Elderly godparents

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michaelflynn

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My wife and I are expecting our first child in about 4 months. We will be having him baptized as a newborn, and we are trying to find godparents. We just do not have many Catholic friends, ones who are faithful to ALL of the Church’s teachings, which we will insist on. We don’t really have family who fit that bill, either. We are good friends with an older couple we attend church with, and we thought they would be perfect. However, they are in their early seventies. Is age something we should really be concerned with? They are both in good health, and we don’t see them going anywhere anytime soon. But, we realize that being a godparent, when taken seriously, may involve many years of involvement in that child’s faith life. We’re pretty stuck on what to do. Thanks for your help.
 
There’s no prescription, although the Church would prefer young godparents who will be able to guide your child to adulthood. If they’re in their 70s now, they’ll be in their 80s when your child hits his/her teens and thats the time they would have a lot of questions about the faith and you’d need someone else to say the same things you are telling them to reinforce your statements.

Anyway, age is just a preference but not a requirement. If you can’t find anyone else, it is not a problem.
 
Please correct me if I am wrong about the role of godparents.

I have seen in a number of threads in this forum posts that at least suggest it is the role of the godparents to bring a child up in the Catholic faith. Again, as I said in my opening to this post, I may be wrong, but isn’t it the primary duty of the child’s parents to bring them up and educate them in the Catholic faith. Aren’t godparents there to ensure this happens and to step in if it isn’t happening. From what the OP says I can’t see any danger of the parents failing in this duty.

The only rule I know about age is that the godparent must be at least 16.

I would ask them I bet they will be absolutely delighted. I cannot express in words the great honour I felt when I became a godparent.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
. . . . From what the OP says I can’t see any danger of the parents failing in this duty. … . .
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Father’s of young families buy life insurance, because there is always a slight danger that they will not be there to support the family. Spiritual insurance for the family in such an event is also needed.
 
Joe_Kelley said:
Father’s of young families buy life insurance, because there is always a slight danger that they will not be there to support the family. Spiritual insurance for the family in such an event is also needed.
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I think you might have misunderstood my post because I was trying to be gentle rather than blunt. One of the concerns of the OP seemed to me that the godparents may not live long enough to see the children into adulthood. I know the parents could die prematurely. I know this only too well by father died when I was nine years old. But, excluding such a tragedy these parents sound as if they will bring their children up in the Catholic faith and so I don’t think they need to be too worried if the godparents don’t survive until the child reaches adulthood.
 
The way I look at it, it’s better to have excellent godparents for 12 years than lousy or half-hearted godparents for 35.
 
My wife and I have had seven children and selected seven different sets of Godparents. Of the seven sets only ONE set of Godparents did ANYTHING regarding our children during their years growing up. And that one was located 3000 miles away from my son, but he remembered him every birthday, Christmas, graduation, and special Saints days throughout his roughly 18-20 years at home.

To all the other “Godparents” well they just sort of disappeared after Baptism. Never seen or heard from again.
 
corsair said:
My wife and I have had seven children and selected seven different sets of Godparents. Of the seven sets only ONE set of Godparents did ANYTHING regarding our children during their years growing up. And that one was located 3000 miles away from my son, but he remembered him every birthday, Christmas, graduation, and special Saints days throughout his roughly 18-20 years at home.

To all the other “Godparents” well they just sort of disappeared after Baptism. Never seen or heard from again.
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My brother sends me gifts for Christmas and my birthday and he’s 10 000 miles away. With all due respect, sending gifts on special occasions in a person’s life is not what the role of godparent entails.
 
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