Selecting a God Parent

[jjdrury81]

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone on here ran into problems in selecting a godparent. It is an issue that has been concerning my wife and I lately. She is not pregnant yet so we have time. But who knows how long.

We are the only Catholics that we know in our area. We know others from our Parish from Church functions but would not consider any of them “friends” or “acquaintances”.

We know very few practicing Catholics that are at or around our age.

We have one friend (female) that is practicing but lives 3,000 miles away. That is about it.

We each have one sibling (again 3,000 miles away) that have fallen away from the Church.

Every other practicing Catholic that we know is a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle. In other words, significantly older than we are. Again, most live 3,000 miles away. My wife does have one aunt that is only 300 miles away.

That is it.

What would you do in this situation?

Any advice?

Thanks.

 

[JustAnotherThou]

I am with you. We don’t have children yet, although are hoping to adopt in the next year or two. Both my siblings fell away from the Church, I don’t think any of my cousins go to church. My husband’s family is a mix of Amish and JW I have one step sister who is Catholic, although lives about 3000 miles away and has 4 kids and can’t really load everyone up to come to a Baptism. We have kind of talked to our parish priest about it, his suggestions are 1) we can use my step sister even if she can’t make it to the Baptism, he will just call and talk to her ahead of time and someone can stand in for her. 2) He could suggest people from our parish that are in similar situation and we could use them as godparents and they could use us. He says that he has done this many times and actually many become good friends.

 

[Heavens_Flowers]

You can have someone that lives far away be the godparent and have a proxy for the actual baptism. Otherwise I would suggest speaking with your parish priest about selecting a suitable canidate, sometimes friendships can blossum and a spiritual adviser might be able to suggest who may be approprpiate. You can also just have one person as long as there in good standings with the church. Family members are also allowed to be God parents. You may choose multiple sets of godparents as well for instance we just baptized our youngest son and we chose my mother in law and son in law. But I would ask your parish priest if this is allowed in your parish it may vary I do not know.

 

[Lutheranteach]

My Lutheran son’s godmother is Catholic. I’ve no idea how many rules were broken there. But in his 8 years it’s worked out very well.

 

[Truly_Beloved]

Every other practicing Catholic that we know is a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle. In other words, significantly older than we are.

…]

What would you do in this situation?

My husband and I are in this situation for the third time now (expecting the birth of #3 in July), and we have chosen the same woman as Godmother for our children.

We chose the most devout, practicing Catholic that we are blessed to know. She is in her 70s and was good friends with my maternal grandparents as well as my husband’s paternal grandparents. Many people tried to discourage us from selecting her, because of her age, but it’s more important for us to have a godparent for our children who will storm Heaven for them in prayer, than to have a younger godparent who is either lukewarm (at best) in faith or completely uneducated in it. So, that’s my take on it.

 

[homerunbetty]

This is a very good question. It is great you are planning ahead as well.

We gave it great thought as well. We did not want to choose friends because friendships can come and go. We did not want to choose strangers because, well, they are strangers. We thought we were playing it safe by choosing family. My brother lives over 500 miles away. My “sister” lives about 10 miles away.

After much thought, my husband and I chose my brother as the Godfather, who at the time was a practicing Catholic, and my “sister” as the Godmother. I say my “sister” because she is not my sister by blood, but we have considered each other sisters since I was born and were closer than my actual blood sister.

Since the birth of our twins, my brother has fallen from the Church. Also, I no longer have a relationship with my brother or sister. Now, they should still uphold their responsibilities to their Godchildren, but unfortunately they have not done so.

I pray you have better luck than we did.