advice on catholic in-laws

surreysaver

susancs wrote: »

In our church as in most westminster area churches, the parish priest insists that the parents attend a baptismal course, before he will baptise a child. This quite a committment if you do not believe.

What do they do on these courses? I am a non-believer, my wife is a Cathoilic, and she cannot answer this question! We will have to attend these before our child can be baptised.

thriftmonster

If you do get the baby christened, will your in laws then expect you to do the whole 1st confession, communion and confirmation route? It might be easier to stick to your guns now.

Good luck

softwaremad

when i had my dd i decide to have her christened so that in time she would be abke to decide if she would like to follow a faith, somehow by having her baptised at the time i felt much more secure as i was protecting her in some way! (perhaps it was just the hormones raging i dont know)

we had a christian baptism and it turned out that the vicar i handed my dd to was a flipping peadophile lookin gback now it makes me sick to think that i handed my daughter willingly over to this sort of person and im sure if i have more children i will not do this again. At the end of the day its about (FOR ME) getting all the friends & family together to celebrate the new arrival - what better than a good old get together!

good luck op with whatever you decide!

calculatethis

Hi, I can't add much to all the useful advice that has already been given but all I can say is that they should be more concerned about you having a happy and healthy pregnancy than fretting about baptising the baby!

I am from a catholic family, and Im a semi lapsed catholic, but trying my best. My husbands family are devout catholics. I think in a lot of (older) catholics there can be a bit of an obsession that the child should be baptised as soon as possible after birth.

I had my little girl baptised at 9 months old, after I'd thought about the whole thing and made MY decision (my husband couldn't care less if she is baptised or not) and she is now at a catholic school. Im glad she is being brought up in the same type of community and set of beliefs that I was brought up in. But if she grows older and decides its not for her, then Im not going to force her.

BUT it is a choice that you and your OH should be making, not the in laws. And you do have to goto baptism classes and these are quite intense. I went for about 6 weeks, you have to talk about your faith and beliefs and commit to the whole process- anyone who can go through this just for the cynical reason of getting a child into a school they want must be quite cold hearted.

Go with your own feelings- people can be baptised at any age

dora37

thriftmonster wrote: »

If you do get the baby christened, will your in laws then expect you to do the whole 1st confession, communion and confirmation route? It might be easier to stick to your guns now.

Good luck

Now called Reconciliation

Loretta

jinky67 wrote: »

I find that thoroughly distasteful.
If I thought for one minute that anyone had done that to my kids i would never speak to them again.

To the OP I would say to the in-laws.."I am aware of your beliefs and you are entitled to them.But I dont share them,so we are having a naming ceremony instead.
We would both like it if you would attend,but understand if you feel you cannot."
That way the onus is on them...if they dont come, they are the ones who are losing out.
At the end of the day the kids are yours and if they dont like it tough

I agree and I didn't speak to her ever again after I was about 16 as I was determined that she would not interfere with me, this was one of her more minor acts there was much worse, like she interferred with my sister's life

Loretta

margaretclare wrote: »

Thanks for the correction. So Limbo, IIRC, is a kind of 'no man's land' where the soul is just sort of floating about not knowing where to go - the phrase 'to be in limbo' has entered the language.

Thanks to Nenen for the description of the CofE baptism service. This is the same, or very similar, as used in the Methodist Church.

For a baby or a child, the parents and godparents are required to make certain commitments and state their own beliefs. The church community is asked to join in by stating they will help the parents and godparents to carry out those commitments. That being the case, I can't imagine how it would make the grandparents feel any better if they 'baptised' the baby without the parents' knowing.

Garys missus, I would never have asked my husband to be baptised if he was an atheist. He had come a long way from the religion in which he was brought up - Judaism - but he never lost his deep and abiding faith in God. He's not the man to do anything he doesn't feel convinced about, but the summer of 2004 was when he asked to be baptised, after attending the Methodist Church since 1997 and being married there in 2002.

Catholics are different, I only really know about them as I had it drummed into me 24/7 from the age of just 5 until I was 18.

This is nothing to do with godparents it is the simple act of baptism, hence the emergency thing, say in a hospital. If you are not baptised you cannot enter heaven, so you would go to Limbo which is a nice place but not heaven and you will not move from there.

If you are not baptised you cannot have any of the other sacrements ie get married in a Catholic Church which would mean that anywhere else you got married wouldn't count you would be living in sin, probably mortal sin, which is the fast track to hell, I think that the Kennedy's relied on this not really being married to get a divorce when they wanted one. If you are not baptised you cannot receive Extreme Unction which is the Last Rites if you are about to die, whether by illness or accident which can be done even if you are unconcious which is a quick spring clean at the last minute of any sins so that you can go straight to heaven and miss out purgatory which is a sort of branch line

Everyone who is born is in venial sin until they are baptised and you are told you are in real trouble if you don't get baptised and they may have lost out on a new member, once you are baptised the rest all follows on and they have got you and you feel guilty for ever whatever you do for the rest of your life

There is venial sin, which isn't too bad and if you die in venial sin you end up in purgatory and have to serve your time there in accordance with how serious the sin is, a bit like a prison sentence and when you have served your time you got promoted to heaven, it may take a few thousand years though

If you commit mortal sin, which is something serious like when you are 12 you start thinking about boys, chewing gum in the street, or rolling your school skirt up above your knees and then you get run over by a bus you stand no chance, it's straight to hell and that is for ever.

I still remember every bit of it after all those years!! You couldn't make it up could you?!

Loretta

thriftmonster wrote: »

If you do get the baby christened, will your in laws then expect you to do the whole 1st confession, communion and confirmation route? It might be easier to stick to your guns now.

Good luck

I am sure they will, being baptised is only the start

jpwhittle

you shouldnt be preasured to do something you dont want to do. if my inlaws had there way my son would have been baptised/christened rc but i and dh wont allow it. dh became a christian after meeting me as i am a practising christian.
i never had my little boy christened and i have fully believe that if something was to happen to him my God would not turn him away because of me. i also feel this is taking away his own choice to accept God when he is old enough to understand about it. unlike someone said earlier there is a big significance in the church to infant baptism and it effects a whole chunk of your adult life and choices. i would rathe leave them choices to my son than make promises that i cant keep. to me you cant promise that your child will always follow christ as you dont know what choices they will make in life.
i opted for a blessing for my son and will do when his little sister arrives in september. that way i can do something for him and celebrate his birth but also leave the choices to him. everyone said what a lovely day and nice change it was when they came. and i felt id done right by my son.
hope this helps somehow.
stick to yur guns though this is your child and you have to do what is right for you and your child not by in laws.

CelticStar

I was Christened a Catholic, but not until I was about four years' old. I don't think there was much fuss made about it at the time but I come from quite a liberal Catholic background - I've never experienced any of the hellfire palaver other people seem to have gone through.

With regard to Catholics secretly Baptising babies, this was quite a common thing at one time. My grandfather's father was a staunch Protestant and insisted on all his children being Christened as Protestants even though his wife was a devout Catholic. Undeterred, she secretly had them re-Baptised Catholics, something that my great grandfather never found out. So my grandfather was both a Protestant and a Catholic!