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3John4
Member
| Joined: | Tue Feb 13th, 2007 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 102 |
| First Name: | Dede | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Catholic, Protestant, Catholic |
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Posted: Sat Jun 28th, 2008 10:36 pm |
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Hi,
Many of you know my story from other posts, but a new development has prompted me to post here for advice. Briefly, though raised Catholic, I spent 19 years in the Protestant church with my husband. The last church we worshipped in together was very liturgical, and communion was served every week. When our pastor left with a dozen or so members to become Eastern Orthodox, I returned to Catholicism, and my husband insisted that he and our four children find another Protestant church. I argued that since I homeschool the kids, and am responsible daily for religious education, it made more sense for them to be trained in Catholicism--especially since this would be fairly consistent with the worship and instruction our kdis received at our former church. My husband responded that he was not merely here to "sire the children".
I must add here that we live in the surrounding community of one of the best known evangelical Protestant colleges in the country, and the area contains many anti-Catholic Protestant churches from which to choose. My husband did, in fact, choose one of the largest of these for he and the kids to begin attending, but at this point I demanded that the children at least attend a liturgical church where communion was a regular part of worship. We compromised and they began attending a conservative Anglican church. I have accompanied them whenever possible (although I helped with RCIA at my parish this past year.)
In the two years since they have been there, my husband has made no attempt to get involved or involve the children in anything other than Sunday morning worship. Now my 17 year old daughter (who insisted on staying at that large anti-Catholic church mentioned above) has come to me and told me that her father often complains to her about disliking the Anglican church, but stays there so there will be peace and our marriage won't be jeopardized! (I have talked to him in the past about not involving our kids in this conflict, and I have assured him I am committed to the marriage till death.)
Do I say, "Go where ever you feel God is leading you, and take the children."--(they're 10 and 11)? Do I fight to take the children with me, and let him go where ever he feels best? Or do I just keep quiet and let things continue as they are right now? I had hoped this Anglican church was a workable compromise, but apparently it isn't.
Any thoughts?
Dede
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David W. Emery
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Brownsville, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 2410 |
| First Name: | David | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic |
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Posted: Sun Jun 29th, 2008 01:53 am |
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Dede, it sounds as if your husband started out as an “anything but Catholic” kind of guy (was that how you became Protestant?), but now that he sees that this Anglican thing is a compromise, with Catholicism waiting to snap up the kids when (rather than if, given the current controversies) Anglicanism fails them, he wants none of that, either. Basically, it looks like you are yoked with an anti-Catholic, not so much a Christian in the positive sense — a religion built more on fear and perhaps even hatred than on love. Unfortunately, this is a rather common scenario, one of the kind that have led to the creation of this forum category.
Some of the forum members have found that, in your situation, what works best for them is for mom and dad quietly to attend their own separate churches, and then tell the kids they can choose for themselves which church to attend, but they have to attend the one or the other consistently.
This is no guarantee. Sometimes the anti-Catholic spouse is unwilling to allow it. At least it does not pit you against him, so that the marriage is a tug of war instead of a union of love. But I can also see where the 10 and 11 year olds may not be able to make a responsible decision and may decide on the basis of parents or activities rather than churches. Then we are back to the tug of war: who loves whom the most, or how can we play the one off against the other?
We do know one thing: there are no easy answers when spouses and families are divided. At least you now have three choices rather than two.
David
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mrsbmoo
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Virginia USA |
| Posts: | 344 |
| First Name: | Becky | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | former Methodist. RCA, Presbyterian, Holiness, Wesleyan... Catholic as of June ... |
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Posted: Sun Jun 29th, 2008 07:40 pm |
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The way I handled it with my ex-husband, when I converted a couple years after our divorce was to tell the kids that they had to attend a church that some other family member attended. That gave them the choice of-my Catholic church, their Dad's Baptist church, their maternal grandparents' Presbyterian church or their Paternal grandparents' Methodist church. For a bitt, they attended with whatever parent they were visiting on the weekend but when the visitation changed to Sunday afternoon only, 2 decided to be Catholic and one decided to be undecided. She attends with me most of the time but chooses not to receive communion because she is not sure what she believes. I think this is more due her age and trying to make her faith her own, than any conflict between her parents. I am home schooling my undecided daughter and we have handled the faith part of our learning by once using a Catholic book, once doing a year of biographies of great Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, and next year are using Catholicism for dummies, (she watches web of faith with me and thinks the author is funny) I offered for her to ask her Dad's pastor for a book to learn about what Baptists believe and why but she declined.
Now, my ex tried for several months to lecture to them and argue with them about why it was wrong to be Catholic but my oldest out argued him every time and he backed off. So I would say, if you are in charge of education, teach them why the Catholic church believes what it is does so they will be prepared to know the lies anti-catholics tell when they hear them.
____________________
Becky
Wife of Michael(called Moo) and stay at home mom to 5 daughters between 13 months and 17
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