What would you do if your child wanted to leave the faith?

[BlueEyedLady]

You did not just promise to support his efforts!!! Your promise was much more entailed than that. Every diocese has their own form which you must sign to make the promise, but it would have had the following on it from canon law:

It seems clear you have not taken your promise seriously. (A side note: you also promised not to provide any dangers from defecting from the faith by your husband. Arguing about contraception violates that promise.)

You ask in your thread title what would others do. The important question is what you should do? You must start acting such that you are doing all in your power so that your daughter is brought up in the Catholic Church!!!

You cannot “roll your eyes” when you hear your husband or mother-in-law or anyone say something about the Catholic faith which you find “silly”. You cannot ever argue with your husband about the Catholic faith. When your daughter asks you what you believe or why, you must answer “It is not important what I believe, God has not yet granted me the faith I want you to have. I want you to believe in what the Catholic Church teaches”.

Your daughter must know that while she is under your care, she will be in the Catholic Church, going to mass, confession, formation, etc. It is a rule you must place on her, not just your husband.

You must find good sources of Catholic formation for your daughter. You must go, every week, with your husband and daughter to mass on Sunday. At times, you must be the one who takes your daughter to confession. You need to stop at a Catholic Church with your daughter to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. You cannot be secretly proud when your daughter is wanting to leave the church, as that is a strong indication you have not been fulfilling your promise. In short, bringing your daughter up in the Catholic Church is a joint effort by you and your husband. You have only been supporting his efforts (and half-heartedly at that).

You have a few years to try to rectify the situation, if you have any honor with regards to solemn promises, you will start now.

Your post is neither charitable nor accurate. The church does not require that the non Catholic party sign anything, and what you posted from Canon law refers to the obligations of the Catholic party. Her husband vowed to raise their children Catholic to the extent possible, and she had to say that she acknowledged his obligation.

 

[maryjk]

You must find good sources of Catholic formation for your daughter. You must go, every week, with your husband and daughter to mass on Sunday. At times, you must be the one who takes your daughter to confession. You need to stop at a Catholic Church with your daughter to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. You cannot be secretly proud when your daughter is wanting to leave the church, as that is a strong indication you have not been fulfilling your promise. In short, bringing your daughter up in the Catholic Church is a joint effort by you and your husband. You have only been supporting his efforts (and half-heartedly at that).

You have a few years to try to rectify the situation, if you have any honor with regards to solemn promises, you will start now.

It would be foolish to believe that the OP’s daughter doesn’t realize that Mom is proud of her for bucking the Church. Or to believe that the daughter hasn’t seen the eye rolls.

 

[maryjk]

Your post is neither charitable nor accurate. The church does not require that the non Catholic party sign anything, and what you posted from Canon law refers to the obligations of the Catholic party. Her husband vowed to raise their children Catholic to the extent possible, and she had to say that she acknowledged his obligation.

Other than that things have been rather smooth, and I have endeavored to do my best in supporting him and **fulfill the promise I made prior to our marriage that I would support his efforts to raise our Children in the Catholic faith. **For a time I did attend RCIA and have researched Catholic apologetic extensively to try and help him.

While the Church may not have elicited a promise from the OP. She seems to have willingly given it to her spouse.

 

[Valiente88]

It seems clear you have not taken your promise seriously. (A side note: you also promised not to provide any dangers from defecting from the faith by your husband. Arguing about contraception violates that promise.)

As I’ve mentioned in another thread; how dare I object to being asked to commit suicide (I had severe complications after my fifth pregnancy, I don’t want to go into the details but I’m told by professional medical experts rather than canon lawyers another conception would be very unwise).

So yeah, pill popping all the way for me thanks.

You ask in your thread title what would others do. The important question is what you should do? You must start acting such that you are doing all in your power so that your daughter is brought up in the Catholic Church!!!

To what point? Do I go around my daughters house every sunday when she’s thirty and drag her by the hair to church?

There is a point as parents where we have to take a step back, and aknowledge our children are not always going to do as we wish. The question for me is when that time comes, sixteen? Eighteen? At fourteen my daughter is no fool, and she seems fairly set on the matter. I know it is not a statement she would have taken lightly, so I am left to consider what is best for her as well as my husbands ego.

You cannot “roll your eyes” when you hear your husband or mother-in-law or anyone say something about the Catholic faith which you find “silly”.

What? Are you telling me you wouldn’t roll your eyes if somone said Satan was the owner of Disney because apparently it was in the Catholic Herald? That Frozen promoted Lesbian incestuous erotica? Or that the gaysare mentally ill? Or even better, that the only goverment that Catholics should vote for is a Catholic pontiff lead theocracy (deduced from a reading of Pius IX’s Syllabus of errors)

My mother in law says the most ridiculous things all the time, even my husband in that case acknowledges it. I’m sorry, but some things are silly.

You cannot ever argue with your husband about the Catholic faith.

When he’s expecting me do do something hateful like spread hateful quack science about LGBT then yes I’m going to.

When your daughter asks you what you believe or why, you must answer "It is not important what I believe, God has not yet granted me the faith I want you to have.   I want you to believe in what the Catholic Church teaches".

…I…Really am not going to comment here. My daughter knows very well she’s been brought up in the Catholic faith because I agreed to it. Because I don’t share my husbands religious fanaticism (I was going to be polite, but lets hit the nail on the head here) does not make me without faith.

Contrary to what Catholics believe, the world does not spin around the Vatican.

Your daughter must know that while she is under your care, she will be in the Catholic Church, going to mass, confession, formation, etc. It is a rule you must place on her, not just your husband.

To what end exactly? To force her to go and build up resentment against the Catholic Church, which may or may not later manifest as Anti-Theism or Anti-Catholic Protestantism?

I know several individuals who have gone this way, and I would prefer not to turn my daughter into one of them.

You must find good sources of Catholic formation for your daughter. You must go, every week, with your husband and daughter to mass on Sunday. At times, you must be the one who takes your daughter to confession. You need to stop at a Catholic Church with your daughter to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. You cannot be secretly proud when your daughter is wanting to leave the church, as that is a strong indication you have not been fulfilling your promise. In short, bringing your daughter up in the Catholic Church is a joint effort by you and your husband. You have only been supporting his efforts (and half-heartedly at that).

Considering I’m the one who has given her most of her instruction regarding what the Catholic Church teaches I can’t agree with you. I’ve been more than happy to attend mass with my husband every Sunday for the past sixteen years, but I think there comes a point where one has to realise things are futile.

I’m not going to convert, but I’ll keep attending with my husband because he is my husband and he desires my presence there. My daughter has no such ties short of having been through Catholic education and parish life, and I honestly wouldn’t be going were it not for him.

You have a few years to try to rectify the situation, if you have any honor with regards to solemn promises, you will start now.

…Thank you for your thoughtful comments, as much as I cannot agree with all of them.

 

[tafan]

Your post is neither charitable nor accurate. The church does not require that the non Catholic party sign anything, and what you posted from Canon law refers to the obligations of the Catholic party. Her husband vowed to raise their children Catholic to the extent possible, and she had to say that she acknowledged his obligation.

I apologize, it was not meant to be uncharitable. I had obviously misunderstood the details of the mixed marriage and read the canon much to quickly and based my response on my misreading.

post deleted.

 

[Auntie_A]

I strongly suggest again that you approach the Catholic Church for you as well as for daughter through all of the aspects of the faith, not just the political. If I had your relatives, I would either get very knowledgable about my faith and argue them down, Or I would go crawl under a rock.

There may be some basis of truth behind what they say but how they say it is too much like a fight between football teams. This should be a fight for the Truth and finding your way to God. Respect, reason, insight, common ground, prayer, grace, generosity, humility (read the Fruits of the Holy Spirit while you’re at it) Jesus did not come to make us sinners feel battered–we are already battered-- He did not change the rules but He brings us to the rules and to light with love and forgiveness.

I still think the family will lose here if your daughter does not learn the Truth. If she pushes away from their fanaticism, thinking it is the Church, not only will they lose their argument but you and your daughter will lose too. You both will be missing an important route towards God.

There is a reason you fell for your husband to begin with and a reason he fell for you. In some magnificent way, you complete each other. Your children are molded in that interesting union and your daughter has an important part in learning through the verbal swings and differences.

Repair the common ground first. Respect their opinions even when you disagree. My mother was raised by Catholic racists but she never left her Church, nor her family. She agreed to disagree until they came around. She loved and respected them and taught us to respect them. She sat at the table with French priests, Ugandan nuns, Fuller Brush men, Jehovah’s witnesses, flaming queens and butchy lesbians, Cults and cloistered, everyone could sit at the table since she honored their being God’s children.

She honored the Magisterium of the Church but reminded us to always remember that we are human, the Pope was someone’s child, nothing is ever perfect. She prayed more than she appeared to tolerate and somehow she found her way and we are still finding ours.

Keep truer to the Spirit than the political details.

 

[Anglewannabe]

Well…Aren’t Catholics taught about the dangers of telling lies? I do think it is silly, he’s even read articles I’ve suggested to him linking fears of hell and a concept of sin to authoritarian societal control…

I never asked you to lie, You have expressed to your husband your husband you disagree and then you leave it at that. You do not try to talk a man out of his faith after promising him you would raise your children in the faith which is an indirect way of promising you will respect his beliefs

I think the idea is wrong and it is clearly causing him distress, why wouldn’t I want to rid him of it if I could? If I believed myself I’m sure I wouldn’t, but I don’t…

The way to rid him of it is to help him pray to God for guidance and doing the best you can to help raise your daughter as a Catholic. Since you are unwilling to do that, then you need to accept you can’t rid him of his fears

Not just gay weddings, remarried divorcees and the weddings of non-practicing Catholics outside the church.

So ultimately the promise from the priest that I would not be expected to convert was a crock then? I don’t believe either of the above to be immoral or evil, but the Church if you are correct clearly doesn’t care much about my freedom of conscience or beliefs.

No, but part of raising children as Catholics is to set a good example. Attending unlawful marriages is setting a bad example.

I can’t answer if the Church cares about freedom of conscience because I do not know the official stance.

I also want to point out that when you come to a Catholic website, you will see post from Catholics who love their religion and will defend the beliefs. You can not hold it against me for giving an answer from a Catholics perspective