In-laws baptized our children without permission

[EasterJoy]

Except Jesus condemned those who are so caught up in rules they can’t see 2 ft in front of their face and have no charity or compassion for others mistakes.

I am reading Pope’s Francis’ book, “The Joy of the Gospel” the Pope wants us to have charity for each other. The parents in this case don’t follow church rules very closely if they are fallen away. If they want strife in their family they will have it or they can forgive and not treat their parents like they are the enemy. Remember the commandant to respect ones parents? How about that rule.

Mistake, my foot. When you make a mistake, you say “oops, I made a mistake.” You don’t say, “I was right, I don’t care what you’d think, I’d do it all over again and the heck with you!!”

The Church does not give grandparents the right to overrule the rights of parents. If you’re bold enough to teach the Pope about morality and you’re bold enough to say you know better than canon law, I know how well my authority as a parent is going to fare with you! What on earth gives you the right to be so self-righteous and then call others the “uncharitable” ones because they don’t let you run everything according to your personal lights? What kind of parent would trust you to respect their wishes? The choice is to let you do what you will behind my back or else don’t let you go behind my back. The choice of turning my back on you and being able to trust you is closed, and by your hand.

What the parents did is plainly wrong, and the parents aren’t repentant. If Jesus didn’t care about rules, why on earth did he travel all over Galilee and Judea preaching repentance? Why would it say in John 2:24-25 “But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.” Was Jesus being uncharitable because he understood human nature and acted accordingly?

Their children are not engendering strife, but enforcing boundaries that were crossed as if it could be done with impunity. They have been forced to conclude that they can’t trust their parents because their parents do not believe they have to respect the natural rights of a parent if they don’t see fit. Their hands are tied, I’d say. If the grandparents don’t like it, they have only themselves to thank.

 

[David011]

Quote:
Originally Posted by David011 View Post

So if the baptism doesn’t mean much to you in regards to religion I don’t know why you are trying to get a point across to your in-laws? What else do you think they will do with your kids behind your back? Are you having other problems with them? As I said, if you go to war with them it will affect your marriage, I don’t care how close you are to your wife now. Plus your kids will suffer not seeing them or just seeing them under your conditions.

From a Catholics point of view on here, it is sad you and your wife have fallen away from the church, it is for me anyway. It would be nice if you could do more investigating on the church to see if what you are feeling about the church is valid. Anyone can attend RCIA for more instruction, it doesn’t mean you will come back but it may clear up many misunderstandings you and your wife have about the church.

The attitude I get on this thread is these people are just about one step above a pedophile and that is so unfair to them. And this is from the Catholics, not you. Shameful. Talking about lawyers and counselors.

As I said earlier, don’t get caught up in church rules, Jesus never would and yes I think I can say what I think Jesus would say since I also read the bible. It seems you have never let church rules bother you since you have fallen away so why be concerned about them now? Only to show your in-laws they are wrong? And that leaves your kids where?

But this is advice only from a crazy, conservative, devout Catholic. LOL

Jesus: “Hey guys, here are my ten commandments! But it’s ok, don’t get caught up on them, they’re not that important!”

Personally I would have stopped at conservative. I have never heard of a devout Catholic refer to church laws as “just rules” that people shouldn’t get caught up on. Isn’t that where “Cafeteria” Catholicism stems from? And thank you but no thank you. We are well aware of Church teachings which is actually WHY we aren’t Catholic.

As for the baptism, sure it doesn’t really mean much to us, in a religious sense, but it does in a parental sense. My in laws have DISRESPECTED our authority. From reading your thread on “What’s a Catholic Grandparent to do” I really don’t think anyone will ever make that point clear to you. This is exactly how my in laws are behaving. If they thought they made a mistake then they would apologize and accept it. But they do not. They are completely blind to the fact they are NOT the parents of my children. My kids will continue to see them as much as they like but only when my wife and I are around. After all, if one isn’t doing something they SHOULDN’T be doing with the kids (like overriding parental boundaries) then they should be perfectly ok with this. Please tell me where the suffering is? If they already baptized my children, I’m not going to just look the other way until my in laws are planning their first communion.

As for now the only problem we have with them is the fact that they’re meddling their way into our parenting. We’re not at war with them, we just simply want them to understand their place.

 

[David011]

I now need to read more of Pope Francis’ book on evangelizing to get people to join the faith for my group meeting tonight. I don’t think people will join the faith if we call them fornicators and sinners. The Pope wants us to concentrate on the charity of the gospels.

One more tip from a non catholic, don’t baptize their kids behind their backs. This tends to irk people a little and I’m no expert but it might, just might, be against what the church teaches.

 

[oneofmany]

You know David you complain your in-laws don’t follow the rules but you and your wife don’t follow them either.

You say you are non-Catholic but the real word is fallen away Catholic. You can come back.

 

[oneofmany]

Mistake, my foot. When you make a mistake, you say “oops, I made a mistake.” **You don’t say, “I was right, I don’t care what you’d think, I’d do it all over again and the heck with you!!”
**
The Church does not give grandparents the right to overrule the rights of parents. If you’re bold enough to teach the Pope about morality and you’re bold enough to say you know better than canon law, I know how well my authority as a parent is going to fare with you! What on earth gives you the right to be so self-righteous and then call others the “uncharitable” ones because they don’t let you run everything according to your personal lights? What kind of parent would trust you to respect their wishes? The choice is to let you do what you will behind my back or else don’t let you go behind my back. The choice of turning my back on you and being able to trust you is closed, and by your hand.

What the parents did is plainly wrong, and the parents aren’t repentant. If Jesus didn’t care about rules, why on earth did he travel all over Galilee and Judea preaching repentance? Why would it say in John 2:24-25 “But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.” Was Jesus being uncharitable because he understood human nature and acted accordingly?

Their children are not engendering strife, but enforcing boundaries that were crossed as if it could be done with impunity. They have been forced to conclude that they can’t trust their parents because their parents do not believe they have to respect the natural rights of a parent if they don’t see fit. Their hands are tied, I’d say. If the grandparents don’t like it, they have only themselves to thank.

My husband and I never said that. We do hope we can influence our kids to think about the church and let the kids come to church with us at times though.

 

[Rau]

You know David you complain your in-laws don’t follow the rules but you and your wife don’t follow them either.

You say you are non-Catholic but the real word is fallen away Catholic. You can come back.

True. At least, David admits he is unable to accept some teachings, and has opted out. Unfortunate, but arguably honest.

The GPs, in my judgement, probably acted with good intent, but on reflection, they ought to realise they were wrong to act in a devious way. I don’t blame the GPs for not know the details of this part of Canon Law - and I doubt that David will inform them, lest the GPs discover the obligation on them to notify the Church.

The current accommodation - viz. unsupervised visits are on hold pending the GPs admitting their error - seems appropriate.

One wonders what restrictions David would want to place on the GPs in future - would they be allowed to talk about God and Jesus? I guess the marching rules for the future might be the key issue here.

 

[dedo]

Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut but I am not here to discuss why I’m not Catholic, nor why I’m not raising my kids Catholic if that’s what your trying to bring up. And perhaps you could be more specific as to what exactly it is you want me to take away from the posts. There are many people that posted helpful information regarding Church teachings and their own explanations. Then other posters just made me realize that I know my wife and I are doing the right thing regarding my in-laws. Either way all have helped in some way.

As for your own data based on your own experience,I have to say its just your experience. I personally have witnessed the opposite. I’m glad the Catholic faith worked out for you and Protestantism for your wife.

What I mean exactly is that your in-laws may have erred in their behavior, but your error is much worse.

Secondly, your perspective is about what “they did wrong”, at least in the posts that I have read.

Consider for a moment if this event is happening for a reason.

 

[Rau]

Consider for a moment if this event is happening for a reason.

Looking behind events in our life for signs of “destiny” or “divine intervention” may help us appreciate other perspectives, but cannot give definitive insight as to the reason for events. This particular event happened (IMHO) because the GPs felt it was in the best interest of the child, but failed to recognise the wrongs of the act.

The GPs are pro Catholic and the parents have rejected Catholocism. They need to start by working to understand and respect each other’s beliefs, rights and prerogatives.

 

[dedo]

I’ve read most of this whole thread and am so tired of all the rules and regulations in it. Didn’t Jesus condemn those who only lived by the law but had no charity and compassion for others?

For the OP. When you married a woman who had very devout Catholic parents what did you think would happen? Didn’t you know they would talk about their faith to their grandchildren? If you had married a women whose parents were devout Jews or Muslims or Protestants wouldn’t you expect them to do the same thing?

For those people who suggested bringing in a lawyer or drag the grandparents to a counselor, do you really want to spend a small fortune and start a war? How crazy is that, over religion?

I don’t know what religion you are since you didn’t want to say but if you are secular, why are you so upset? Baptism means nothing to you and your daughter will pick up on that. I am sure your wife’s parents have been praying for her to return to her faith from the time she left and now that she has had a child I am sure they are praying she will come back and bring her family as well.

You say they confirmed they did baptize your daughter, probably since they see their daughter has no thoughts of returning to her faith and getting her child baptized they decided to do it for the fear of Original Sin. If you don’t know about Original Sin you can do a search on it. The parents are probably old school and believe that way and had no thoughts of anything else religion wise for your daughter.

They know they cannot raise her Catholic or take her for her first Communion. The parents would surely be involved in those sacraments and the church would need the parents involvement. Your daughter is bright and would talk about her parents and tell you what is happening.

My advice is to drop this whole thing or your daughter will feel the tension. You have stated your position to the parents and that is all you can do. If you think you will stop devout Catholic people from talking about their religion or praying in front of your daughter then you don’t know about life. The same for Jews or Muslims or Protestants, etc.

I think it is silly the grandparents now need your supervision all the time. Then don’t send your daughter to school, I assure she will see and hear much worse at school, You will need to home school her.

If you still want to be controlling and can’t get over this I see a divorce in your future. Your wife’s parents will always be her parents and we all need to accept our in-laws. I am sure we can all tell you stories about in-laws and how we need to go along to get along. No reason to start a war over this, I am sure that is how Jesus would want it. Peace in families is the most important thing.

Wise counsel!

 

[ringil]

Actually, no I am very sure you don’t know how Jesus would want it. And thank you for making yourself an expert of my marriage, because I TOTALLY don’t have a clue about what my wife wants out of all of this.

My wife AND I made the decision to only allow supervised visits for the same reason you would, if your in-laws had been teaching your children about another faith or anything that contradicts catholic teachings and morality. You are perfectly right, they are my in-laws and the grandparents of my children. Which is why we are not banishing them all together from our lives. That would be very silly. But they are not the co-parents of our kids. I accept them as my in laws and my wife accepts them as her parents. Now THEY need to accept us as adults and the ACTUAL parents of their grandchildren.

When I married the daughter of devout Catholic parents I was pretty sure I was marrying their daughter, not them. Since they are so full of morals and values, my wife and I would have thought RESPECT for boundaries would have been one of them, but clearly it wasn’t. We understand why they did it; they’re old and catholic. We can’t change how they think nor are we trying to but we can certainly change how they act around our children. We do not expect them to abandon their beliefs, we respect them very much (unfortunately we couldn’t get that in return) but we simply don’t want our kids being raised Catholic. Which, after talking with them, was their intention.

Why would I not send my children to school? Unless they are teaching them Catholicism or another religion I don’t see how that matters. Many threads here are all about keeping secularism away from their kids and religious freedom, but I guess when the Catholics are the ones not respecting beliefs, people need to just “let it go”.

Also, I think you need to look at your definition of forgiveness. To forgive does not mean to forget. We can forgive them once they ask for our forgiveness. That has not happened, and they feel no remorse or regret, which signals they still do not have respect for our parenting decisions. We are not asking for their approval of our decisions, we want their respect. In return they will being to fagain our trust.

How offensive of them!

They should understand what they did was wrong and they certainly broke your trust.

It is your decision as the child’s parents to supervise visits with the Grandparents.

Maybe, with time, this will change. But YOU two are the parents. It is great to have Grandparents in kids lives but they have zero authority over them.

Sorry again, for their actions.

 

[HoneyBea]

I am so glad my entire family is united in the Church.

I’m sorry this is happening to the OP family it’s very unfortunate.

But this thread makes me realize how blessed I am and my family to be United in Christ’s love.

 

[kbachler]

For the OP. When you married a woman who had very devout Catholic parents what did you think would happen? Didn’t you know they would talk about their faith to their grandchildren? If you had married a women whose parents were devout Jews or Muslims or Protestants wouldn’t you expect them to do the same thing?

My expectation would be that they would respect our family decisions, whether they agreed with them or not. As such, I would be upset if any grandparent performed or had performed any religious ceremony on or with respect to my children without my knowledge and permission.

I would have a serious conversation with the (grand)parents; with my wife leading the discussion with her family, and make it very clear that boundaries had been crossed, and that this is unacceptable and could unfortunately lead to loss of unsupervised contact with the grandchildren. I would further insist that for some period of time, all contact would be supervised.

 

[Peter_J]

oneofmany, the following may very well be a complete waste of breath, but I’ll say it anyhow: your posts on this thread raises a lot of red flags. You might want to re-evaluate your thinking, possibly under the guidance of your parish priest or someone else who is better informed.

 

[AnnArbor]

I have been following this thread with interest, since much of it mirrors my own experience with my in-laws.

My children were baptized and raised as Catholics. My in-laws, who were devout and conservative Protestants, regularly explained to my children why the Catholic Church was wrong, why sacramentals were evil and why the children should feel free to receive communion in their grandparents’ church when they visited for the weekend.

I wonder how many of the posters who are advocating a casual overlook of the OP’s in-laws’ behavior would have suggested I similarly turn the other way?

 

[David011]

You know David you complain your in-laws don’t follow the rules but you and your wife don’t follow them either.

You say you are non-Catholic but the real word is fallen away Catholic. You can come back.

I think you may have missed the part where we aren’t Catholic… But what does it matter? You said yourself rules aren’t that important to be followed. If you don’t mind me asking, did you ever tell the parents of your children that you illicitly baptized their kids?

 

[EasterJoy]

Wise counsel!

Sorry, but it is objectively impossible that this is true. The advice is full of catechetical errors and totally excuses someone who has violated the rights that the Church herself recognizes that God himself has given parents. If you’re not Catholic, it is inexplicable advice, and if you are Catholic, it is well-meant but wrong-headed.

Honestly, some people here are treating baptism like some fire from Olympus that these brave Mercuries are coming to steal on behalf of their grandchildren. It is so wrong-headed, one hardly knows where to start! The OP realizes that a child ought not be baptized Catholic unless there is good hope that the child will be raised and formed within the bosom of the Church, as is the right of all the baptized. Why is it that Catholics who consider themselves faithful refuse to accept that?

Suffice it to say that when there is a disagreement between yourself and the Church over the dispensing of the sacraments, the truly wise course is to side with the Church. Wisdom does not come from inventing our own way, and we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it does.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think you may have missed the part where we aren’t Catholic… But what does it matter? You said yourself rules aren’t that important to be followed. If you don’t mind me asking, did you ever tell the parents of your children that you illicitly baptized their kids?

What shocks me is that you, OP, are taking the meaning of baptism seriously, while there are Catholics here who are trying to convince you to treat it as nothing. How is this possible?

Reading text in which self-identified devout Catholics try to convince someone outside the Church to take on a sacrilegious and dismissive attitude towards baptism in one breath–*why are you upset? It is nothing to you!–*while proposing that he join the Church in the next breath is almost more than I can stand. That a grandmother thinks she is doing the right thing by illicitly administering baptism and then by omission lying about it to both the child’s parents and the child’s pastor goes beyond the pale.

I hope she takes this to her confessor, and tries to learn and accept why the thing she did was wrong. I hope that is what the OP’s in-laws do, too, and that the OP and his family get their apology as a result.

 

[dedo]

Sorry, but it is objectively impossible that this is true. The advice is full of catechetical errors and totally excuses someone who has violated the rights that the Church herself recognizes that God himself has given parents. If you’re not Catholic, it is inexplicable advice, and if you are Catholic, it is well-meant but wrong-headed.

Honestly, some people here are treating baptism like some fire from Olympus that these brave Mercuries are coming to steal on behalf of their grandchildren. It is so wrong-headed, one hardly knows where to start! The OP realizes that a child ought not be baptized Catholic unless there is good hope that the child will be raised and formed within the bosom of the Church, as is the right of all the baptized. Why is it that Catholics who consider themselves faithful refuse to accept that?

Suffice it to say that when there is a disagreement between yourself and the Church over the dispensing of the sacraments, the truly wise course is to side with the Church. Wisdom does not come from inventing our own way, and we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it does.

Easterjoy, although you have a lot of posts, you do not speak for the Catholic Church.

What I said clearly is that the grandparents erred; however, the error of the OP greater than the error of the grandparents.

I suggest the OP read a little on Padre Pio as this Saint gave straight answers to the questions of many nonbelievers.

The OP has chosen to neglect the spiritual upbringing of his children and come to a Catholic Forum to enforce his perspective.

You have chosen to ignore this.

I have not.

That is where we differ.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Sorry, but it is objectively impossible that this is true. The advice is full of catechetical errors and totally excuses someone who has violated the rights that the Church herself recognizes that God himself has given parents. If you’re not Catholic, it is inexplicable advice, and if you are Catholic, it is well-meant but wrong-headed.

Honestly, some people here are treating baptism like some fire from Olympus that these brave Mercuries are coming to steal on behalf of their grandchildren. It is so wrong-headed, one hardly knows where to start! The OP realizes that a child ought not be baptized Catholic unless there is good hope that the child will be raised and formed within the bosom of the Church, as is the right of all the baptized. Why is it that Catholics who consider themselves faithful refuse to accept that?

Suffice it to say that when there is a disagreement between yourself and the Church over the dispensing of the sacraments, the truly wise course is to side with the Church. Wisdom does not come from inventing our own way, and we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it does.

I’ve shared this before, and I think it’s pertinent here. My father was a devout, practicing catholic, my mother was a protestant. My parents took me to the priest to have me baptized shortly after I was born, and he refused. (The priest was also my great uncle). My father was an abusive alcoholic and the priest knew that they were going to separate and that my mom would get custody. Obviously, a protestant wouldn’t raise her child catholic, so I couldn’t be baptized.

 

[1ke]

Obviously, a protestant wouldn’t raise her child catholic, so I couldn’t be baptized.

Actually, there is nothing “obvious” about this at all.

I know of more than one protestant who continued to keep the commitments made in baptism after a separation/divorce or after their Catholic spouse became non-practicing.