Eli&Joshys_Mom:
I do not know anyone that has fullfilled the long list of requirements that she gave me. Was I supose to just find some strangers that happen to meet them all, to have my child baptized?
Yes, it’s a long laundry list, but there are reasons for that. The godparents you choose should be strong enough in their faith to keep in touch with you and your kids over the years, to ask about how they are doing in their faith, offer to take them to mass or other religious ceremonies/retreats/concerts/seminars…to be a reinforcing voice and example in their lives of what it means to live a Catholic life in a secular world. They are there to support your teaching of the faith to your children, to discuss certain teachings/matters with if you don’t know what to tell your kids about something. They’re people you want to call when your child goes missing or ends up sick - you want them to come pray with you, offer masses for you, things like that. Your friend,
because she is your friend, will always be a part of your life and your children’s lives. She’ll influence them in a variety of ways over the years, but godparents have a specific duty to influence your kids to become magesterium loyal Catholics and to help you remain strong in your faith and continue to grow.
In the worst possible scenario the godparents of the child are obliged to do whatever they can to continue the Catholic upbringing of the children. Say you and your husband are killed in an automobile accident. The kids are sent to live with relatives - non-Catholic, or perhaps Catholic in name only, or cafeteria Catholic. The godparents would need to be strong enough to establish relationships with these guardians in order to continue to be the role model of Catholic life for them. If the new family situation is not diligent about the kids getting to mass every Sunday, or attending Catholic schools or religious ed classes, of taking them to mass on holy days of obligation, etc. It is the godparents who would be attempting to fill the void
on your behalf since you are no longer here to do so yourself.
So, your friend somewhere down the line did not believe in the Church enough to seek the sacrament of confirmation (this is where the grace of the spirit is given to help Catholics profess and defend the faith). Does she value the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick? Marriage? Does she accept the teachings of the Church regarding ABC, euthanasia, abortion? If she waivers on these then how are you to be assured, should you be taken up to our Lord early that your children will be protected and guided by her to follow the faith completely, especially if the kids live in a home which reject Church teachings on these matters?
If anything happened to hubby or me, our kids would go to our relatives and our relatives are either Protestant now or cafeteria Catholics. We have, over the years, always kept in touch with the godparents to discuss where we, as parents are spiritually. We share with them the moral teachings we are instilling and letting them know where our guiding source of information comes (priest’s name, parish name, people in the parish, names of their sponsors, radio stations we listen to, tv programs we watch, movies we prefer, websites we trust, etc.) Our relatives know these godparents will be active in the kids’ lives should anything happen to us.
When our family moved out of state confirmation for my kids presented a similar challenge. After 9 years of living here our circle of friends and those of my children have been 98% non-Catholic. We have no family in the area. Not only that, but in our confirmation preparation program the sponsor is required to attend 7 monthly 9am-12pm Saturday training sessions with the candidate. That alone presented a real challenge for us because the Catholics we do have as friends are busy on Saturdays with their own kids and jobs, etc., that we knew they would not be able to meet that requirement. So we had to rely on our parish to find a member of our church who would be our kids’ sponsors, and they did.
My son’s sponsor was a stranger to us at the time, though we had seen him in masses because he plays the guitar. My daughter’s sponsor was her religious ed teacher. It turns out
there are no strangers in one’s parish for we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. What ended up in the end was we expanded our circle of friends to include more magesterium Catholics. These people really live their faith so they’re so easy to get along with and we can turn to them for anything. They have helped us grow as a family. As a result, I regularly put my name on the list of volunteer opportunities in the parish to be a baptismal or confirmation sponsor should another family find themselves in a similar situation as ours. Both families benefit through the Church’s insistence on this and they are truly blessed now and into the future.
