Required to be Catholic before marriage part 2

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You sound more like an employee or a business partner.

Run away, girl!
 
Spiritual pride “those pesky rules are for the unwashed common folk” sort of attitude?

I promise you, if you were Confirmed tomorrow, he’d come up with another excuse the next day.

Were you my sister or my daughter or my best friend, I’d be helping you pack up his clothes in boxes and have them shipped to his office/mom’s house/etc.
 
Spiritual pride “those pesky rules are for the unwashed common folk” sort of attitude?

I promise you, if you were Confirmed tomorrow, he’d come up with another excuse the next day.

Were you my sister or my daughter or my best friend, I’d be helping you pack up his clothes in boxes and have them shipped to his office/mom’s house/etc.
Ya, I’m not one that’s big with relationship advice on line but with what we’ve read here…I’d have to agree.
 
[The priest] likened it to before marrying a drunkard you would say to be sober or I’m not marrying you.
That is really not a fair comparison, and I am sorry the priest used that metaphor. It is really kind of offensive - being a non-Catholic is not a disease!
His reasoning is that I don’t really have a direction in my faith walk and I don’t read my bible as often as I should. I don’t have a commitment to any one faith as a Christian. How was I going to raise catholic children if I don’t know how to be Catholic? He says its for the kids.
Your fiancee does have a point here that he is obliged by his faith to raise the children Catholic, and he is obliged to get your consent to this before the marriage is celebrated by the church.

Perhaps you could meet him half-way - agree to attend RCIA as an observer to learn about the Catholic faith. You can attend the lessons without obligation to convert at the end. This is permitted, but not necessarily common… just be sure to have a discussion with the pastor and RCIA director so that they know your situation!

If you take classes and better understand your future husband’s faith, even if you choose not to convert at the end of the course, he may be more relaxed and not feel the need to pressure you further.
 
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But I’m not sure you understand (and did nobody else pick up on this?) that you are Catholic.

You were baptized, received first communion and confession, and apparently you were a practicing Catholic until you were 12 when your mother left the faith (and took you and the other family with her).

You may not have been confirmed, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t Catholic.

Let me repeat, from what you say here, you are a baptized Catholic who has received first communion, confession. You already are Catholic.
 
Dear sister,
it’s so easy to get into these kind of tangles, so please don’t feel i’m judging you. It could happen to anyone.

But this is how it looks to me: he’s attending church fairly often while living with you and committing fornication. He may read his Bible, but he’s ignoring parts of it. He’s leading you into sin and then complaining that you don’t lead your Christian life as he thinks you should. I would say he’s the one that needs to clean up his act.

What I would do in your shoes is either move out or ask him to move. Separate for awhile to get some perspective. I know this seems like a big deal, but this is the rest of your life you’re talking about.
While you are separated, if you wanted to you could attend RCIA (anyone can do this) to see if you want to return to the practice of your faith. As others said, you are a Catholic, you just haven’t been practicing. So there’s no need of converting, just of returning if you believe it’s the true church. All you would need is to go to confession, and you’re back. If you wanted to be confirmed, you could also do that.

It would be so easy to continue as you are doing, but in the long run, you can see that it won’t work out. He needs to stop fornicating, confess, and treat you with respect. Once you are apart, perhaps you will be able to assess what you both want with clearer heads.
God bless.
 
Next time he brings it up, answer:

“I am Catholic. By virtue of my baptism I am Catholic. I have fallen away from the practice of my faith, but, I simply need to go to confession”
 
Your boyfriend/fiance is the one that needs to speak to a good, holy priest and be told to get his act together. He’s a bit arrogant IMO. Maybe he needs a 2x4 of the Holy Spirit upside the head!

Yes, I would talk with another priest. You don’t have to go to ‘his’ parish or talk to ‘his’ priest to grow in your faith.

In your description of what has transpired over the last 6 years, my ‘Momstincts’ are screaming loudly and I’d be packing you up and get you out of this relationship. You are worth more to God than the way he’s treating you. If he truly wanted to live the faith, he wouldn’t use you in this way. This issues are his - not yours. Love is sacrifice for the better of the other. I know you’ve got financial entanglements with him - but I’d be looking at your exit strategy. Just my 2 cents.
 
But I’m not sure you understand (and did nobody else pick up on this?) that you are Catholic.

You were baptized, received first communion and confession, and apparently you were a practicing Catholic until you were 12 when your mother left the faith (and took you and the other family with her).

You may not have been confirmed, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t Catholic.

Let me repeat, from what you say here, you are a baptized Catholic who has received first communion, confession. You already are Catholic.
Yes, others picked up on that and we commented as such. I think TheLittleLady made the comment (which I agree with) that OP could get confirmed tomorrow and her fiance would find another reason to “extend the engagement.”
 
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You did, but as I remarked, she doesn’t need to be confirmed to be Catholic. From the original remarks until she clarified, it appeared that she was Protestant and he was asking her to ‘change’ her faith. from the original post here:

. . .
Hello all. I am really hoping for some insight here. My fiance and I have been together for almost 6 years now. We have talked about marriage for a few years now. I love him very much.
On a recent trip together, he expressed that he would not marry me unless I converted to a catholic. His reasoning is that I don’t really have a direction in my faith walk and I don’t read my bible as often as I should. I don’t have a commitment to any one faith as a Christian. How was I going to raise catholic children if I don’t know how to be Catholic? He says its for the kids. Now I feel as though I have to convert to marry him. I am deeply hurt by this. In the beginning, he said it did not matter that I wasn’t a catholic. He has put this requirement on me and it feels more like an obligation. I don’t want to feel like my walk with God as an obligation! I would never ask something like this from him… I feel like my deep love and respect for him is now not enough. Someone please help me! I don’t know what to do…

Read that carefully.

There is a lot. . .a LOT. . .of misunderstanding here and since it is on the part of the OP it is really IMO not fair to be judging the fiance as being the main ‘villain’. Neither one is a villain, I think.

But the main part is that the fiance is NOT asking her to convert. She is not protestant by baptism or even by a particular kind of choice. She herself says she has 'no commitment to any one faith".

So exactly what is going on here? Does he not know she was baptized Catholic? What did he really ask of her? I’m not trying to pry into things that aren’t my business, but logically speaking, either one or both the parties are really confused and IMO that should be ‘fixed’ before we get into anything else.
 
I actually think that we’re in agreement here…for the most part.

I don’t want to speak for @TheLittleLady but I think what we were saying is that she could go to him tomorrow and tell him that she’s a fully confirmed Catholic and he’d find another reason to “extend the engagement”. I mean…that’s what I’m hearing. From what it sounds like to me (from what’s been laid out here)…if he doesn’t know, she could tell him that she was actually baptized Catholic and has had her first communion and it still wouldn’t matter. Something else would come up.

Also, If it’s real, the way that he (and his priest) view and speak about non-Catholics could cause massive strife in the relationship as OP’s family isn’t Catholic (or fallen away) and OP still likes to go to church with her family (and he doesn’t like it).

Ya…there are a lot of open holes here. I’m just going off of what we have.
 
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