I’m just here to say my dad agreed with my mom to raise me Catholic. He took me to CCD and was there for my first holy communion and conformation. My dad is Presbaterian and has told me about his faith also. It can work now of course it’s not the same for all people but it can be done.Consider that you are a woman who is Catholic and marry a Baptist man who agrees at the time that the children will be raised Catholic. A year or two later you have your first baby, a beautiful little boy. Is he going to go to the pre-baptism class with you? Accept that his family can’t be godparents? What about when the kid is starting catechism, will he take him if you can’t? How is he going to be supportive when the kid has his 1st Holy Communion? What about when he is in confirmation class and has to have a mass attendance record and you are sick, will he take him to mass? Furthermore, will he go to mass with you on Sundays, or will he go fishing while poor little Johnny has to suffer through church instead? How happy is he going to be with NFP after the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th surprise? His buddies can all have sex whenever they want, why does he have to abstain for weeks or months as a married man, why can’t she just take the pill or let him use condoms? What if you die, can you really trust that he will be able to guide the children in the Catholic faith and ensure that they are raised Catholic?
Yeah, it happens occasionally. I’d think it is usually a problem. This forum is full of such threads.I’m just here to say my dad agreed with my mom to raise me Catholic. He took me to CCD and was there for my first holy communion and conformation. My dad is Presbaterian and has told me about his faith also. It can work now of course it’s not the same for all people but it can be done.
Speak for yourself, not for people who are actually in mixed marriages.I get the feeling that most of the “religion doesn’t matter” types state that because don’t see religion as mattering much IN GENERAL, not just in choosing a spouse. Many people would state if asked that they are Christian, or would check the “Christian” box on a form asking for demographic information, are far from practicing Christians. Many attend a particular church not because they actually believe all the tenets of that particular church, but because that’s the church they went to as kids, or because they like the atmosphere, music, extra-curricular activities, etc. Some don’t even really see Christ as divine, though they have a vague notion that God does exist.
So of course such a lukewarm Christian would find it doesn’t matter if they marry out of their denomination, or even out of their faith. A whole bunch of lukewarm Buddhists, Hindus, even Muslims out there too. Even many who SEEM devout on the outside, attend services and possess home altars, etc., are often going through the motions and don’t spend much time really contemplating their religious beliefs and how they differ from other religions.
So if a lukewarm Protestant marries a lukewarm Catholic, likely there won’t be much strife, at least at first. The problem is, that often people become more devout as they grow older, especially once children are in the picture. There are certainly many topics that get posted on CAF by “revert” Catholics who are trying to balance their new found faith with preserving marriages to non-Catholics, and many by non-Catholic spouses essentially feeling duped and defrauded; “I didn’t sign up for NFP! I didn’t sign up for weekly mass!”
You my friend are a good person.Speak for yourself, not for people who are actually in mixed marriages.
The people in mixed marriages that do well are generally in the Christians who follow Jesus Christ, and who refuse to join the group of Christians who choose to make their ministry the condemnation of others, as opposed to the love of God and neighbor that is the foundation of the Catholic Church.
Thus, successful mixed marriages are likely people who refuse to either join the condemers, or kow tow to the secular / atheist version of morality that is the main characteristic of the “falling away” that represents the society we live in.
I started out being more active in my Church than my Protestant wife. However, now she is more active than me, and is on numerous committees etc. in her church and volunteers more than I do.
In general, I refrain from judging people who are better than me at anything, especially in the foundations of Christianity.
Thank you for your gracious comment.You my friend are a good person.
Well we as Catholics believe that marriage should not be taken lightly. There are 2 purposes to marriage: Procreation and leading one’s spouse to Heaven. Marriage is a SACRAMENT, not a means of having fun. Marriage is not all about emotion, it’s a covenant before the eyes of God. Clearly you do not understand this and you should look into the CCC’s teaching on matrimony. You are married to a “cultural” Catholic, not one who is a traditionalist. I believe that if you want the perfect marriage: both spouses should be practicing Catholics…That would lessen the conflict within the family. Now since your marriage is working out, good for you! It’s good that you compromised, but not everyone can do that.Segregation by way of religious belief is not a concept that should be taken lightly. There are well known problems and ongoing debate on faith based schools currently especially in UK and here in NZ. And here we are talking about only ‘marrying’ into your own faith group? How are we expecting to learn to live in peace and harmony if we are limited interaction and understanding by continued segregation by marriage?
Also we need to be clear as to what we mean by ‘inter-faith’. Most would take this as meaning marriage between Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Shintoism, Hinduism, and Sikhism, among others. They are many inter-faith based organizations that meet to deal with ways of better understanding and working with each other. Eg: interfaith.org.nz.
It seems here most are concerned with marriage within the Christian faith, or more correctly mixed denomination marriage.
My personal situation is one step further and again proof of a successful marriage where I am a non-believer/atheist married to a catholic and we have a child it is a total non-issue. We know each others beliefs and have total respect for each other and why we hold these beliefs. She is proud of her history and family connection with the Catholic Church and so she should be. And of our social group we are one of at least 5 couples in the very same position. Its called compromise and it is something that does not seem to happen much here!
High Flyer did not say anything about marriage being a means of “having fun” or “all about emotion”.Well we as Catholics believe that marriage should not be taken lightly. There are 2 purposes to marriage: Procreation and leading one’s spouse to Heaven. Marriage is a SACRAMENT, not a means of having fun. Marriage is not all about emotion, it’s a covenant before the eyes of God. Clearly you do not understand this and you should look into the CCC’s teaching on matrimony. You are married to a “cultural” Catholic, not one who is a traditionalist. I believe that if you want the perfect marriage: both spouses should be practicing Catholics…That would lessen the conflict within the family. Now since your marriage is working out, good for you! It’s good that you compromised, but not everyone can do that.
Yes. Because people who aren’t having major issues post about how great things are and how they aren’t having trouble all the time.Yeah, it happens occasionally. I’d think it is usually a problem. This forum is full of such threads.
Switch the him and her and you have the state of my marriage when we got married on your first few lines. I graciously accepted that NFP was our way of life. I attended Mass weekly with my husband for multiple years while I had no plans of converting. In that time, I learned a great deal about Catholicism - enough that I could teach our future children about it. Not everyone is so dead set against the Catholic Church as you think.Consider that you are a woman who is Catholic and marry a Baptist man who agrees at the time that the children will be raised Catholic. A year or two later you have your first baby, a beautiful little boy. Is he going to go to the pre-baptism class with you? Accept that his family can’t be godparents? What about when the kid is starting catechism, will he take him if you can’t? How is he going to be supportive when the kid has his 1st Holy Communion? What about when he is in confirmation class and has to have a mass attendance record and you are sick, will he take him to mass? Furthermore, will he go to mass with you on Sundays, or will he go fishing while poor little Johnny has to suffer through church instead? How happy is he going to be with NFP after the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th surprise? His buddies can all have sex whenever they want, why does he have to abstain for weeks or months as a married man, why can’t she just take the pill or let him use condoms? What if you die, can you really trust that he will be able to guide the children in the Catholic faith and ensure that they are raised Catholic?
Sounds like the doctrine of the devil to me. The primary purpose of marriage is the procreation of children and so that those children can be with God in heaven forever. A mixed marriage puts your children in immediate and constant danger of losing the faith. Human respect for the non-Catholic leads the Catholic to put the spouse’s feelings before the good of the children and to hide the truth from them.However I did see an article in regards to interfaith marriages that said that the love between the couple should be favored over the concept of the children’s faith. But isn’t the primary goal of marriage to lead your spouse to Heaven?
What do you guys think?
That may be. But I have seen threads here with the Catholic describing a relationship much like mine when I was married. Most people here told them to run from the relationship and never look back. So from the perspective of what should be discouraged, most responders to these threads don’t tend to make a distinction.I think it is obvious that there is a distinction between inter FAITH and intercultural. I cant imagine two people who are devout and faithful to their own soul’s beliefs accepting the other would not be worshiping the same thing or way. One would always seem to be in a subservient position to the other. Intercultural is not an issue most times. But interfaith, if your faith is your innermost identity and being then if you do not have that in common… something is lacking.
Underrated post.I believe interfaith marriage in the 20th century is directly linked - among many other things - to a crisis in vocations: vocations to the priesthood, vocations to religious, vocations to authentic marriage.
So being accepting of others beliefs is wrong to you?Sounds like the doctrine of the devil to me. The primary purpose of marriage is the procreation of children and so that those children can be with God in heaven forever. A mixed marriage puts your children in immediate and constant danger of losing the faith. Human respect for the non-Catholic leads the Catholic to put the spouse’s feelings before the good of the children and to hide the truth from them.
The Church allows mixed marriages for just this reason. The statistics say that the children in a mixed marriage are less likely to practice the faith of either parent than if both parents practiced the same faith, and the statistics are dismal enough, even then. Having said that, each individual case is not a statistic. You can know what many of the variables are, whereas they run the whole range in the larger group.Switch the him and her and you have the state of my marriage when we got married on your first few lines. I graciously accepted that NFP was our way of life. I attended Mass weekly with my husband for multiple years while I had no plans of converting. In that time, I learned a great deal about Catholicism - enough that I could teach our future children about it. Not everyone is so dead set against the Catholic Church as you think.
This isn’t to make light of the difficulties that you mention but you honestly make it sound like there should be at least 1 (and possibly 4) less Catholics in the world. Because it is highly unlikely that I would have come to Catholicism without the influence of my husband.
Because it works sometimes, it is discouraged rather than forbidden.Yeah, it happens occasionally. I’d think it is usually a problem. This forum is full of such threads.
It can work. But as you say here, your dad agreed with your mom to raise you Catholic and he stuck with it.I’m just here to say my dad agreed with my mom to raise me Catholic. He took me to CCD and was there for my first holy communion and conformation. My dad is Presbaterian and has told me about his faith also. It can work now of course it’s not the same for all people but it can be done.