I
Island_Oak
Guest
so many one liners, so little time…If it wouldn’t derail Shlemele’s thread, I’d say open season…But where to begin?!
- Status
L
Lillith
Guest
Schlemel…
Hello! I am so sorry that you find yourself in this predicament…and I personally think it is of your wife’s doing, and so I feel for you! She did not understand enough about her catholic faith to agree to what you requested…It is my thought, and I could be wrong, that she longed for a beautiful Catholic wedding…the kind that all little girls want growing up. I have witnessed this alot, lukewarm catholics and their protestant others, requesting a Catholic wedding…just because they are so darned beautiful.
This is what will happen to your child if he/she is not baptized at birth…by the time he reaches around 7yrs. of age all of the other catholic children will be studying to take their first communion…he will want to also but will be unable unless baptized first, and so probably your dream of the child choosing christ as an adult will be out the window…because he’ll want to partake…as he’s seen his mother and others do, and he’ll want that baptism! Maybe you can convince him to wait until he is older as an anabaptist (probably not), but what that will do is isolate him from his peers. He will sit alone in the pews while others recieve the body and blood of our most precious sacrament and feel not very catholic. He will miss the benefit of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal saviour in the most intimate way possible, and miss the norishment that my children enjoy…(I love watching growing bodies receive the Eucharist)
Others have told you, and I agree, that you should look into confirmation as an equivalent…it is the sacrament when a young adult chooses Catholicism for himself!
I suppose your wife is having a conversion of her own right now…I wish that had happened earlier, before you married. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer…
I pray for you
Hello! I am so sorry that you find yourself in this predicament…and I personally think it is of your wife’s doing, and so I feel for you! She did not understand enough about her catholic faith to agree to what you requested…It is my thought, and I could be wrong, that she longed for a beautiful Catholic wedding…the kind that all little girls want growing up. I have witnessed this alot, lukewarm catholics and their protestant others, requesting a Catholic wedding…just because they are so darned beautiful.
This is what will happen to your child if he/she is not baptized at birth…by the time he reaches around 7yrs. of age all of the other catholic children will be studying to take their first communion…he will want to also but will be unable unless baptized first, and so probably your dream of the child choosing christ as an adult will be out the window…because he’ll want to partake…as he’s seen his mother and others do, and he’ll want that baptism! Maybe you can convince him to wait until he is older as an anabaptist (probably not), but what that will do is isolate him from his peers. He will sit alone in the pews while others recieve the body and blood of our most precious sacrament and feel not very catholic. He will miss the benefit of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal saviour in the most intimate way possible, and miss the norishment that my children enjoy…(I love watching growing bodies receive the Eucharist)
Others have told you, and I agree, that you should look into confirmation as an equivalent…it is the sacrament when a young adult chooses Catholicism for himself!
I suppose your wife is having a conversion of her own right now…I wish that had happened earlier, before you married. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer…
I pray for you
C
Church_Militant
Guest
Remember what I told you in my PM my friend.
Just like the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says in big friendly letters:
Don’t Panic.
Pax tecum,
Just like the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says in big friendly letters:
Don’t Panic.
Pax tecum,
A
amantoan
Guest
Well here is what the Catechism says: “…furthermore the Catholic party confirms the obligations, which have been made known to the non-Catholic party, of preserving his or her own faith and ensuring the baptism and education of the children in the Catholic Church.” (Paragraph 1635). Sounds like an absolute requirement to me.
I don’t think that is accurate. Validly baptized Protestants are considered “separated brethren” because we share the same baptism. Through baptism we are united to the body of Christ, and there is only one body. Everyone who is validly baptized is at least partially Catholic whether they know it or not. From the catechism: “Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church: “For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Justified by faith in Baptism, [they] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” (Paragraph 1271)
So, if Catholic parents have their kid baptized by an Anglican, it is irrelevant. If the kid is raised Catholic, he is Catholic. That is why protestant converts do not need to be re-baptized. Remember that to God, there is only one Body of Christ, only one Church. If you are united to that body through baptism, you are (at least partially) in Christ’s one church.
I hope this is contributing some insight for Shlemele, instead of derailing the thread.
L
LSK
Guest
Schlemel, before you take anything anyone here says for granted, please see my post in the Apolgetics forum. I asked Father Serpa about dedication ceremonies for infants and about mixed marriages. He cited 1250 in the Catechism and gave a very precise answer. Even I could understand it:whacky: .
I don’t know about anyone here but until I have completed my recent reading and studying all the way through of our Catechism I am going to refrain from giving absolutes as answers without checking with our Apologetics first.
O
OutinChgoburbs
Guest
S
Shlemele
Guest
On the issue of children, this might be a mixed blessing but both of us have issues with fertility. My wife has endometriosis and is on birth control now not for contraception but to make it possible to have children and more importantly carry them to term. Her doctor is a devout Catholic and does not prescribe birth control unless there is a medical reason for it. I have already had one surgery to try to make sure I will be able to have children but it appears that I may need another. We both want children but need to wait until we can afford to get the next surgery and get the green light from my wifes doctor.
We both really want children. When I was in school there was not much I knew I wanted to be, but a good father was one thing I have never wavered on. Perhaps in Gods grace there are his ways of giving us time to work through these issues. After the course of medications and surgeries are through we plan to use NFP (I assume this means Natural Family Planning, sorry still pretty new to the terminology here) to help us conceive. I know I’m going off from the topic here but this is our situation. It’d be ironic though if we were arguing over something that, God forbid, may not happen for us.
We both really want children. When I was in school there was not much I knew I wanted to be, but a good father was one thing I have never wavered on. Perhaps in Gods grace there are his ways of giving us time to work through these issues. After the course of medications and surgeries are through we plan to use NFP (I assume this means Natural Family Planning, sorry still pretty new to the terminology here) to help us conceive. I know I’m going off from the topic here but this is our situation. It’d be ironic though if we were arguing over something that, God forbid, may not happen for us.
B
Blanka
Guest
Shlemele,
My prayers are with you and your wife.
My prayers are with you and your wife.
D
deb1
Guest
I second that. You will defintly be in my prayers.Shlemele,
My prayers are with you and your wife.
V
Viki59
Guest
Dear Shlemele,
I only have one comment.
When my oldest son was born I belonged to a nondenominational Protestant church which practiced infant dedication and only baptised adults. My second son chose to be baptised when he was 14, but my oldest never was baptised, and swears he’ll never set foot in a church again. He apparently had some bad experiences with a pastor.
The greatest regret of my life is that I didn’t have my son baptised. I pray every day for him. Baptism gives grace that helps lead us to salvation. I wish so much that I could go back in time and give this gift to my son.
Please consider baptising the many children that I pray you will have.
I only have one comment.
When my oldest son was born I belonged to a nondenominational Protestant church which practiced infant dedication and only baptised adults. My second son chose to be baptised when he was 14, but my oldest never was baptised, and swears he’ll never set foot in a church again. He apparently had some bad experiences with a pastor.
The greatest regret of my life is that I didn’t have my son baptised. I pray every day for him. Baptism gives grace that helps lead us to salvation. I wish so much that I could go back in time and give this gift to my son.
Please consider baptising the many children that I pray you will have.
C
CarrieMG
Guest
Dear Schelmele,
God may well be giving you this time to work out things before He blesses you with children. I’ver been there and now am expecting our fifth. I also went through a similar problem with my husband saying he agreed to somethings (religious and otherwise) that he had never really thought through and when the time came to follow through he chose different paths from what we had agreed to. It did tremendous damage to our marriage and my trust in him. I am a devout Catholic and do not believe in divorce, but there was a time I pulled my car to the side of the road and sobbing told the Lord that if it damned my soul to Hell for divorcing him, hell couldn’t possibly be worse than being married to my husband. I have been happily married for 9 years although my husband and I were married almost 16 years ago! (There’s too many years of misery for you).
I am sharing this with you because I wish when we had only been married for a few years, we had sought Christian marriage counseling. (Been the secular route - my advice if you go, go to a christian counselor). Trust is vital in your marriage. You and your wife need to learn how to “be on the same page.” One of the things our Christian (not either of the secular) counselor had us do was to make a family mission statement. We both had to put down what we wanted our family to be - i.e. respectful, loving, responsible… and ways we saw ourselves living out these ideals. Then the counselor dealt with issues when one of us was not being faithful to our mission. That truly helped us become one and having to be accountable to our mission statement made my husband have to think through things before he committed to them.
I spent years regretting I had married my husband. I no longer do but wish I had sought help earlier on.
If your wife wishes to have her children baptized just to make her own mother happy, she needs to learn more about her own faith. Encourage her to do so. She can’t share her joy of her faith with you or any children if she doesn’t understand it. If she is worried more about her mother than about God, she doesn’t understand her faith.
Read what Jesus HImself had to say about divorce before you decide to divorce your wife for ANY reason. (Matt 5:31-32, Matt 19:3-10, Luke 16:18, Malachi 2:16, Matt 19:16-19, Mark 10:11-12, 17-19, Luke 18:19-20, Romans 7:2-3) It is hard. I know you asked about Baptism, but marriage is also a sacrament in the Catholic Church. Your wife learning to work things out with you and you learning to work things out with her is what God sees as the best means for each of you to come to love HIm and gain your salvation. Divorcing one another is literally saying , “I do not care if you go to Hell.”
I know my defintion of the grace of marriage is very simplified, but it made me think of another area to deal with in baptism. I know nothing of the beliefs of the Anabaptist faith so please forgive my ignorance. I know in some churches baptism means you are definately saved and going to heaven. In the Catholic Church Baptism is an initiation into the process of salvation as we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” for all of our lives. Perhaps it is a different understanding of the role of Baptism that you and your wife must also deal with.
My prayers are with you. Carrie
God may well be giving you this time to work out things before He blesses you with children. I’ver been there and now am expecting our fifth. I also went through a similar problem with my husband saying he agreed to somethings (religious and otherwise) that he had never really thought through and when the time came to follow through he chose different paths from what we had agreed to. It did tremendous damage to our marriage and my trust in him. I am a devout Catholic and do not believe in divorce, but there was a time I pulled my car to the side of the road and sobbing told the Lord that if it damned my soul to Hell for divorcing him, hell couldn’t possibly be worse than being married to my husband. I have been happily married for 9 years although my husband and I were married almost 16 years ago! (There’s too many years of misery for you).
I am sharing this with you because I wish when we had only been married for a few years, we had sought Christian marriage counseling. (Been the secular route - my advice if you go, go to a christian counselor). Trust is vital in your marriage. You and your wife need to learn how to “be on the same page.” One of the things our Christian (not either of the secular) counselor had us do was to make a family mission statement. We both had to put down what we wanted our family to be - i.e. respectful, loving, responsible… and ways we saw ourselves living out these ideals. Then the counselor dealt with issues when one of us was not being faithful to our mission. That truly helped us become one and having to be accountable to our mission statement made my husband have to think through things before he committed to them.
I spent years regretting I had married my husband. I no longer do but wish I had sought help earlier on.
If your wife wishes to have her children baptized just to make her own mother happy, she needs to learn more about her own faith. Encourage her to do so. She can’t share her joy of her faith with you or any children if she doesn’t understand it. If she is worried more about her mother than about God, she doesn’t understand her faith.
Read what Jesus HImself had to say about divorce before you decide to divorce your wife for ANY reason. (Matt 5:31-32, Matt 19:3-10, Luke 16:18, Malachi 2:16, Matt 19:16-19, Mark 10:11-12, 17-19, Luke 18:19-20, Romans 7:2-3) It is hard. I know you asked about Baptism, but marriage is also a sacrament in the Catholic Church. Your wife learning to work things out with you and you learning to work things out with her is what God sees as the best means for each of you to come to love HIm and gain your salvation. Divorcing one another is literally saying , “I do not care if you go to Hell.”
I know my defintion of the grace of marriage is very simplified, but it made me think of another area to deal with in baptism. I know nothing of the beliefs of the Anabaptist faith so please forgive my ignorance. I know in some churches baptism means you are definately saved and going to heaven. In the Catholic Church Baptism is an initiation into the process of salvation as we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” for all of our lives. Perhaps it is a different understanding of the role of Baptism that you and your wife must also deal with.
My prayers are with you. Carrie
P
PassthePeace1
Guest
Hi, my name is Pam and this is my first post…I was raised Southern Baptist, but attended a Mennonite Church for years…then finally before converting to Catholicism, was Quaker. I too at one time felt like you, because that is the way I was raised.
However it occured to me while reading your post that “Anabaptist” means re-baptizer…because they rebaptized Catholics that had been baptized as infants. So just have the baby baptized, and then if he or she decideds to become Mennonite, then rebaptize! If they decided to become Catholic, its already a done deal…Pam http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif
However it occured to me while reading your post that “Anabaptist” means re-baptizer…because they rebaptized Catholics that had been baptized as infants. So just have the baby baptized, and then if he or she decideds to become Mennonite, then rebaptize! If they decided to become Catholic, its already a done deal…Pam http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif
S
Shlemele
Guest
Actually in all honesty this might be the best route to take. I still haven’t had the courage to bring this up with my wife (stressful time at work, she is sick, and I am going into one of the busiest weekdays of my job tomorrow). Last time we almost separated and I need to get some things worked out in my head before we unearth this old beast.
L
La_Chiara
Guest
Schlemele–Your posts on this thread as well on the other thread you have been posting on lead me to believe that baptizing your children Catholic is not the pressing issue with you and your wife. Your marriage is clearly the issue. It sounds like the stresses of life are negatively affecting your marriage. You are focusing on your wife’s “lying” about her Catholic faith, but it seems you are feeling angry and out of control. It might help for you to really focus on your marriage and strengthen it. A sacramental Catholic marriage requires subordinating the self for the sake of one’s spouse, the marriage, and the relationship. But the benefits to oneself are huge and worth the sacrafice. Please consider a Catholic Marriage Encounter weekend.
M
MooCowSteph
Guest
Sometimes the simplest and most obvious solutions are best. Good post, Pam. :yup:
S
Shlemele
Guest
La Chiara:
Put the shoe on the other foot. Say I was a Catholic whose spouse agreed to raise the children in the Catholic church and then changed their mind. Do you think you would have the same advice? Are ther things in my marrage that arn’t as good as I wish they could be? Of course, but this thing has been festering for quite a while and I feel like the only one in the relationship who cares. Since we last argued over it she has never spoken of it. Oh and just for the record do you think you would be advising me to learn about her church is she wasn’t the Catholic in the situation?
L
La_Chiara
Guest
This is a Catholic forum. We who are Catholic love our faith and try to advise based on our Catholic faith.
From your posts, you clearly have stress in your marriage. Some of it surely must be the infertility issues. But I sense that this issue of baptizing the children is a symptom of deeper unresolved issues. Saying that “this thing has been festering for quite a while” and “since we argued over it she has never spoken of it” suggest resentment and communication issues. Please deal with the underlying issues and strengthen your marriage now before your infertility issues are resolved and before you have children. If left unresolved, your issues will only get entrenched when the children come.
P
PassthePeace1
Guest
Shlemele,
I hesitate in posting again, since you maybe getting different advice and it might just add to your confusion. However, the mother in me of three adults, probably about your age, feels compelled. I can really see the situtation you and your wife are in, having once been there myself. I would like to draw attention to a couple of things, that hit me while reading your post. In your defensive I can see why you are troubled, you thought this was resolved before you got married. However, I think maybe there is more to it than your wife changing her mind…maybe she has grown in her faith, and relizes she shouldn’t have made such a rash agreement. The fact she hasn’t brought it up again, suggest to me that she see the problem she created, and is trying to resolve it thru prayer. Which would be the very thing to do! So my advice is the same for you…open yourself up to the Holy Spirit! Ask him to show you the right thing to do, and be prepared to comply. I really wish I had done this years ago, myself! It would have saved me from the guilt I have now, in the fact I have two unbaptized adult children. At the time they were little I really did believe I was doing the correct thing, by not baptizing them as infants. I pray for them daily, and have offered many Rosaries up just for this intention. I do believe God will answer my prayers, and am indeed starting to see movement in that area. My youngest is making plans to be baptised in his church this summer, and my middle son, told me he has started reading his bible everyday! Frankly, the middle one was the one I worried most about, and now Praise God, he is reading his bible…it’s a start!
Shlemele, please don’t fret…just offer it up to God! And look at this in a positive light…that is instead of thinking it may split up your marriage, rather it is just one of MANY (believe me, there will be more) hurdles to cross in marriage life. If you two both resolved to settle this issue, thru Christ…it will instead strenghten your marriage. Believe or not, my husband and I now look forward to issues that come up…becomes we have learned that they only strenghten us as a couple and make us more united.
Well I have rambled long enough, Peace be with you…and I will pray for you and your wife!!!..Pam
I hesitate in posting again, since you maybe getting different advice and it might just add to your confusion. However, the mother in me of three adults, probably about your age, feels compelled. I can really see the situtation you and your wife are in, having once been there myself. I would like to draw attention to a couple of things, that hit me while reading your post. In your defensive I can see why you are troubled, you thought this was resolved before you got married. However, I think maybe there is more to it than your wife changing her mind…maybe she has grown in her faith, and relizes she shouldn’t have made such a rash agreement. The fact she hasn’t brought it up again, suggest to me that she see the problem she created, and is trying to resolve it thru prayer. Which would be the very thing to do! So my advice is the same for you…open yourself up to the Holy Spirit! Ask him to show you the right thing to do, and be prepared to comply. I really wish I had done this years ago, myself! It would have saved me from the guilt I have now, in the fact I have two unbaptized adult children. At the time they were little I really did believe I was doing the correct thing, by not baptizing them as infants. I pray for them daily, and have offered many Rosaries up just for this intention. I do believe God will answer my prayers, and am indeed starting to see movement in that area. My youngest is making plans to be baptised in his church this summer, and my middle son, told me he has started reading his bible everyday! Frankly, the middle one was the one I worried most about, and now Praise God, he is reading his bible…it’s a start!
Shlemele, please don’t fret…just offer it up to God! And look at this in a positive light…that is instead of thinking it may split up your marriage, rather it is just one of MANY (believe me, there will be more) hurdles to cross in marriage life. If you two both resolved to settle this issue, thru Christ…it will instead strenghten your marriage. Believe or not, my husband and I now look forward to issues that come up…becomes we have learned that they only strenghten us as a couple and make us more united.
Well I have rambled long enough, Peace be with you…and I will pray for you and your wife!!!..Pam
B
Brenda_V
Guest
Yes I would. I did when we got married, actually did some research prior to our Marriage but there are so many different Lutheran churches that it was a bit difficult so I didn’t do too much more until my husband “found” the Lutheran Church he could live with
Turned out to be so much more “Catholic” than the Lutheran church of his parents. His wonderful Pastor even has a Crucifix in his home office (something in my research I found was not a “good” thing to have in some Lutheran Churches).Shlemele - I have been praying for you and want you to know that your wife may be just avoiding the discussion for many reasons, one being she is afraid of losing you and the stress of not being able to conceive.
You sound like a man who wants his marriage to work. Stress from a job as well as from infertility can cause some serious issues in a Marriage. Perhaps you and your wife need a vacation, free of infertility discussions, free of discussions about Baptism and for sure free of your jobs.
Now focus on what you two have in common. Why did you propose to her? Why did you marry her? Why did she say “Yes”? Why did you she get married to you? Start from there. Then when you two start to discuss infant Baptism you can keep these thoughts in mind (it wouldn’t hurt to write them down for both of you to refer back to).
Brenda V.
G
genealogist
Guest
This site might offer some help. While not having an imprimatur I would hope most would see it as preferable to divorce.
aifw.org/resource/baptism/bapt13.shtm
aifw.org/resource/baptism/bapt13.shtm
- Status