will dominate who she is and how she relates to you, your children and your world.
In addition, Catholics and Muslims believe that marriage is a union that is blessed by God. Therefore, there is no marriage apart from religion. Neither accepts the validity of civil marriage or a godless marriage, unless the couple are non-believers. In that case a civil marriage is valid and binding for life. But for believers, Islam and Catholicism agree that a marriage outside of religion is invalid, a farce.
You have to talk to each other and you have to come to some kind of agreement on what faith is going to dominate the family, not a compromise. We cannot compromise on faith. You cannot have a Muslim-Christian home. There is not such thing.
There are some truths found in Islam. But there are not ALL truths found in Islam. Let’s begin with the Trinity. Islam denies the Trinity. Islam denies the necessity of sacraments. Islam denies the Divinity of Christ. What we have in common is out pre-Christian faith and our moral code. The two faiths are not inclusive and cannot co-exist in a home. They can co-exist in society as a cooperative brotherhood. But a marriage is not a cooperative union. It’s deeper.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
