Wife becoming a Wiccan

[Fidelis]

There is a great book “surprised by Truth” which touches on several different converts to the church. One of them was a wiccan. There is a second edition of the book also, so when you go to the Catholic bookstore to check it out, make sure to look at all eleven titles of the chapters and it says “wiccan work it out”.

this may be the story, which was originally an article in Envoy, an apologetics magazine:

Wiccan Work it Out
envoymagazine.com/backissues/1.5/sept_octstory1.html

 

[Ahimsa]

I would suggest (1) love her; and (2) visit with her when she goes to Wiccan gatherings, at least in order to gain a more experiential understanding of where she’s at.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

As a former Witch, I wish I could grab these people and shake them back to reality. I will PM you.

 

[blossom02]

I would suggest that learning more about the catholic faith along with her learning about the wicccan practices would be a better compromise to you just learning and allowing her to indulge something devasting for her soul. This sounds more loving than the point of view of letting her go her way. How many times have you done somthing that you wished someone would have tried to stop you from doing. I don’t mean you should be demanding and say she can’t do this but some reasonable discussions comparing the two different forms of worship. I would ask her to ask questions of both faiths and continue her practice of catholism as she discerns.

Pray, pray & pray
I will pray for you.

 

[scylla]

The Church is perfect and no one can ever disagree with Her teachings honestly.

The problem usually is a misunderstanding of the Church, personal sin or a elevation of personal values above God’s values.

I would invite you to learn more about the Church so you can reason with her, but reason alone doesn’t help anything without the heart. You should love your wife and show it.
Maybe take her to a married couples retreat.

God Bless
Scylla

 

[kentuckyliz]

In addition to the already excellent advice given here, perhaps giving her books of the great women mystics of the Church–St Teresa of Avila, St Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, Julian of Norwich, so many others. Reason alone is not going to attract her. She said she was looking for an emotional connection to God.

I would be terribly depressed at the prospect that you two have a fork in the road in your eternal destinies. You may be together in this life, but then what?

 

[dessert]

This thread is mainly addressed to former Wiccans, current Wiccans, and relatives of Wiccans, but others may respond as well.

I am a life long Catholic, as is (was) my wife. We each have had some disagreement with the Church over certain issues, but we more or less practiced the faith. However, over the past year or 2, my wife has had a strong interest in New Age and Wicca, and I’m not sure how to deal with it.

For the most part, she has abandoned her Christian beliefs. She does believe in God, but not in a Christian sense anymore. She says she never had a true strong relationship with God through the Church, and has been looking elsewhere for it and feels she may have found it through Wicca. Wicca is a nature based pagan religion which professes first and foremost to do no harm to others. She sees God in everything and he (or she) manifests himself through nature, among other things. It is not even remotely connected to Satan worship, as some may think. It’s not evil, but it’s not right either IMO.

My mind is telling me to let her follow her own path in finding God, and not fight her or judge her on it, but my heart is telling me she is going down the wrong path. She feels everybody must follow their own path in their relationship with God. While I also espouse to that to a certain degree, I’m finding it real hard accepting what path she is currently on.

I do pray on it and ask God that if what she is doing is pleasing to him, so be it, but if it’s not, to give her the wisdom to seek the right path. I’m hoping this is just a phase and she will find her way back.

She has not totally abandoned Christianity yet, but it’s getting there. She still has a St. Joe’s prayer book and her rosarys.

I go to Church almost every Sunday, and she does not ridicule me for practicing my faith, so I hesitate in giving her grief about what she is doing, although by my looks and attitude, she knows I don’t really approve.

To be honest, I’m also a little embarrassed by this. My wife referring to herself as a witch? Oh boy!! I know thats rather shallow of me, but…

I’m really having a hard time dealing with this and would like some advice and comments.

I would suggest to start praying the rosary with her and fast and pray.
May God bless your marriage with forgiveness.
D.

 

[mikew262]

Judging by your birthdate (you’re two years older than me) you may or may not have children in the home, but you do have grandchildren. Your wife may be a big girl and free to decide her own destiny, but how are you going to deal with this on a practical level with younger family members? Will she start undermining their Catholic Faith by, in all sincerity, teaching them Wiccan beliefs and giving them Wiccan books and gifts? This is something you need to discuss with all involved before it gets to that point.

No, my wife won’t do that. Her faith/beliefs are personal to her and to her only. She would never try to force them on anybody else.

 

[mikew262]

There are a lot of things I am sure the church has wrong; but when it comes to belief if God, a God. It is 100% right.
I dont know what I would do if my husband stopped believing in God. ???
I would say let her go “that way” for awhile, it may lead her back and more devote to God.
We ALL stray. It is natural and it is natural to come back.

Be patient.

My wife very strongly believes in God, it’s just up to this point, she has not achieved the relationship with him she is looking for.

 

[mikew262]

Thank you all for your advice.

 

[KarenNC]

Anti-Neo-Pagan Apologetics
By Jimmy Akin

catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305bt.asp

Unfortunately, this particular article is riddled with inaccurate assumptions about the group of religions that falls under the umbrella term of Neopagan, including Wicca. Read the responses by some who are actually in the Neopagan community on this thread (if you persist through some of the more egregious kneejerk posts on the first couple of pages, there is some good meat there) forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=124238

Has she read Ronald Hutton’s history of Wicca “Triumph of the Moon”? I would highly recommend it for both of you to get a historian’s view of the philosophical and societal trends that lead to the emergence of Wicca in the 20th century in Britain as well as a very detailed description of its development, how it came to the US to mix with radical feminism and then went back to Britain to change the face of Wicca there. There is so much published about Wicca (because it is popular) that is basically dreck, that it’s nice to find something solid and fairly objective. I would consider this to be a “must-read” for anyone who considers themselves Wiccan so that there is a grounding in the real history of Wicca, not one based on bad information or a romantic/idealized misconception.

The reaction in my marriage to changing religious views was to study together in both of the religions, discuss them, look at the similiarities and differences, working to understand each others’ points of view. I would not counsel anyone to leave the religion of their family and their culture without a lot of very intense soul searching and examining the continuum of practices available in that religion. Even within just the Catholic Church there is such a wide range of ways to connect to the Divine, often ways that many Catholics have never encountered. The mystics are a great place to start.

Often I find that folks who are leaving are doing so because they have too narrow a view of what Christianity means and is. They have trouble imagining or seeing that there are actually many different ways to practice that religion than the one in which they grew up.

As I am sure you are already doing, talk with her and ask her to do her best to p(name removed by moderator)oint exactly what she finds lacking in Christianity but that she is finding in Wicca. Talk to your priest or ask others for info on whether there are similar ideas in Catholicism. Ask for suggestions about various books and practices available. Explore those together both together honestly, the Wiccan and the Catholic. Look at whether some of the issues might be specific to your particular current parish and see if there are other parishes within reach that might offer a different approach and visit them. I would even offer to go with her to check out some other Christian denominations to see if they may offer what she needs. Personally I think that will do the most to help maintain open communication between the two of you.

Both my husband and I did leave Christianity (not for Wicca), though at different times and in different ways, so I will not guarantee you that she will stay/return to Catholicism or even Christianity. However, I know that such changes can put a huge strain on a marriage and it takes a lot of honest, open and compassionate communication to keep things together.

Best of wishes to you both.

 

[lizaanne]

It is not even remotely connected to Satan worship, as some may think. It’s not evil…

Anything that pulls a soul away from the Truth of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church is evil. Satan has ways of making the grass look greener over the fence to pull us away from the Truth - don’t be fooled for one second that this isn’t pure evil. It is. It is pulling your wife away from the Sacraments and away from the Truth.

I pray that she finds her way back Home. Her immortal soul is at stake - and eternity is a very very long time.

~Liza

 

[JoanOfArc]

Something just occured to me I don’t think has been mentioned.

Is one of your wife’s sticking points in Christianity or Catholicism sexuality or its expression? Could it also be on the role of women?

If either or both of these are issues for her, I think she will be surprised to read modern source documents from the Church on both issues. I recommend asking for specific documents on either topic that you two could read together. There are books which paraphrase them, like Christopher West’s Good News About Sex and Marriage, but I recommend the source documents themselves, many of which are available free on the Vatican website. There’s something about reading a pope’s writings first hand about the intimacy of the marital embrace that I think will speak to your wife.

 

[Milliardo]

Anything that pulls a soul away from the Truth of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church is evil.

I think this is too much of an over-generalization, as it would practically put any religion that is not Christian, and Catholic in particular, to be evil, which is simply not the case in most religions.

 

[mikew262]

I think this is too much of an over-generalization, as it would practically put any religion that is not Christian, and Catholic in particular, to be evil, which is simply not the case in most religions.

I agree.

 

[lizaanne]

I think this is too much of an over-generalization, as it would practically put any religion that is not Christian, and Catholic in particular, to be evil, which is simply not the case in most religions.

So tell me - are you saying that other religions are OK then? I disagree - if something is pulling someone away from the Catholic Faith then it most certainly is Evil. I can’t think of any positive adjective to use in that case. How is it an over-generalization to say that Christ’s Church is the only True Faith sent by God? Either you believe that or you don’t - there is no gray area here.

Maybe I’m just not understanding your comment?

~Liza

 

[mikew262]

So tell me - are you saying that other religions are OK then?

Who are you to say they aren’t? Other denominations within Christianity certainly aren’t evil; men and women within them can be and that goes for our own as well, but not the denominations themselves. Religions outside Christianity that promote a peaceful and loving existence you cannot claim are evil. Even the Church says itself that people outside the Church can obtain salvation if they attempt to seek God with a good and sincere heart and have not had the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Christ.

This is off topic here, but I thought you needed to questioned on this. Be careful making decisions for God on what he deems acceptable and what he does not. He is perfectly capable of making his own decisions and judgments.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

Who are you to say they aren’t? Other denominations within Christianity certainly aren’t evil; men and women within them can be and that goes for our own as well, but not the denominations themselves. Religions outside Christianity that promote a peaceful and loving existence you cannot claim are evil. Even the Church says itself that people outside the Church can obtain salvation if they attempt to seek God with a good and sincere heart and have not had the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Christ.

This is off topic here, but I thought you needed to questioned on this. Be careful making decisions for God on what he deems acceptable and what he does not. He is perfectly capable of making his own decisions and judgments.

However, Catholicism is the One True Faith that holds the Fullness of Truth. Other denominations of Christianity hold bits of the Truth, and other religions only hold fragments of the Truth. The Church is the Church created by Christ and holds the Fullness of All Truth.

 

[Milliardo]

However, Catholicism is the One True Faith that holds the Fullness of Truth. Other denominations of Christianity hold bits of the Truth, and other religions only hold fragments of the Truth. The Church is the Church created by Christ and holds the Fullness of All Truth.

Yes, but that still doesn’t make other religions as evil. The Church is the one that Christ has established and holds the fullness of truth, but nowhere we do see stated that other religions automatically fall under the category of evil.

 

[paarsurrey]

I think you are right in saying that you should just let her follow her path for awhile; telling her it’s wrong might only reinforce her decision to become Wiccan. Often, it’s hard for us to accept that someone close to us chooses another path, especially when we are very much strong in our own faith. But to realize the truth about the Church, sometimes there’s the need to wander from her–a paradox, but it’s important to realize that one will not always see the truth when one is near it. Sometimes it does take God to knock some sense in us, so to speak, and thus He would let us wander away from Him in order for us to learn and realize the truth. Pray for her, and be open to her when she does ask questions regarding why you are still Catholic, but do not attack her choice or her belief, since that might only lead to estrangement and her blocking off anything you say.

Hi

I think it is the right approach. We can only unite in truth with patience and prayer and peaceful dialogue if possible.

Thanks