Officially Removing Godparent

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They do interact. I’ve noted several times that we are in overlapping social circles - she and our daughter have been at many gatherings together with no interest expressed by the godmother - no attempt to connect (we live about 8 minutes away). It’s especially odd since our daughter was in a bad accident that had her in rehab for almost a year, has her in constant pain, had her out of school for 5 years (missing most of high school and 2 years of college) - and she’s never just asked, “so how are you?”
 
Thank you for understanding where we are coming from, Lifeisbeautiful3. It is an interesting conversation. I appreciate your considering it.
 
Yep, Phemie. Well said. And that’s where we have to be at this point. I got the answer that it can’t be formally removed. It’s okay, she’s suffered bigger challenges and injustices - given her life, any little pain we think we can take away, we try.
 
I’m so sorry for your pain, Deditus_Domina.

But your reply. Ouch. This kid has a brain injury, a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system (which means everything doesn’t work, basically), she can barely eat any food, has been in physical pain for 5 years, had everything that was her life taken (including her faith, thanks to the Catholic school). She never saw a prom, a football game, lost her favorite sport (where she was being recruited already - yes, illegally) by Notre Dame as only a freshman, lost school (a straight A student), lost her ability to continue as a truly devoted volunteer to children with disabilities, blah, blah. She lost EVERYTHING that was her life, except us. Your response is that your dad abandoned you and she should “come to grips” with it?! She is the poster child for resilience, positive attitude through unimaginable pain, and kindness. She’s come to grips with more pain than almost any of us can imagine. Think of your worst flu, multiply the fatigue by 10; think of your worst headache - she has it every day, and then it spikes from there; think of your worst nausea and having it every day, and on and on. She holds no jealousy over other kids having devoted godparents, just wishes she had that, and we’re gonna chose to give her that. We think she deserves a little compassion and won’t apologize for that.

It is clear you have a great deal of pain and I send my sincere prayers for peace for you.
 
“1ke said:
I find it odd you “feel the need to remove her, just her role”. I don’t even know what that means.

Sorry that was confusing. It means remove her from her job (role) as godmother, officially.
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1ke said:
Frankly no.
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1ke: I’m not sure how to help you understand - or help you be kind. I reread what I wrote, and it is clear. We wanted to remove the formal designation of godmother to remove hurt from our daughter who sees her regularly. Pretty simple request for info. Many of the other responders have sent caring and helpful replies and I now understand that it can’t be done.

Your responses to everything have been argumentative instead of helpful and I’ve tried to come back to help you understand, but let’s just agree that you can’t help. I’m not looking for argument, goodness gracious. I got the info we were looking for from others. Nice group of people out there who helped.
 
I am sorry, my whole point was that I understand pain and have had to overcome it and I have.

You cannot remove her from a historical event, you can only move forward. You can continue trying to cultivate a relationship with the woman, write her off from your current life or be angry and full of pain.

We can change other people and we can’t change history.
 
Perhaps begin to refer to her as your daughters “Confirmation Sponsor”, what is actually recorded by the Church, instead of the colloquial “godmother”. Give the godmother honorific to someone else
 
Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
And after a decree of nullity is granted, she will not be referenced as a wife because she no longer is and, in fact, never was a wife. Should a similar process exist for a Godparent?
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Frankly, no.

If I think my 3rd grade teacher did a poor job of preparing me for the 4th grade, does that mean I can approach the school and say “change my records, I want you to write that I had a different 3rd grade teacher.”? Of course not!

A Godparent is someone who stands with the parents at the time of the Baptism and presents the child to the Church to be baptized. We cannot go back to the records, years later, and write that someone else did this.

We cannot change what actually happened in the past. Therefore, we cannot change the documents that record past events.
 
Being in the same social circles doesn’t count as interacting. In fact the things you mentioned support the notion that the two don’t interact.
 
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