Exhusband and Daughter

[marlo]

i would suggest to ask your Pastor if your church will accept the baptism of your daughter to the Catholic church, if yes, then this will be a non issue.

if not, what harm could it get to your daughter, then after a few years, if your daughter decides to convert to your church then she will be baptised again at your church, then this time your husband will not able to stop it as you did not stop her baptism in the Catholic Church.

I hope the issue here is really the salvation of your child and not just a power struggle between you and your husband.

Let her be baptised then she can convert later if she wished too, there’s no law that will deny your right as a mother if she was baptised in the catholic church. Let her understand the teachings of both churches and let her decided in the future.

This morning I called my Daughters teaches at the catholic church. She said that she would see to it that nothing was going to be imposed on her until she gave her concent. I have am appointment with the teacher this week. I asked her to ask my daughter if she wanted to be baptised then if she said no she agreed to put it wrighting that nothing will be done wothout my concent. I am fine with this. My next concern is if my daughter will continue to be asked.
Just wondering, has her Father broken any Cannon Law by doing all of this behind my back? Or if he is not Baptised and is not taking classes in the Catholic Church, should he be expecting my daughter to be baptised? How would I find out if he is in fact baptised?

Thank you once more ! Please continue to pray for my family.

 

[5Loaves]

I can tell you from my point of view, as the person who would be in charge of the child’s preparation to be baptized, I cannot proceed until and unless I have permission of the custodial parent, and if there is joint custody that means both parents. There is Catholic canon law on the issue, which says one parent at least must ask for it, but there is also civil law that we are obliged to follow.

Call the priest of the parish where this is happening and bring your concern directly to him, as most likely he is unaware of the situation and the “Sunday school teacher” may also not have been given complete information.

In addition to this good advice, be aware of the reality that it is highly unlikely this parish priest has not come in contact with similar situations many times in the past. There are many children of divorced parents and some of those have Catholic parents, or a parent who wants to be Catholic.

I have worked for a number of years in the RCIA process with adults who have come to the point where they want to come into the Catholic Church, One of the things we see as these folks walk that path are real changes in the choices they make which result in them being better persons in their relations with others. This is the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I hope and pray that your ex husband will continue on with his journey with RCIA and that the Holy Spirit would work in him so that his relationship with you could become more harmonious and jointly supportive of your daughter in her own faith journey. Thank you for the love of the Lord you seek to foster in your daughter,

I hope when you meet with the parish priest you will find him a kind and thoughtful man and that he will be able to reassure you about your daughter’s situation in his parish at this time. He may know someone else in the “formation” process in the parish who you could be in touch with, if he himself is not available, in the future if indeed your daughter continues to worship there when she is with her father. I’m glad you’ve found other responses here helpful and you can certainly continue to bring questions and concerns here.

 

[5Loaves]

i would suggest to ask your Pastor if your church will accept the baptism of your daughter to the Catholic church, if yes, then this will be a non issue.

if not, what harm could it get to your daughter, then after a few years, if your daughter decides to convert to your church then she will be baptised again at your church, then this time your husband will not able to stop it as you did not stop her baptism in the Catholic Church.

Any person baptized in the Catholic Church is Catholic in the eyes of the Church. They fall under the obligations of the Church, as concerns any number of things. As a Catholic you are surely aware of these obligations.

I completely disagree that if the pastor of another Christian/non-Catholic ecclesial community accepts Catholic baptism then celebrating that sacrament would be “a non issue”… The obligations fall on the person who is now Catholic for the rest of their life. Being “baptized again” is impossible in the eyes of the Church.

This is what is behind the Canon already quoted:

Can. 868 §1. For an infant to be baptized licitly:

1/ the parents or at least one of them or the person who legitimately takes their place must consent;

2/ there must be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be delayed according to the prescripts of particular law after the parents have been advised about the reason.

 

[Jayne_L]

What I don’t understand is why the father of the child hasn’t talk to her himself. If he is in RCIA, he knows very well that there has to be a full commitment from the parent who has the child full time, in order to have the child Baptised.

I think we should give the father the benefit of the doubt. If he is attending RCIA he may not realise that the consent of both parents is required - I know that when I first became Catholic I thought it was only necessary for one parent to promise to do their best to raise the child catholic. If this subject hasn’t yet been discussed in detail in RCIA he may be acting on inaccurate information.

In these cases we should always try and act with as much charity as possibly and assume the best intentions.