A
amantoan
Guest
Many of the responses here are extremely unhelpful (and uncharitable) to his guy. He is asking a specific question, and many are getting on here ripping into him, making judgments about his decision making skills. No one here can fully know his circumstances now, or when he got married. In fact it sounds like he and his wife made an agreement when they got married (granted she should not have made that agreement) that she is now backing out of. The priest who married them apparently didn’t do much of job with pre-cana either. Try to address his post instead what your assumptions about him.
Code:
Shlemele, the short answer is no, there is no catholic equivalent of a “dedication only” service for babies. I don’t know who told you baptism is no big deal for Catholics, but they are wrong. It is supremely important to Catholics. You said that every Catholic you know is pretty much fallen away (with the possible exception of your wife) so how would they know anyway? I am sorry all the Catholic witnesses you have in your life are poor witnesses to the faith (or witnesses against it actually), but please don’t judge Catholicism based on them. Find out about the true teachings of the church before you determine you don’t want it for your kids or yourself. When you only get bits and pieces from fallen away Catholics I can understand how silly it looks. However, when you get the full story it all fits together and makes sound, logical sense.
Anyway, as a couple other people pointed out, Baptism in the Catholic Church does have a different meaning than for most Protestants. The sacrament of Confirmation is probably more analogous to your baptism, so maybe you could look into that and see if that fits your desire to have your kids make a conscientious decision for themselves (i.e. get baptized in your church, or get confirmed as a Catholic).
Just so you know where some of the other posters are coming from, the rule for mixed marriages in the church is that the kids are to brought up Catholic. Both spouses are to agree to this (didn’t you have to sign a document to that affect?) and if they do not, they are not to be married. Since you don’t seem to be aware of this, the priest who married you probably didn’t do his job.