My Son has been refused the sacrment of Baptism. What can i do?

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94pomfret

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Hi my name is Laura and i was wondering if anyone could help me out. Myself and my husband had an appointment yesterday with our new parish priest to get our third child baptised but he refused us as we are not married in church, as my husband is not a roman catholic but a member of the Anglican church. He said that he would only baptise our son if we wrote to our Lord Bishop Peter and asked for permission for our marriage to be validated in a blessing, which my husband does not know if he is prepared to do even though he has never stood in my way bringing up our children in the church. How will this effect my other two children when they come to take thier next sacrments will they also be punished as i am not married in the church ??

This priest was also aggressive when my mother challenged him on some of these issues and he proceeded to say that me and my husband were liars and if we were calling him a liar he would punch my husbands lights out. This whole situation has upset my whole family so much and i now don’t feel i can bring my children to mass this sunday as i dont feel firstly that i would be made welcome and i dont feel i would respect anything that he would say during the mass after his violent out burst.

If anyone has any advise it would be helpfull as i feel i dont know what to do next.

Kind Regards

Laura Wilkinson
 
Laura-
If you are Catholic and raising the kids Catholic (which it seems that you are doing) I dont understand WHY the priest would deny your youngest the Sacrament?! As to being married or not should not matter.
 
Hi Karin,

He said as i was picking which sacrments i had choosen to take and i could not do that and that i must not attend communion or confession !!

I really don’t understand as my husband asked him if he would baptise a child from a single mother and he said he would as she had not refused to take any sacrements herself.

I have written to our Bishop in Northampton who is away this week and i hope he will be able to advise me and prehaps talk us through a blessing ceromony so we can see if this would compromise our belifes and also see if we can find another priest in our town who would be prepared to carry out both these sacrments as i will not have our new parish priest do them after the way he has acted.

Regards

Laura
 
94pomfret said:
Hi Karin,

He said as i was picking which sacrments i had choosen to take and i could not do that and that i must not attend communion or confession !!
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I see he is judging you and your situation and damning your kids…NICE:rolleyes:
He is right though since you are not married in the CHurch or have had your marriage blessed you should not recieve Communion.
I have written to our Bishop in Northampton who is away this week and i hope he will be able to advise me and prehaps talk us through a blessing ceromony so we can see if this would compromise our belifes and also see if we can find another priest in our town who would be prepared to carry out both these sacrments as i will not have our new parish priest do them after the way he has acted.

Regards

Laura
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Laura-
I hope the Bishop can help you and direct you properly so all works out.
I keep you and your family in my prayers!
 
Eah my mum said that was right aswell which i was not aware of.
 
94pomfret said:
Eah my mum said that was right aswell which i was not aware of.
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🙂
See moms do know something …(joking here)at least that is what I tell my kids.
Can I throw another one out there for ya…you and your spouse should not be having relations either till your marriage is Blessed…you should live like brother and sister.
 
A husband or wife who’s marriage is not blessed in the church cannot receive Holy Comunion until it is blessed. This is what I and my husband were told, and it is true. Find a different parish and bring his threatening behavior to the attention of the bishop. don’t delay in doing that. you might be asked if there are witnesses to his threat. As for your children getting baptized in the church without your marriage being blessed, Iam not sure of the church requirements regarding that.It is best for you to speak to a different priest about it. Get this issue settled soon. I think there might be some kind of dispensation that could be granted for you to get your marriage blessed. Again, talk to a different priest, and bring the other matter to the attention of the local bishop as soon as possible.
 
YOu do not have to be married (in the Church) to have your kids Baptised or have them recieve any other Sacraments.
My youngest was Baptised in the Church and neither my DH or I was Catholic at the time or married in the Church or had we had our marriage blessed either.
 
Hi Everyone,

You have given me alot to think about i think i am going to have to go and visit another priest. As for leaving my parish i dont feel i should do this as i was baptised in this church and parish almost 30 years ago and my son only stated in the infant school attaced to the church last week. So things are complicated and i really dont want to do this. People in the parish have told me not to worry too much as he has upset so many people that he will not be with us long. I do however think that we need to find out about the blessing as it upsets me that this has affected my family and me recivng communion.

Pray for us and hopefully charlie will be baptised soon as he is almost 3 months old now.

Kind Regards & Thanks

Laura Wilkinson.
 
94pomfret said:
Hi Everyone,

You have given me alot to think about i think i am going to have to go and visit another priest. As for leaving my parish i dont feel i should do this as i was baptised in this church and parish almost 30 years ago and my son only stated in the infant school attaced to the church last week. So things are complicated and i really dont want to do this. People in the parish have told me not to worry too much as he has upset so many people that he will not be with us long. I do however think that we need to find out about the blessing as it upsets me that this has affected my family and me recivng communion.

Pray for us and hopefully charlie will be baptised soon as he is almost 3 months old now.>>

The priest should not have spoken to you in the manner in which you described in an earlier post.

And, unfortunately, you did not seem to be aware that the Sacrament of Marriage in the Catholic Church needed to have a priest as a witness, and obviously you did not get permission to be married in your husband’s church validly.

This can all be corrected if you wish. Hopefully you will find a priest that is easy to talk to.

ANd, yes, Baptism can be refused if the priest has good reason to believe that the child will not be brought up Catholic. Perhaps, he used as an indication the fact that you were not married in the Church.

The reason for you not to be able to receive the Sacraments is that you are living in a state of serious sin.

God bless…and I pray that all this gets straightened out quickly.
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Laura–something similar happened to my parents. They got married in a civil ceremony and didn’t attend Mass until I was 8. In order to get myself and my brothers baptized, they had to get their marriage validated by the Church. It really wasn’t a big deal; they did that, then we got baptized. That may be what you need to do, but I don’t see why it’s an issue now, if it wasn’t for your oldest children?

As to the priest’s behavior, that sounds out of line. Even if he’s in the right, there are more gracious ways to deal with the situation than to call you liars.

Blessings to you and good luck.
 
Laura,

I am a canon lawyer and encourage your plan to contact your bishop to resolve the matter. There are canonical issues, but the behavior of the priest can in no way be approved.

Still, you must reflect carefully. Presenting your little one for baptism signifies that you intend to raise him in the Catholic faith. Even one parent has the right to present a child for baptism according to the law. The priest is obliged to baptize the child unless there is reason to doubt the sincerity of the parent or parents in raising the child in the faith. Had your marriage been in the Church, even with one parent non Catholic, there would be no problem.

There is a question though, given that you are not married in the Church. It can be asked what this says about your acceptance of some major Church beliefs about the sacrament of marriage. In a rather poor way, this is the question put to you by the priest. But it is correct to say that by marrying “outside the Church,” you have disqualified yourself from receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist. By such an action, the Church understands you to have broken full communion with us and does not believe reception of Holy Communion would be truthful.

We do not like this situation either, and we hope this will be resolved, and it certainly can be without much fuss through a convalidation.

You or David appear though to have reservations about having your marriage convalidated in the Catholic Church. I do not understand how this would compromise the beliefs either of you have, although you have not indicated what those might be.

A convalidation will be a simple ceremony by which you and David give new consent to marriage in the presence of an authorized priest or deacon and two witnesses. If you have ever been to a Catholic wedding, think of the questions asked of the couple and their response by the vows. That is all that it is. It can be done very quietly and privately. It would also require obtaining the permission of your bishop, since your husband is not Catholic. Permission is given after you promise to do all in your power to safeguard your own faith and to have the children baptized and raised Catholic. Your husband is informed of your promise. Since you live in England, there may be other details to attend to. If there are problems with this new parish priest, your bishop can designate another priest for this purpose. If David is unwilling to go through a convalidation, the bishop has another remedy called a “radical sanation.” I will not explain it here, as the bishop and his staff would be quite familiar with the notion. Such a convalidation would not have civil effects but only spiritual effects.

(Parenthetically, our practice is to go ahead and baptize infants in situations similar to yours but with the plans for convalidation underway. Children born out of wedlock may have parents who will not ever marry, so they are baptized at the request of the Catholic party who will promise to raise them in the faith. If the parents do say they plan to marry in the reasonable future, we begin those plans and baptize the child.)

I believe that you will find convalidation to enrich your marriage and family life.

But again, I do hope you will contact your bishop. May God bless all of you.
 
Hi Dorothy,

I have taken your comments onboard but i do bring my children to church every sunday and we say our prayers every night and the children are attending catholic schools and this leads me to my dilema with the church when i am told that because we were married in a civil ceromony that i am living in sin even though i pray every night am good to my friends and family, Love my husband and family the best way i can. In the multi cultural world we live in it is very hard to vet the religion of the person you fall in love with. I knew we would encounter problems in our married life but it does make me question my faith when i am told things like i am made a mortal sin when tying to do good !
 
Hi Cameron,

I have just seen your post. This is the first time i have had the blessing explained this well to me. Me and my husband thought that he would have to renounce his faith and say that he only recognised the catholic church. I have already emailed my Bishop but he is away until next week but i hope that when he returns he could prehaps arrange Charlies Baptism and our convalidation mabe to take part at the same time as i do love my husband and family more than anything and have always wanted to be married in church. I think we have just been poorly advised. My parish is very important to myself and my extended family who have been a big part of our parish for the last 30 years.

Thankyou so much for all your advise and wisdom and i will let you know how we get on next week when Bishop Peter returns.

Please pray for us and Charlie

Kind Regards

Laura Wilkinson
 
94pomfret said:
Hi Dorothy,

I have taken your comments onboard but i do bring my children to church every sunday and we say our prayers every night and the children are attending catholic schools and this leads me to my dilema with the church when i am told that because we were married in a civil ceromony that i am living in sin even though i pray every night am good to my friends and family, Love my husband and family the best way i can. In the multi cultural world we live in it is very hard to vet the religion of the person you fall in love with. I knew we would encounter problems in our married life but it does make me question my faith when i am told things like i am made a mortal sin when tying to do good !
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you are living in sin when your marriage is not recognized by the church. in order to rectify that, you need it blessed. The canonical lawyer was right. you cannot go to Holy Communion until your marriage is blessed. That is a fact, and that will not change. You can receive a blessing when going inline with the others to communion. you cross your arms on your chest, and the priest will bless you. but it does not change the issue of your marriage. you will be asked before you marriage gets blessed to make a general confession, and then the priest will bless your marriage.

As i said earlier, i do not know if your child can be baptized before your marriage is blessed. The church does not as far as i know, recognize civil unions. My civil union is not recognized, therefore getting the marriage blessed is extremely important. please take everyones advice here, and do not forget to report this issue of the priest to the local bishop.
 
Thankyou Philomena,

Me and my husband are going to have a long chat tonight and i know in my heart he will support me but i also realise he will just be doing it for me and our family as he knows how important it is to me to keep my faith and how much this whole situation has upset me

Thanks again for your advise.
 
94pomfret said:
Thankyou Philomena,

Me and my husband are going to have a long chat tonight and i know in my heart he will support me but i also realise he will just be doing it for me and our family as he knows how important it is to me to keep my faith and how much this whole situation has upset me

Thanks again for your advise.
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Iam delighted that your husband will be willing to do this for you! That is great news! don’t be surprised if he ends up becoming Catholic after he sees how much your faith means to you! my husband was an evolutionist for the first 6 years of our marriage, and he too was willing to get our marriage blessed in the church even though he did not believe in God. In 2005, he suddenly asked me “how does one become Catholic?” and the rest is history! He seen how much my faith meant to me, and he attended church with me because of my back, as i needed his support, and he got more and more curious about the faith everytime we went to church, he has passed the Catechism, and is only months away from being baptized! God sees what is in your heart, and he sees how important this is to you, and your family! Persevere in prayer for your husbands conversion, as myself, and loving family did for Frank ( my hubby ) and God will add this blessing to your life, and before you know it, He will guide your husband to RCIA 🙂 God bless you!
 
In the two countries where I have lived, the US and Germany, it is now a common policy to deny baptism to any child whose parents have not faithfully attended a specific parish church for a period of time. Of course, a very large number of those parents simply stop attending as soon as the child is baptized.

In my opinion, baptism is a right, not, like some other sacraments, a privilege. In addition, it can be administered by any other baptized Christian with the proper intent, form, and matter;; it does not even have to be done by a Catholic, let alone a priest. According to traditional church teaching it is needed to get to heaven, and we are talking about infants who cannot make the choice for themselves, so I don’t see how the church can be withholding it, even if one parent is Hindu and the other atheist. ( I can see why they would withhold it from common baptism during Mass at regular intervals, which replaced private baptisms (a loss in my opinion) at some point after Vatican II.
 
MyPhilomena said:
Iam delighted that your husband will be willing to do this for you! That is great news! don’t be surprised if he ends up becoming Catholic after he sees how much your faith means to you! my husband was an evolutionist for the first 6 years of our marriage, and he too was willing to get our marriage blessed in the church even though he did not believe in God. In 2005, he suddenly asked me “how does one become Catholic?” and the rest is history! He seen how much my faith meant to me, and he attended church with me because of my back, as i needed his support, and he got more and more curious about the faith everytime we went to church, he has passed the Catechism, and is only months away from being baptized! God sees what is in your heart, and he sees how important this is to you, and your family! Persevere in prayer for your husbands conversion, as myself, and loving family did for Frank ( my hubby ) and God will add this blessing to your life, and before you know it, He will guide your husband to RCIA 🙂 God bless you!
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Her husband is Anglican. Why would it be desireable for him to convert? I doubt with the similarities of the two denoms that there would be any friction.
 
Karin said:
YOu do not have to be married (in the Church) to have your kids Baptised or have them recieve any other Sacraments.
My youngest was Baptised in the Church and neither my DH or I was Catholic at the time or married in the Church or had we had our marriage blessed either.
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I have seen plenty of baptisms at my church where the child is the result of fornication, often the parents are either: not married in the church, not married at all and are living together, or are no longer living together.

The Poster’s priest has probably noticed that she has been really making an effort to raise her children in the faith and by her having her marriage recognized by the Church, it would be a much better example. Despite this, I do not think this agressive aproach is wise. I will pray that the poster’s husband’s Bishop will be reasonable and allow him to have his marriage blessed by the Catholic Church.
 
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