I am Catholic and my girlfriend is Protestant

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I will apsolutely never give up my Catholic Faith. The biggest thing that concerns me is her wanting to be a part time Protestant minister. Even though she says the kids can be raised Catholic I feel like they will be pushed to grasp hold of their mothers teaching.
 
You are talking nonsense. How can I deny knowledge of something I did not know about.
Please have some common sense!!
 
TC3033 said:
…I’m always glad my wife didn’t come here for relationship advice when we were in college…

…Ya we have…

…One of the more offensive things I’ve had said to me…

…LOL, there is no respect. Don’t pretend that you implied any…

…and honestly don’t ever tell me “with respect” …
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Look, I’m sorry if you’ve been offended. But fact remains that major faith differences contribute tremendously to marital failure, as the other testimonies here readily and candidly show.

You’ve been the exception, and I’m thrilled for you. Really. But lets please note this;

You’ve been the exception.

Other should not go into a similar situation and expect a similar result. They likely won’t get it.

Full disclosure: I’m not Catholic and only culturally Christian, like my avatar’s namesake. Taking shots at Catholics or Catholic leadership won’t harm anything except your ability to continue participating on these forums.
 
She doesn’t have to convert for you to be married in the Church, but you do have to promise to try to raise your children in the Catholic faith.

If her father is a preacher, with permission from your Bishop, he can perform the marriage ceremony as long as your priest is there as a witness for the Church.

But there is denying that her feelings about the Church is going to be a huge, maybe insurmountable issue for you.

How do you plan to deal with that?
 
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Yes. Since young children usually become very attached to their mother early in life, there’s a better than average chance that what you are concerned about will happen.
 
This is also untrue. They do not “have” to raise their children Catholic. They simply have to try their best.

Can. 1125 The local Ordinary can grant this permission if there is a just and reasonable cause. He is not to grant it unless the following conditions are fulfilled:

1° the catholic party is to declare that he or she is prepared to remove dangers of defecting from the faith, and is to make a sincere promise to do all in his or her power in order that all the children be baptised and brought up in the catholic Church
 
Now you are just being silly.

Canon Law is clear but you don’t want to accept it. It is NOT MANDATORY that the children be brought up Catholic. It is up to the Catholic spouse to do their best. Many people do their best in life but don’t succeed at things.
Take your head out of the sand!!
 
This is your statement: " How you raise them is not how they always turn out, but you are required to raise them Catholic."
 
Canon Law (which was quoted earlier) does NOT say you must promise to raise them Catholic. It says you must do your best. If you can’t see these are different then you have problem.
 
That does not say you must raise them Catholic.
It says you must do your best to raise them Catholic.
 
So you lost the argument and now you are moving the goalposts.
This is a waste of time!
 
thistle said:
That does not say you must raise them Catholic.
It says you must do your best to raise them Catholic.
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I think you are having trouble with the definition of the word “promise”. It is something serious, not if you want to, or if you like. You are promising to do something and before God. We should not give people the impression that it is optional.
 
Which Pope was that, and when? I don’t have the reference offhand, but there has been some development in that doctrine, or hadn’t you heard?
 
I mean that Eh, maybe life will be much easier. It’s not “set in stone” that every “mixed” marriage is destined to be a struggle.
 
Which is pretty much what I was saying too. Many of there replies here, when it comes to “mixed” marriages is that the marriage is doomed to fail, get rid of that non-Catholic and throw that relationship away to go find a Catholic.

Of course…they believe everyone should be Catholic and, from what I understand, marrying a non-Catholic is “settling”

Heck, I’ve sat at Mass and heard homilies where the priest has said “I don’t know why Catholic girls go for non-Catholic boys…Catholic boys will respect you, these others won’t” All while I’m sitting there with my family, my wife is getting this lesson and my boys are hearing that Dad doesn’t respect Mom.

So ya, there’s some sort of intrinsic notion that a mixed marriage is destined for disaster.
 
Does this make you think of Jimmy Soul’s song with only two words changed?
“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life,
Never make a (Protestant) woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get a (Catholic) girl to marry you!”

TC3033: it’s unfortunate about that comment about respect. But, we can’t omit all generalizations when teaching children. For instance, I believe anybody who smokes cigarettes is an idiot. If I had kids, I would state that many times because I believe kids respond best to generalizations. Kids need to identify with the correct side.

We were all taught that smoking is bad by my father’s tales about how weak-willed his employees were. He’d give them financial incentives to quit, but they’d always keep smoking. Well, none of us children smoked out of fear of being considered a weak-kneed ninny. The minute you start pussy-footing about and explain the myriad ways to think of smoking, you open up negative possibilities for your kids.

I hope you are teaching your kids to marry Catholic. It worked for you, right?
 
Lara said:
Does this make you think of Jimmy Soul’s song with only two words changed?
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Me, honestly no…
Lara said:
we can’t omit all generalizations when teaching children.
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No, but aim also of the camp that we can’t stereotype either…which I believe happens here…a lot.
Lara said:
I hope you are teaching your kids to marry Catholic
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Nope, never breached the subject.
Lara said:
It worked for you, right?
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Ya, but my wife didn’t marry Catholic and it worked out for her. 🤷‍♂️
 
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