Depressed I can't be catholic ;-(

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Adamski

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  1. I was confirmed catholic
  2. right after i was confirmed my parents left the church and convinced me to also
  3. I joined a baptist church, met my wife and was married there, it is both of our only marriage
  4. I read the bible for the first time at 34 at the baptist church with no direction and realized I had to be catholic or orthodox
  5. I have been going to weekly or daily mass for 2 years not recieving the sacraments and all my wife would need to do is have our marriage blessed and she won’t so I can’t recieve the sacraments
– I don’t know what to do
 
Adamski said:
  1. I was confirmed catholic
  2. right after i was confirmed my parents left the church and convinced me to also
  3. I joined a baptist church, met my wife and was married there, it is both of our only marriage
  4. I read the bible for the first time at 34 at the baptist church with no direction and realized I had to be catholic or orthodox
  5. I have been going to weekly or daily mass for 2 years not recieving the sacraments and all my wife would need to do is have our marriage blessed and she won’t so I can’t recieve the sacraments
– I don’t know what to do
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You need to speak to a priest in your diocese. Your situation is personal and consequently peculiar; but in such a sensitive matter, I would not use the internet. I strongly encourage you to speak to a priest.

And pray: there is nothing God can’t do for you. That is always good cause for hope; and hope has nothing to do with depression, which is the Evil One’s way of attacking us and our hope: pray, believe and have hope.

I am praying for you; the Church is praying for you.
 
Adamski said:
  1. I was confirmed catholic
  2. right after i was confirmed my parents left the church and convinced me to also
  3. I joined a baptist church, met my wife and was married there, it is both of our only marriage
  4. I read the bible for the first time at 34 at the baptist church with no direction and realized I had to be catholic or orthodox
  5. I have been going to weekly or daily mass for 2 years not recieving the sacraments and all my wife would need to do is have our marriage blessed and she won’t so I can’t recieve the sacraments
– I don’t know what to do
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Talk to a priest…I believe there is another way if your wife won’t cooperate.

But really the big issue I see is with your wife…why will she not let you recieve the sacraments and why is she putting a stumbling block in your way? Maybe she has some misconceptions about the church? It might help for both of you to talk with a priest? I would go in first by myself though.
 
DaddyGirl said:
What do you mean?
Why can’t you receive the sacraments unless your wife agrees to have the marriage blessed?

You got married in a Christian church, isn’t that considered “valid”?
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Two non-Catholics who marry outside the Catholic Church do so validly (assuming no impediments such as prior marriages), but the OP was a Catholic who married outside the Church. The Church has rules for its members, and unless those are followed, the marriage attempt is automatically invalid.
 
DaddyGirl said:
Ah.
So…if the OP wasn’t baptized Catholic before he got married…and then became Catholic after he got married…he would now be able to receive the sacraments?
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Yes. The Church does not apply her ecclesiastical rules to non-Catholics. (This does not, of course, refer to the divine rules about marriage, such as not being able to marry someone who is already married to someone else.)
 
DaddyGirl said:
What do you mean?
Why can’t you receive the sacraments unless your wife agrees to have the marriage blessed?

You got married in a Christian church, isn’t that considered “valid”?
Click to expand...
It’s only valid in the Catholic church for him to receive the sacraments.
 
Have you asked your priest about the possibility of getting a radical sanation?
 
There is a procedure called a radical sanation in which a marriage can be brought into the Church without a new marriage ceremony. Ask your pastor about this.
 
Adamski said:
  1. I was confirmed catholic
  2. right after i was confirmed my parents left the church and convinced me to also
  3. I joined a baptist church, met my wife and was married there, it is both of our only marriage
  4. I read the bible for the first time at 34 at the baptist church with no direction and realized I had to be catholic or orthodox
  5. I have been going to weekly or daily mass for 2 years not recieving the sacraments and all my wife would need to do is have our marriage blessed and she won’t so I can’t recieve the sacraments
– I don’t know what to do
Click to expand...
Go straight to your priest, and if he doesn’t present you with any other options, go to the diocese. As others have said, there are procedures to deal with this.

But also consider some counseling for you and your wife. If she is not cooperating you may have more problems in your marriage once you DO start receiving the sacraments again. Is she anti-Catholic? Is it causing conflict between you two? You also need to deal with that issue.
 
I fully agree that this needs to be discussed with your priest and also you and your wife need to continue discussing this.

As I was thinking about this…the following came to mind…
NOTE: I am not advising what follows…it’s just a train of thought I had…

You wish to return to the sacraments and cannot because at present you are not married in the Church. Your wife refuses to have the marriage blessed by the Church.
Technically you CAN return to the Sacraments if you commit to living chastely with your wife…“As Brother and Sister”…
I wonder what her reaction would be if you explained to her that, while you respect her wish not to have the marriage blessed in the Church, that your spiritual need for the sacraments is such that you must discontinue conjugal relations with her since, in the eyes of the Church, you are not married…
Her choice is then to either submit (out of love and the recognition of how important this is to you) to this additional ceremony and commitment, or to forgo conjugal relations for the remained of your lives together because you must follow your conscience abck into full communion with His Church.

I repeat here…I am NOT advising this as a course of action…It might have a use as a discussion point between you and your wife…a thought process by which you could express how important this matter is to you…
But since I do not know you or your wife…it might actually be a damaging course of discussion…

The only advice I am giving here is that it is Best to talk to your priest…

Peace
James
 
Your root problem is within your home. You as a baptist married a nice baptist girl who was raised thinking the Catholics are flat wrong.

Patience. Don’t argue. Live a self sacrificing life, honor her always over yourself and PRAY PRAY PRAY.

I started out non Catholic, when I started trying to join it was more than simply a non starter in my household it was more of a nuclear event. My priest flat told me, if its that big a deal do not come remain where you are, as a protestant.

Four years later we are both going through RCIA.

But above all Pray constantly and always for years if needed and do not argue live at peace.
 
JRKH said:
I fully agree that this needs to be discussed with your priest and also you and your wife need to continue discussing this.

As I was thinking about this…the following came to mind…
NOTE: I am not advising what follows…it’s just a train of thought I had…

You wish to return to the sacraments and cannot because at present you are not married in the Church. Your wife refuses to have the marriage blessed by the Church.
Technically you CAN return to the Sacraments if you commit to living chastely with your wife…“As Brother and Sister”…
I wonder what her reaction would be if you explained to her that, while you respect her wish not to have the marriage blessed in the Church, that your spiritual need for the sacraments is such that you must discontinue conjugal relations with her since, in the eyes of the Church, you are not married…
Her choice is then to either submit (out of love and the recognition of how important this is to you) to this additional ceremony and commitment, or to forgo conjugal relations for the remained of your lives together because you must follow your conscience abck into full communion with His Church.

I repeat here…I am NOT advising this as a course of action…It might have a use as a discussion point between you and your wife…a thought process by which you could express how important this matter is to you…
But since I do not know you or your wife…it might actually be a damaging course of discussion…

The only advice I am giving here is that it is Best to talk to your priest…

Peace
James
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I can’t recommend against this strongly enough. Sex should never, ever be used as a weapon, not even in a “hypothetical” discussion.

I can assure you that if my spouse said anything along the lines of: “It’s clear you have an issue with me becoming Catholic but until you give me what I want and go through a ceremony of a religion that you are against there will be no sex” to me suddenly religious differences would be the very least of our problems.
 
bitznbitez said:
Your root problem is within your home. You as a baptist married a nice baptist girl who was raised thinking the Catholics are flat wrong.

Patience. Don’t argue. Live a self sacrificing life, honor her always over yourself and PRAY PRAY PRAY.

I started out non Catholic, when I started trying to join it was more than simply a non starter in my household it was more of a nuclear event. My priest flat told me, if its that big a deal do not come remain where you are, as a protestant.

Four years later we are both going through RCIA.

But above all Pray constantly and always for years if needed and do not argue live at peace.
Click to expand...
Good advice this…And yet one must not just sit on their hands either. Being from a Baptist background, the OP and his wife might find some help in St Paul’s writings on matters of the interrelation of married couples and the matter of a believer being married to a non-believer…etc…again, not in the sense of “here is the question and there is the answer” because each case is particular…Rather these readings can be used as discussion points as they try to move forward.
Jesus said something about needing to Love Him more than any other, and even leaving others for his sake…(sorry don’t have time to look up the specific quotes)…
Each and all of these things can and should be discussed by the OP and his wife in an effort to move more fully toward the fullness of Truth.

As you say above…It may take some years…

Peace
James
 
Adamski said:
  1. I was confirmed catholic
  2. right after i was confirmed my parents left the church and convinced me to also
  3. I joined a baptist church, met my wife and was married there, it is both of our only marriage
  4. I read the bible for the first time at 34 at the baptist church with no direction and realized I had to be catholic or orthodox
  5. I have been going to weekly or daily mass for 2 years not recieving the sacraments and all my wife would need to do is have our marriage blessed and she won’t so I can’t recieve the sacraments
– I don’t know what to do
Click to expand...
Not quite true, you could revert, but you could not engage in conjugal relations with your wife. You really should talk with a Catholic priest, they would be able to advise you.
 
Not engaging with intimacy with my wife; I’ve tried that, for three-five month periods. It damaged our relationship and she didn’t change her stance and made her put her heels in deeper. Currently she goes to mass about once a month and my kids go almost every week with me who goes every week.

Remaining in a Protestant church until she is ready. That is impossible. I would be comitting a mortal sin I am capable of not. Since I believe in 100% of what the church teaches and am capable of attending mass every week I must go.

Radical sanation, I need to call the Archdioses because I thought I could do that bit my priest didn’t give me that option. I have done a lot of research on it.

My whives major problem is her deceased mother’s fall out with the catholic church and one priest in particular, which makes her emotionally unreasonable when it comes to the subject
 
DaddyGirl said:
Ah.
So…if the OP wasn’t baptized Catholic before he got married…and then became Catholic after he got married…he would now be able to receive the sacraments?
Click to expand...
Just to she’d some light on the prior baptism: In the Roman Catholic Church you can not be “baptized Catholic”. Everyone who recieves the Holy Spirit in baptism is baptized a disciple of Christ and this a Christian, hence with some minor formula debated most Protestant baptisms are actually recognized as valid by the Catholic Church. However the true issue here is that the gentleman in question was CONFIRMED in the Church by a bishop. That is to say he recieves the final sacrament of initiation into the ROMAN CATHOLIC church and was at that time a full fledged Catholic in full communion with the church. However when you left the church or “fell away” as any priest would word it, you separated yourself physically. By marrying outside of the Catholic Church you separated yourself sacramentally. I would point out that is by no means grounds for excommunication and thus you can still recieve the sacraments starting with reconciliation. Your wife’s will may not be to follow canon law but no priest will deny you the sacraments due to an interfaith marriage which predates your return to the graces of the church. Explain the timeline of events and ask for reconciliation. Problem solved!
 
Adamski said:
Not engaging with intimacy with my wife; I’ve tried that, for three-five month periods. It damaged our relationship and she didn’t change her stance and made her put her heels in deeper. Currently she goes to mass about once a month and my kids go almost every week with me who goes every week.

Remaining in a Protestant church until she is ready. That is impossible. I would be comitting a mortal sin I am capable of not. Since I believe in 100% of what the church teaches and am capable of attending mass every week I must go.

Radical sanation, I need to call the Archdioses because I thought I could do that bit my priest didn’t give me that option. I have done a lot of research on it.

My whives major problem is her deceased mother’s fall out with the catholic church and one priest in particular, which makes her emotionally unreasonable when it comes to the subject
Click to expand...
This is another misunderstanding. The sin you are referring to is apostasy. Which is the rejection of Christ. Pre Vatican 2 many Catholic scholars and leader considered attending any Christian service which was NOT Catholic (at that time even Eastern Orthodox) was in and of itself a rejection of Christ’s mercy as it was considered only to be betowed upon the original Church. However nowadays thanks to Vatican 2 you may attend any service you like so long as you do not renounce the Holy Trinity. THAT you must be willing to lay down your life for. However I have a baptist deacon friend and I have attended many of his services with no apostasy worries. In fact a catholic can even recieve sacraments from Eastern Orthodox priests now. And it’s all valid across the board and vice versa. The only thing a priest may be a stickler about is recieving communion in the baptist church. Since the minister does not have apostolic succession he has no power of transubstantiation and therefore can not consecrate a “Eucharist” but attending services with your wife…no sin. 🙂
 
I will amend that last reply by adding that unless you are in full communion with the Church you are actually not required to attend mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. You are expected to but if you read the catechism, not required. As in if you do not there is no sin. Once again you may praise Vatican 2
 
And radical sanation. If you can enter the Church again as an individual, do so. Become sacramentally involved on your own and remain in a state of purgation (excuse the pun) as far as the validity if your marriage is concerned. You said that she may become ready to have your marriage blessed. Until that time your marriage is by canon law “invalid” but by confessing your marriage outside the Church it is viewed as a “marriage attempt” much the “attempt” to ordain women priests. However you may recieve sacramental absolution for it. And that will get you where you WANT to be. In a state of sacramental communion with the church. Radical sanation is tricky and RARE and also affects your wife’s position in the long run should she choose to enter the Church down the road herself. As Im sure you’ve found in your research. Good luck and I hope the ramblings of this seminarian has been helpful!
 
I second the motion of seeing and talking to your Priest or Spiritual Adviser. They will know what to do my dear friend and aww, :hug1:
 
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