"Breaking it" to evangelical parents

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egao_gakari

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…that you’re becoming Catholic.

Anyone have “been there, done that” stories? Particularly ones where it went BETTER than expected.

Hubby is having that conversation with my in-laws today. He says: “If I were telling them I were gay, that would be less scary.”

We have a wonderful relationship with them now, and they’ve never held my Catholicism against me. But we are worried that the general goodwill and family-feeling is going to vanish (forever?) this afternoon. He’s butted heads with them about Catholic stuff in the past, but it will come out of the blue for them, and it’s short notice.
 
He’s a married adult who doesn’t need to justify himself. He can let them know out of courtesy and practicality, but he shouldn’t entertain any arguments, guilt trips, etc. The more he tries to defend the choice, the more they’ll push. His foot has to be firmly planted.
 
egao_gakari said:
…that you’re becoming Catholic.

Anyone have “been there, done that” stories? Particularly ones where it went BETTER than expected.

Hubby is having that conversation with my in-laws today. He says: “If I were telling them I were gay, that would be less scary.”

We have a wonderful relationship with them now, and they’ve never held my Catholicism against me. But we are worried that the general goodwill and family-feeling is going to vanish (forever?) this afternoon. He’s butted heads with them about Catholic stuff in the past, but it will come out of the blue for them, and it’s short notice.
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Been there, done that. It did not go over well. But then, I didn’t expect it to.

I wouldn’t worry that the “good will and family feeling will vanish forever,” though. They may have a hard time with it for a while, but there is no reason for it to ruin the family forever. My parents, as deeply as I love them, are about as anti-Catholic as they come, and we still have a close and loving family. It was rough for a while, though; I won’t lie to you. Maybe if I had followed an approach closer to what Blue-Eyed Lady recommends above, it would have been better, but that’s easier said than done (for me, anyway), and my parents were extremely emotional about the whole thing. Anyway, it’s been a few years, and things are much better now.
 
When my friend’s brother married a Catholic, my friend’s evangelical mother recommended that the two of them follow one practice, to avoid division. And my friend’s family always differentiated between “Catholic” and “Christian,” as did I for a long time. Maybe not quite Jack-Chick-style loathing, but they were always happy to hear from “recovering Catholics.”

My friend’s brother took his mother’s advice and converted to Catholicism.

Now his mom keeps pictures of her granddaughters making their First Holy Communion on the piano.

Your husband should eventually get them to understand that he is not becoming an apostate by becoming Catholic, nor rejecting them as being non-Christian. There’s a bit in C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity that discusses how devout believers in Christ have more in common with other devout believers from different denominations than they do with lukewarm adherents of their own denomination.
 
When I married a Catholic I figured my parents would just die, but they didn’t show any ill will, about 4 years later I made the move to Catholicism and again I figured I’d be disowned but they didn’t really say much.

Now days my father and I have regular peaceful debates (I wish more threads on CAF were as cordial as when my father and I debate, even hotly contested subjects like the Holy Eucharist), they don’t agree with all my positions and I am sure they wish I was still with them at their church but they get along just fine.

Does everyone react this way, hardly, but I think the point I’m trying to make is, even though I figured something would be a horrible experience I still went through with it, trusting in God that no matter what He would make it right.

Tell your husband to keep the faith! Trust in God and if they kick him out on the street, well God has a plan. Even for that.

The other thing is, taking a cue from the post above mine, they will be much more accepting when they come to understand certain things about Catholics. Most Protestants today have no idea why they can’t stand the Catholic Church and those that do know a thing or two, 99% of what they know is wrong, and misinformation. He should go in there ready to explain what the Church really is.
 
My husband isn’t converting just yet, but is slowly working his way toward making a decision, and he just did this about a month ago. He wanted to invite his parents to our convalidation and felt like they should know where he stood first, since he had agreed to participate in a Catholic ceremony.

He said it went just about as he expected. His parents tried to argue theology, but they found they didn’t actually know what the Church teaches - not shocking, since my husband has recently been learning just how many untruths he was taught throughout his life. Husband responded with the Catholic doctrine he’s newly learned, but his parents were unable to wrap their heads around anything and just kept coming back to the same (already addressed) objections. It was hard for them, and the conversation required a lot of patience on his part. Which, fortunately, is not an issue for this man!

He did say he wished he had done his research with his father, who was asking some questions last summer. He said it probably would have been a lot easier for his dad to look and discover with him, rather than having all this information laid out all at once from across the table.

The good news: not so much on the relational level, where he had to have a very difficult conversation with is parents, but overall husband enjoyed this. So far, neither his most recent Protestant pastor (with a doctorate in some sort of theology-related field) nor his parents have been able to make any strong arguments against Catholic teaching. It’s making things clearer for him. And after a very long year that’s very welcome. To both of us.

Husband’s parents asked him to talk to some of their friends, and he readily agreed; as they requested he’s already spoken once to a childhood neighbor who used to be Catholic but fell away several years ago. They’re going to talk again next week: and he has an inkling that he’ll be talking her into turning back, not the other way around! He recently had a conversation with my closest friend, a fallen-away Catholic, and they found they’re both in just about the same position. Husband also has a few more conversations lined up with Protestants he respects. When asked why there aren’t any Catholics on his list? “I’m talking to Protestants because I want them to have the chance to defend the doctrine. The Catholic doctrine is convincing. I don’t need to find a defense.”

He’s really been on fire to talk to people about this lately. Meanwhile, I continue to spend as much time in Adoration as I can within the limits of sanity, and to wonder just how many people are going to follow him into the Catholic Church.

Anyway, my point is that your husband’s conversation with his parents may be challenging, but he will almost certainly take some good away from it – and they may, too! How wonderful if his parents “come home” because of him. I’ve prayed for all of you.

**
 
It did not got too well for my husband. He was never close to his father and converting did not help the relationship. After the shock wore off in a few weeks, his brothers and sisters got over it and accepted the decision, even my anti-Catholic, Baptist minister brother-in-law calmed down after several months. My husband’s mother had a harder time, but after a couple of years, she was ok with it. You must give the family time to absorb the information and come to terms with it in their time, in their own way. Seeing the positive changes in your husband’s life and attitude will go a long way to help.
 
Not much for suggestions here egao_gakari, but congratulations on “you’re becoming Catholic.”

You will receive many graces.

Know that I’ ll be praying for you folks.

God bless.

Cathoholic
 
BlueEyedLady said:
He’s a married adult who doesn’t need to justify himself. He can let them know out of courtesy and practicality, but he shouldn’t entertain any arguments, guilt trips, etc. The more he tries to defend the choice, the more they’ll push. His foot has to be firmly planted.
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Best advice that could be given.
 
I told my non-religious parents two weeks ago, but I assume telling Evangelicals can be a bit more tricky, as they can be quite anti-Catholic.

Some days before I told them I prepared: I wrote down some arguments and questions they would probably have, and I answered them for myself.

It is important to have self-confidence when announcing the big news. They can either accept it, or not, and I know how hard it can be. Anyway, try to stay away from arguing if it turns into yelling. Be calm, honest (why do you want to become Catholic?), know how to answer their faith questions, maybe with reference to the Bible/Jesus quotes.

I expected my parents to freak out, but they didn’t. They couldn’t understand my descison, but they respected it to a certain degree. My father was dissapointed and will not attend my Confirmation mass on Sunday, but my mother will. I expect them to have less problems with my descision after some time.

I tried to prepare them for it. I was openly exploring and learning about the Church. I told them a few times I was going to mass and getting to know Catholic friends. That way I heard all the arguments they had against the Church, and I had more time to “prepare my defence speech”.

Good luck to you, you will be in my prayers.

:blessyou:
 
For the longest time I just told my parents I was going “to church”, never which kind. My mom was sick and I felt it was not the appropriate thing to cause division when she was facing death. I had a brief conversation with her about it, but she had lost the ability to speak by then so it did not go too far. It was never brought up again.

My paternal grandfather hurt me a lot by bringing it up at her funeral, it was the only thing he said to me was that I needed to start going to a Baptist church. Only thing he said at my mom, his daughter’s funeral. I just avoid theological discussion with him, he’s very set in his ways (he’s decided his missionary baptist church is turning against him and becoming too modern).

Other than that, it hasn’t come up much. My dad asks sometimes about “what you catholics believe”, but in a genuinely curious manner no judgement.
 
Thanks for you advice and prayers, everyone. We met with them last night, and it went relatively well! I think it helped that I was there as a buffer, so their concerns about the Church were phrased very respectfully. They were mostly worried that the Church does not offer the kind of community/fellowship they typically associate with the word “Christian,” and that his walk with Jesus would be much harder without that.

His dad, who grew up in a nominally-Catholic home but became evangelical in the 70s, also expressed his opinion that the community we are affiliated with (Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter) is a tiny enclave of “true Christians” in a sea of “Roman Catholics” whose loyalty is to their “denomination” rather than to Jesus, and that we are in for a rude wakeup call when we attend an OF parish. (Despite that we’ve lived away from that community for over a year, and have been attending the local OF parish since then.)

Well anyway, he said his piece, we acknowledged his concerns and did our best to assuage them, and as far as we can tell we parted with no hard feelings. And Hubby feels a lot better with it all out in the open 👍
 
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