Priest's greeting of lapsed catholics

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pianistclare said:
Our pastor insists on doing them during Mass because the entire faith community should rejoice and welcome the newest little memeber. We make a big deal out fo welcoming them.
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I guess if you have room for a lot of visitors during the mass in question, it can make sense. But if you can’t handle the additional traffic for all of the baby’s Uncle Cas’s and Aunt Mary’s during a crowded Sunday mass, its probably smart to have a separate event.
 
You would need a lot of surplus space to accommodate all the extra visitors. The cynical part if me would also worry that regular worshippers would complain as a lot if these visitors would be people who don’t know how to behave during mass.
 
Augustinian said:
I guess if you have room for a lot of visitors during the mass in question, it can make sense. But if you can’t handle the additional traffic for all of the baby’s Uncle Cas’s and Aunt Mary’s during a crowded Sunday mass, its probably smart to have a separate event.
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I’m not sure where you live or worship, but usually the Masses here are not so crowded that they can’t spare two pews for the baby’s close relatives.

Having said that, I think there has been a shift in my area to doing them after Mass, simply because it provides for a little more time for the whole ceremony and is better for taking photos, etc. than trying to squeeze this into the middle of a Mass with a whole congregation there, having the photographer trying to take pictures in the middle of a Mass, etc.
 
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You would have needed a lot more than 2 pews for most of the baptisms or dedications I’ve attended. It’s typically an event for extended family and friends.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
You would have needed a lot more than 2 pews for most of the baptisms or dedications I’ve attended. It’s typically an event for extended family and friends.
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This must be a cultural thing. I haven’t ever seen huge numbers of people turning out for a baby’s church baptism in my area. Usually it’s the parents, a couple of grandparents, and maybe some aunts and uncles, if that. Probably the most I’ve ever seen is about 15 people and often it was more like 5 people. For that matter, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen baptisms where it was mom, dad, the baby, and the two baptism sponsors, only.
 
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It’s interesting as the UK is a secular culture but people are still willing to make the effort to attend even if they don’t believe in whatever faith is involved. I suppose it’s a nice opportunity to get together with family over some food.
 
I’m pretty sure there are cultures in some parts of USA, such as maybe extended Latino families, where many folks come to the church.
In the area where I grew up, they may have had a party after the ceremony, but a lot of the attendees wouldn’t have bothered coming to church, especially non-Catholic ones (and probably a few of the nominally Catholic ones).
 
I think that meal only would be understandable for logistical reasons but I guess it’s a bit like going to a wedding ceremony, people are willing to support others even if they don’t believe in it.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m pretty sure there are cultures in some parts of USA,
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Nowadays, the Church requires a lot more formal preparation for the sacrament than they did back in the day. If a child was baptized a day or two after birth, and people were less mobile with a lot of people not even owning cars in the 1920’s or 30’s, there was less time to organize an event and notify everyone.

Perhaps in cultures where everyone lives in a single village, there were big events, but probably not so much in industrial society.
 
His objective was to please me. Now, do you have a problem with asking what is the objective of the priest???
 
Look - and I say this as a non-Catholic, non-Christian - if your son’s objective was to please you, and not to revert back to his faith or bring up his child wholeheartedly as a Catholic (a requirement for baptism in the CC), then I completely understand why the Priest wouldn’t do it.

No religion should be about just pleasing people. The rules are there for a reason, and if they aren’t conformed with, a Priest cannot in good conscience agree to break them.
 
Frinders said:
His objective was to please me. Now, do you have a problem with asking what is the objective of the priest???
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Perhaps this became evident to the priest? That the upper most objective of the parents was not quite on target.

The priest’s objectives when asked to baptise a child most fundamentally are to determine if that is something he can do. Would this meeting have left the priest with a well founded hope that the child will be brought up in the faith? Should that even matter to the priest? You’re yet to answer.
 
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Frinders, I think your anger in this situation is misplaced. If your son and his SO only went to see the priest to please you, I don’t see how there could be a reasonable expectation that they will raise their child in the faith. We may not like rules sometimes, but they are in place for a reason. When I returned to the Church there were certain things that I had to come to terms with and change in order to be worthy again to receive the Sacraments. I didn’t expect the Church to change to suit me. I had to change and amend my life for the Church. I don’t think that’s at all unreasonable. I think if you’re son and his SO really wanted to be in the Church, and if they really wanted to raise their child in the faith, they would do the same.
 
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St Paul was a good person, even before conversion, His Passion and zeal was for his religion and keeping the law , his heart was right, he was not deceptive.

Jesus was always telling the deceptive Pharisees their hearts were not right. And to stop deceiving the people
 
Yeah bit that’s a shame. It’s a people of God event, not just for the family.
 
pianistclare said:
Yeah bit that’s a shame. It’s a people of God event, not just for the family.
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Uncle Cas and Aunt Mary are presumably part of the people of God too, they are just related and came across town for the event.

Nowadays, neighborhoods and parishes aren’t as close as they were 50 years ago. A close knit community, many of the men working at a single nearby employer and they came from the same country speaking the same language. People actually know that this gal or that one was giving birth. Nowadays, if there is a baptism in church, its most likely someone you didn’t even know were pregnant with child.

The crazy thing is back when people in the parish knew many of the people, they never had the baptisms at Sunday Mass.
 
Frinders said:
His objective was to please me. Now, do you have a problem with asking what is the objective of the priest???
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With all due respect has it occurred to you that perhaps your son legitimately didn’t want to do it and the priest was gracious enough to let your son “blame” him?
 
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