Son an atheist

[constantconvert]

My 14 year old told me he’s an atheist, and doesn’t want to go to church or confession anymore. My husband lost his faith and became an atheist a few years ago. I realize that not everything a 14 year-old says is carved in stone, so hopefully he will find faith in Jesus again. He no longer wants to go to church or confession. Should I make him? And if so, should I make him go to confession when I go, or just the required once a year?

 

[AClaire11]

I’m not sure about Mass. I know the Church requires parental permission for those under 16 who want to convert. But you should never force someone to partake of a sacrament.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I too think it would be wrong to force confession. FIrst of all, you don’t really know what he is saying and even up until now all the confessions he has done may or may not be sincere because a lot of people have trouble being honest.

As for mass, it will be hard to enforce if his dad doesn’t go, but I do think it would be good to make it a house rule. However, it should be a house rule, not something that will bet him a reward like an extra allowance or something

 

[pianistclare]

Is he in Religious ed? If not, why not?

Put him around good examples of faithful Catholics.
Find an excellent program and enroll him, be a great role model, let him see your faith in action, and also let him see you pray.

Teens will dig in their heels, but you can certainly demonstrate what being a faithful believer mean and how it looks.

 

[JSAD]

Ask him to start listening to people like Trent Horn or Ravi Zacharias

They are pretty popular among the youth. And especially those who are younger and Atheistic.

They are on YouTube.

God bless. Will pray.

 

[EasterJoy]

This is a rough one, because you’re going to have to ask your husband about it. He may agree, however, that the two of you agreed to raise the children in the faith and that the 14 year old will have to honor his Sunday obligation until he’s reached a certain age, moves out of the house, or whatever.

I think your pastor would agree, however, that there is little you can do without the backing of your husband. In that case, you may be stuck with continuing to ask your son to come to Mass with you, as attempting to require him to go when your husband won’t back you up may do far more harm to the young man than good. Sometimes, however, what a child will not do if forced, he will do when it is understood he’s doing it as a favor. If you have to resort to the willingness to please rather than the willingness to obey, go with that.

I don’t think you can even encourage him to avail himself of the sacraments directly when he firmly believes they are false. That is something to ask your pastor about, but forcing someone into the confessional or forcing them to violate their consciences and make a public act of faith when they express open disbelief in the Real Presence is really a no-no.

 

[boomerang]

Your son is just following in your husband’s footsteps. This is very common. If the father is not religious, neither will be the children, regardless of the mother’s beliefs. Just try to set an example and keep praying for him to return, no matter how long it takes, and it may very well take decades.

 

[constantconvert]

I asked father today and he said that my son should not participate in the sacraments but should go to church

 

[pianistclare]

I asked father today and he said that my son should not participate in the sacraments but should go to church

Good advice.
I will say this though, as DRE at my parish, it’s very common for kids to come up with these statements.
Religion is not “cool” in our society and not at all in their circle of friends, likely.
Put him in classes so he can make friends who love God and show him that it’s not a matter of being cool. It’s a relationship like anything else.
One that all of us need.
Best wishes, I’ll pray for you all.

 

[Sophie_Lawrence]

To th OP. My daughter (12) is claiming to be an agnostic, and doesn’t want to make confirmation.

This is what we do. She comes to mass with us. I told her we are Catholic family. She participates in family prayer time, passively but she does cross herself. She was receiving, but she was doing so to make us happy. I told her she should not receive if she doesn’t believe.

I’m not sure where this came from. We are practicing, she’s in a pretty good Catholic school and our parish is orthodox. She gets good grades in Religion class. Her good friends are altar servers

I pray with her at night. She listens, but when I ask if she wants to pray she says no. I’m heart broken. She’s a good girl, smart talented etc. I can’t understand how this happened.

Keep her in your prayers.

 

[AdamP88]

If I had a 14 year old tell me they were atheist I think I’d just say: you can be atheist when you’re 18 and live under a different roof. Until then, you can go to mass like the rest of us.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

If I had a 14 year old tell me they were atheist I think I’d just say: you can be atheist when you’re 18 and live under a different roof. Until then, you can go to mass like the rest of us.

Well that seems rather hostile.

To the OP, in a way, it is good that your son was able to share this instead of being a closet atheist. Now you have an opportunity to address it.

Yes, he should still go to mass, but do understand that somewhere around 16-18 it will be incredibly hard to make him go if he truly doesn’t want to. And in addition to the other suggestions I’ll add a few.

1. In a calm honest conversation ask why he doesn’t believe. It could be as simple as “it doesn’t make sense to me” or “I’ve never heard/felt God”.
2. try to address the reasons. Bring in other resources, talk about why you believe and why you believe it is true.
3. Understand that attending church or religious ed might not address the question of God’s existence. The odd thing about church to me as a nonbeliever is that it didn’t do much to convince me. It’s almost like taking advanced algebra before grasping basic arithmetic.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

If I had a 14 year old tell me they were atheist I think I’d just say: you can be atheist when you’re 18 and live under a different roof. Until then, you can go to mass like the rest of us.

The unique situation here is that they aren’t a Catholic family. The OP is Catholic and her husband, and now son, are unbelievers.

I personally don’t think it’s wrong to drag a minor to church, provided you aren’t forcing them to pray, take communion, etc. But I do question the wisdom of such an approach if the goal is to raise kids who have a deep, genuine faith and a close relationship with their parents. Not taking your child’s beliefs seriously and not feeling comfortable discussing them honestly probably isn’t the best way to go about this.

 

[PRmerger]

If I had a 14 year old tell me they were atheist I think I’d just say: you can be atheist when you’re 18 and live under a different roof. Until then, you can go to mass like the rest of us.

 

[PRmerger]

The unique situation here is that they aren’t a Catholic family. The OP is Catholic and her husband, and now son, are unbelievers.

I personally don’t think it’s wrong to drag a minor to church, provided you aren’t forcing them to pray, take communion, etc. But I do question the wisdom of such an approach if the goal is to raise kids who have a deep, genuine faith and a close relationship with their parents. Not taking your child’s beliefs seriously and not feeling comfortable discussing them honestly probably isn’t the best way to go about this.

Would you take your child’s aversion to education in the same way?

NB: No one is saying that a child’s refusal to [go to church, go to school] should be ignored, with a solution of “You’re going. That’s final”.

Of course, with both situations, we advise further discussions.

But, just like we would force a child to go to school who decided he didn’t need it anymore, we ought to force a child to go to Mass who decides he doesn’t need it anymore.

 

[AClaire11]

Would you take your child’s aversion to education in the same way?

NB: No one is saying that a child’s refusal to [go to church, go to school] should be ignored, with a solution of “You’re going. That’s final”.

Of course, with both situations, we advise further discussions.

But, just like we would force a child to go to school who decided he didn’t need it anymore, we ought to force a child to go to Mass who decides he doesn’t need it anymore.

I think there’s a big difference between not liking school because you’re bored, don’t like it, are dealing with bullies, etc and not wanting to go to church because of a deeply held personal conviction that God doesn’t exist. Not to mention, school is mandated by the state and generally needs to be completed within a certain time frame. With religion, you want to play the long game and not drive the child further away. With school, you don’t have that luxury, unless you’re OK with their future being very negatively impacted. It is a huge stretch to say these are equivalent scenarios.

The temperament of the teen also needs to be taken into account. I was a very contrarian teen and would have dug in my heels, hated every second, and done my best to make everyone miserable for making me sit through something I couldn’t stand every week. Luckily, it was I who was pushing for church and my parents who were reluctant, so I just walked there.

 

[PRmerger]

I think there’s a big difference between not liking school because you’re bored, don’t like it, are dealing with bullies, etc and not wanting to go to church because of a deeply held personal conviction that God doesn’t exist.

What about not liking school because he doesn’t see the value in education?

Would you force your 14 year old son to go to school (and, also, of course, continue the dialogue. That is a given).

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Would you take your child’s aversion to education in the same way?

NB: No one is saying that a child’s refusal to [go to church, go to school] should be ignored, with a solution of “You’re going. That’s final”.

Of course, with both situations, we advise further discussions.

But, just like we would force a child to go to school who decided he didn’t need it anymore, we ought to force a child to go to Mass who decides he doesn’t need it anymore.

Why are you arguing with me? I didn’t say you shouldn’t make them go to mass. That’s totally within your rights and well within the limits of normal parental behavior. I just don’t think it makes a difference one way or another long term.

If you read what I said and what I was responding to, it was the total disregard for his kid’s worldview that could end up causing a wall in their relationship.

So many people are quick to write off their child’s lack of faith as rebellion or a phase. But the religiously unaffiliated demographic is growing quickly, and most people will tell you they lost their faith early.

 

[PRmerger]

Why are you arguing with me?

LOL!

Emm…I just asked a question…as a means of furthering the discussion.

If you want to call it “arguing”, okey dokey, but that’s like going to a Cruciverbalist Convention and then saying, “Why are you putting a letter in that square?”

Isn’t that the raison d’etre of this forum?

I didn’t say you shouldn’t make them go to mass. That’s totally within your rights and well within the limits of normal parental behavior. I just don’t think it makes a difference one way or another long term.

If you read what I said and what I was responding to, it was the total disregard for his kid’s worldview that could end up causing a wall in their relationship.

So many people are quick to write off their child’s lack of faith as rebellion or a phase. But the religiously unaffiliated demographic is growing quickly, and most people will tell you they lost their faith early.

So, would you force your 14 year old son who didn’t see the value of education to go to school?

 

[Viki63]

I let my daughter stop going to mass when she was about 12, as she said she didn’t believe. She said that forcing her would only make her hate it more. My husband wasn’t going at that time and there was a lot of chaos in the home.
Now 8 years later she doesn’t go to church, and she’s on her second live in boyfriend. I wish I had insisted that she continue going to mass.

How anyone can claim to be an atheist, I don’t understand. You can’t prove the non existence of something. You could be an agnostic, and say you don’t know, but to be sure of God’s nonexistence is just foolish.

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