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Nina Murphy
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Were your husbands Catholic when you began dating/married them?
What would you say to your children for the future about dating/marrying a non-Catholic (or non-practicing any religion seriously)?
Thank you for your responses!
And to responding so generously to the first part of this thread about your own religious formation, many thanks everyone.
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God bless,
~~Nina
mother of 9 on earth,
and 2 yet-to-be-met
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JennGM
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Nina Murphy wrote:
| Were your husbands Catholic when you began dating/married them? |
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Yes. A. in the other quiz would apply to him, too.
Nina Murphy wrote:
| What would you say to your children for the future about dating/marrying a non-Catholic (or non-practicing any religion seriously)? |
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If he's marrying age, we can't forbid it, but we will discourage it with our utmost. We've witnessed many struggles with "mixed" marriages, and believe that sharing the Faith is the bedrock of our marriage.
Please know that I'm not saying that mixed marriages can't work or criticizing other marriages.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Christine
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My husband was also A.
Like Jenn said, we couldn't forbid it, but we would discourage it. Hopefully, through the example my husband and I provide our children, they see that our faith is an integral part of our marriage. We are united in God and when we experience difficulties, we can turn to the Catholic Church for guidance (i.e. priests, books, etc.) I have seen "mixed" marriages work, but usually one of the parents has shared that not being on the same page regarding religion has impacted their children negatively.
The above being said, I also know of a few "mixed" marriages that have resulted in the non-Catholic spouse becoming Catholic. A couple of examples follow:
My grandmother on my mother's side became a Catholic on her deathbed (she had agreed to raise my mom Catholic and did so by sending her to Catholic schools, boarding and otherwise).
The husband of a good friend entered the Church a couple of years ago. His wife had prayed for his conversion for years.
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Christine
Mommy to 4 girls, 5 boys, & 2 in God's care
Memories of a Catholic Wife and Mother
Pretty Lilla Rose
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Willa
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JennGM wrote:
If he's marrying age, we can't forbid it, but we will discourage it with our utmost. We've witnessed many struggles with "mixed" marriages, and believe that sharing the Faith is the bedrock of our marriage.
Please know that I'm not saying that mixed marriages can't work or criticizing other marriages.
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Know what you're saying, Jenn.
I would discourage mixed marriages for my children too, though ours (me Protestant, husband cradle Catholic) flourished through the grace of God. But see, I KNOW better now. Since I am a Catholic and know what "presumption" means, I would be presumptuous now to easily bless an inter-faith marriage.
I would obviously keep my boundaries though...
My parents were very good about that.
They were rather concerned that I would marry a Catholic, .... not anti-Catholic or anything, but thought it was a big difference and might lead to heartache and difficulties.
But they made their concerns known in a just, loving way.... encouraged me to pray and seek the counsel of my minister.... and did not ever ever second-guess or armchair-quarterback my choice. I would try to do the same thing, but I hope to express ahead of time to my kids the caveats. I think my teens know very well what the Church teaches on this subject. My parents did not have this level of concern because they believe Christians can come out of all Trinitarian denominations. Note that as a Catholic I believe that too -- but the sacraments and the fulness of the faith are so KEY.
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Willa
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Michaela
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My husband was confirmed in the Catholic church, but I don't think he understood a thing. His parents were not even CEO Catholics. (That I found out later) I thought because he told me about walking straight to CCD after school that they were practicing Catholics who fell away later in life. Ummm, nope. Just had him go to receive First Holy Communion, then Confirmation, and that's it.
His entire family is that way (except one brother). My DH is the youngest of eight and all go through the motions of baptism and getting their children to receive First Holy Communion....but there is no second or third ..... The goal is FIRST Communion.
He's a little hesistant to attend mass, but understands where I am and he is an example to our children. Church was forced on him & he just doesn't have fond memories.
He is changing though. The more we talk. The more I tell him what everything means....the more my Protestant Brother opens his mouth negatively about the Catholic Church...my husband wants to know his faith.
Regarding my children marrying someone who doesn't believe or isn't a Catholic.....ummm, I don't have a firm answer to that yet. I see the problems with my parents....my mom was/is Catholic and my dad was Baptist. My family just didn't go to church.
We would definitley talk. 
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Michaela
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MacBeth
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When I met my dh, he told me he was an atheist. Haha. I figured it would be an interesting challenge to let him in on the truth, but I soon discovered he was actually a way more informed practicing Catholic than I was. He was joking about being an atheist, of course! 
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MacBeth in NY
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aussieannie
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Dear Nina,
My husband was a practising Catholic when we started dating.
I would strongly encourage my children to prayfully consider the importance of marrying a practising Catholic - I know my husband would feel very strongly on that too - I have seen mixed marriages of all sorts, some disasterous, some that could have been stronger if the husband had been Catholic and then I have seen ones where the non-Catholic has been either a great support to the Catholic and in the raising the children Catholic or become strong converts themselves. But there is always that element of danger and not something I would encourage at all.
The troubles with a non Catholic husband is that he is the natural head of the home and it makes it very hard for the woman not to overstep her boundries as a wife in trying to foster a strong faith in her children.
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Under Her Starry Mantle
Spiritual Motherhood for Priests
Blessed with 3 boys & 3 girls!
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Cay Gibson
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Dh was born and raised Catholic.
His mother was a Baptist who converted to the Catholic faith and raised all their boys Catholics.
My older two seem pretty adamant that their spouse will just have to be Catholic or convert before marriage.
I haven't really thought of what I would tell my dc. I've seen too many good Catholics come from conversion to the faith to turn my nose up at the possibility. They usually make stronger Catholics than the cradle-born. Also, having many successful conversions within the family shows me that there is always room to open our homes in faith...no matter what the religious demonination.
I would state my concern, especially where the grandchildren are concerned and for complete unity in the marriage. I'd be open to questions the future spouse would have about our faith. In the end, I think we can only hope and pray for their conversion.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
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Cheryl
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My dh was a non-practicing Catholic, like me, when we met. When we got engaged, he said he wanted to get married in the Church. I didn't think it was right to use the Church as a wedding place, if we were not practicing parishioners. This led to much discussion, talks with priests, etc. We both returned to the Church during our engagement.
I don't know what I'll say to my dc.
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Cheryl
Wife to Bob ('97)
Mom to Matthew 13, Joseph 11, Sarah 10, Rachel 6, Hannah almost 4 and Mary 1
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mellyrose
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My husband became Catholic about a year & 1/2 after we wed. He had no religious upbringing, but was sent to a Catholic prep school and his mother was raised Catholic. He identified as a Catholic - even though he wasn't actually one.
When we met, he knew my faith was important to me, and willingly went through the necessary steps to have a declaration of nullity declared for his first marriage. He also began classes to become Catholic before our marriage, but for various reasons stopped -- then picked up again after we were married. We wed in the Catholic church, with the necessary dispensations because he was officially "nothing" (never baptized in any faith).
My grandfather converted for my grandmother - so I am leery about making blanket statements. You never know when Grace will appear.
While I hope my children find Catholic spouses, I will try to be open-minded. One thing that I KNOW I will have a hard time with is if they date women who are LDS. And living in AZ, I know they will have LDS (Church of Latter Day Saints / Mormon) friends and likely date LDS women at some point. But, I will discourage serious attachment bc there are so many things that upset me about their faith and my personal dealings with the LDS.
Oh, thank goodness they're only 4, 5 and unborn at this point. I know I will struggle during their dating years with this issue.
Melanie
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kjohnson
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My husband was raised Southern Baptist, but I met him at a Catholic university. After spending a semester in Rome and taking the required theology courses, it wasn't a big leap for him to convert. 
He converted while we were engaged. His dad wasn't too happy, but what do you expect when you send your child to a conservative Catholic university?
I would discourage my kids from marrying a non-Catholic. I've seen so many dear friends suffer a great deal of heart ache because of the differences in their Faith and the faith of their spouse. But God is in control and His plan is bigger than me.
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Katherine
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lapazfarm
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My husband was/is a practicing cradle Catholic and I was an athiest when we met. This naturally bothered him alot, but he said if we were to marry then I had to at least learn about his faith so that I could understand him and how he wanted our children raised. I did and that was it for me, I was hooked!I converted within the year!
As for our children, It would be very hard for me to tell my children they shouldn't date anyone who is not Catholic because there just are not that many around here. We have discussed that it would be difficult to marry a non-Catholic because sharing our faith has been so important to us. I would advise them to think long and hard about it. But honestly I would not prevent it. I would just pray daily for their conversion! Hey, if I can convert, anyone can!
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Theresa
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stefoodie
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My hubby was also born and raised Catholic, practicing and devoted, but I guess "less immersed" than I was. However he practiced his faith in some ways more profoundly than I did when we first met -- e.g., he is ALWAYS kind to EVERYONE; almost always puts others' needs first, always looking to serve, has no doubts at all in God and God's plan ... so even though I was more knowledgeable about Catholic teachings, etc. he was closer to the kind of Catholic I wanted to be.
Together we've really grown in our faith, and I love that we're the perfect complement to each other not only in our temperaments, personalities and intellect (he's left-brained and i'm more right-brained), but also in spiritual formation -- we supply each other's needs and in that way help each other grow closer to God in so many ways. We truly believe that God created us for each other.
Re our kids, from childhood we've always stressed to them how important it is to find people that share our faith, because it's such a basic, fundamental thing especially when planning a life together, deciding how kids should be raised and educated, how holidays should be celebrated, etc., etc. We pray that they'll choose a spouse that will be Catholic as well. But we also know they have their own lives and we'll have to let go at some point and just let God. We've seen some beautiful marriages where one spouse has brought the other into the faith, but I guess we'll just have to cross the bridge when we get there.
Incidentally, a very wise Christian (but non-Catholic) friend advised us when 15-yo was still a baby that we should start praying for our children's future spouses, and we've been doing exactly this. That the Lord and the Blessed Virgin will guide them and protect them, that they will be blessed in body and mind and soul such that our child and he/she can have a happy blessed union when they do meet and marry each other, that they won't have too many bad experienes or emotional/spiritual/mental baggage to sort through and overcome when they do meet. (We also pray, of course, that at least one of our children be called to a religious vocation, but as with everything else that's up to Him.)
Edited to add: I've mentioned before that I always thought I didn't deserve hubby. My parents have always been prayerful and I mostly credit it to their prayers that I was gifted with such a great person to share my life and spiritual journey with.
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stef
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Cici
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My husband was confirmed in the Catholic church. And that's pretty much it. As I mentioned before, he wanted to marry in the Catholic church and raise our children Catholic and it was strong disagreement between us during our engagement.
He still doesn't attend mass. But is whole heartedly behind my decisions for the faith formation of our children. He even surprises me sometimes when he explains a few things to dd! Seriously, though, he does do a better job at "practical" practicing than I - like Stef mentioned about her husband: my husband is always kind to everyone, and he has a deep belief in God that I will never understand (in the military and having been a bit too close for comfort to "the end", so to speak). He works with a VERY evangelical VERY fundamentalist character and has taken more interest in the specifics of our faith.
I would definitely pray for our children that they would find a Catholic spouse. And, in the meantime, I'm trying to learn how to more fully "live" Catholic - by filling our hearts and home with our faith - so that they won't want to ever give it up.
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Dawnie
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My dh was a practicing Catholic when we met...I was a sort of a floundering Methodist.  He had just decided to leave the seminary when we met, actually.
God used my dh to bring about my conversion to the Catholic faith. Whenever I get mad at dh now (and I've been pretty mad a few times), the one thing he always has in his favor is that I wouldn't be Catholic if it weren't for him. So I can't stay mad at him long.
I plan to strongly encourage my dc to date and marry a Catholic. I wouldn't disown them or anything if they married a Protestant, but I've heard a lot of sad stories from women whose husbands do not share or respect their Catholic beliefs. I think this would be a very hard cross to bear and I hope that my dc won't need to bear it. I think faith should be something that a couple and a family shares...it makes the tough times easier to get through.
Dawn
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ALmom
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My dh thought all churches were cults, his only exposure to Christianity was graffiti scrawled on stop signs. He moved south and wanted to meet people and ended up at a Catholic young adults social meeting thanks to a neighbor - with the assurance that there would be no church services involved and no one would press him about God.
I thought he was at least Christian when we started dating because of where we met - but found out otherwise after we were already becoming serious. We were married in the Catholic church while he was still unbaptized and did not think he believed in God. We had to get a dispensation from the Bishop to marry - but the priest never explained to me what that meant and I just assumed it was simple, routine, bureaucratic paperwork kind of stuff. I have since learned that what the dispensation meant was that I would be likely to live in sin if we were not granted permission to marry. This would not have been the case - but it was handled like a simple, routine paperwork drill so I never had a clue.
It is very difficult to begin marriage with such major differences. We could not even begin to forge any kind of prayer traditions, or pray as a couple etc. in the beginning, though my dh totally surprised me and came to Mass with me every Sunday from the day we were engaged. He had never attended before and I had not expected him to, but was thrilled. I knew when we married that I had to accept that he might never receive faith during my lifetime - though I felt I had a personal sort of assurance that he would eventually. Anyways, he was baptized with our 4th child (which then automatically made our marriage Sacramental). We were married for 13 years before we were united in faith.
As far as our dc, we have shared with them the beauty of being able to be of one mind and heart on what is most important - faith. However, while we would not encourage marrying outside the faith, I would want to be like Willa said. We know the particular difficulties and God was very good to us in His mercy because we were trying to overcome a heck of a lot of non-culpable ignorance and do what was right. Our children know better and are better formed than either of us was at the time of our marriage so they have greater responsibility here. But I also know that I would rather my dc marry a faithful spouse than an in-name only Catholic that pulled them down - and there is no way that I can see all the various paths that God may lead the children. So we encourage them to pray for their future vocations - and future spouses if marriage is God's plan for them. As someone else said, based on the area in which we live, our dc are not as likely to meet good Catholics - we are in the Bible Belt and are more likely to meet good non-Catholic Christians. I pray they find the spouse God intends for them - but would be lax if we did not caution against the extra difficulties of not being of one faith from the start. We have discussed this early so that it is not a sudden issue when they are in the midst of a relationship. I don't think I could absolutely forbid marrying outside the faith seeing that God has all kinds of ways and certainly I believe he brought my dh and I together for our mutual benefit - but I certainly discourage it as the norm.
Janet
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Erin
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My dh was a practising Catholic (A) when we met and always has been. We both come from practising Catholic families but yet they were different in many ways.
Dh's parents were both Catholics and they always attended Sunday Mass and sometimes weekdays. Some Catholic practises were kept at home like grace before meals, however the rosary for example was infrequent whereas my mum attempted a few times a week (my dad undermined her on that one)
Dh's parents love their faith however they left much of the children's formation to the schools, (bad move). They also were affected by Vatican 11. Whereas my mum fought Vatican 11 with a passion and educated herself. I would say my in-laws loved and practised their faith but were not educated Catholics. My mum was an educated Catholic, my dad was a convert and he was at a different place in his faith to my mum. That caused many problems. 
To answer your question of Catholic and non-Catholic's marrying. I would discourage it as I have also seen many divorces and unhappy marriages arise from 'mixed marriages'. Although then again I have also many wonderful friends who were brought to the church through their spouses. I would be talking to my dc about this before dating (actually we are talking about courtship here)
I would take this another step again, the Bible talks about 'being evenly yoked' I believe that just being a Catholic does not ensure that both are evenly yoked. I would encourage my dc to find a spouse who was of a similar mind spiritually speaking. Having grown up in a house where my parents were not evenly yoked and experienced the disastorous results and having now experienced the joys of having a spouse with whom I can share my Faith I can see the wisdom of the Biblical teaching. I pray that my dc will also see that wisdom.
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Erin
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Kathryn UK
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My dh is Jewish and continues to practice his own faith. Conversion to Christianity is literally unthinkable to him. He supports me in raising our children Catholic in practical ways (driving them to First Communion classes, for example), but would never attend a service in any church other than a wedding or funeral.
We would both encourage our children to marry someone of their own faith, as we know this is the ideal. We know from experience that there are ways in which a mixed marriage is painful. We also know from experience that it can work. If our children wanted to marry non-Catholics we would not have a problem with it, so long as they had prayed about it and talked through the issues.
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Kathryn
Dh Michael, Rachel(3/95) Hannah(8/98) Naomi(6/06)  (11/07)
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saintanneshs
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kjohnson wrote:
| My husband was raised Southern Baptist... |
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Mine too, and I think part of his heart will always miss some of his old Southern Baptist "church" things (like the songs and the social gatherings and such, as opposed to "faith" things, which he admits there weren't many). He became Catholic just before the birth of our second child, saying he was tired of "missing out" on Holy Communion.
Right before we were married I had drifted in and out of my Catholic faith and dh and I spent a lot of time at his childhood Baptist church. My mom (a cradle Catholic) was horrified. Unknown to me, she said many prayers on my behalf. What a debt I owe her! After the birth of our first child, dh and I agreed we would try to spend time at both his childhood Baptist church (mostly social events and sometimes church on Sundays AFTER Catholic mass) and my childhood Catholic Church (where there was a very unfortunate situation going on with the priest who'd married us). Before long I began to feel like I was missing out on something (DUH!) and told dh I needed to stop going back and forth and we needed to make a decision, so as not to confuse our kids. Thankfully, God placed a wonderful priest in our path who brought me back to the Church and began to make dh "wonder"...a year later dh was taking this priest's RCIA class and the rest is history.
Just for fun though, I will say that on the day I was introduced to dh's Southern Baptist extended family (a reunion of all places!!  ) it was said by his grandmother and aunts to his mother, loud enough for me to hear I might add, "Now you know she's CATHOLIC. That means if he's serious about this girl then they'll have children that will be CATHOLIC." (and we were only 16 years old!! ) My mother-in-law, whom I've gained many treasured gems of wisdom from over the years, calmly looked at them and said (also in a loud voice), "Catholics are Christians and as long as the two of them are worshipping God together and raising good Christian children who go to church every Sunday, I will be happy wherever they go." And she has been, God bless her. Her life has been infiltrated by hoardes of us Catholics for the last 11 years and she's never been anything but supportive and respectful of our Catholic faith.
So don't be fearful if your Catholic kids don't marry a Catholic. In our case, God obviously had a plan to expose whole generations of Southern Baptists to Catholicism! My dh's conversion even inspired my father (also a Southern Baptist) to take RCIA classes after a lifetime of watching Mom and us kids go off to mass every Sunday. Apparently we weren't enough of a catalyst for Dad, but my dh sure was. My dad became a Catholic the year after dh did! I sure want my kids to marry Catholics too, but I also realize that not marrying one may be an opportunity to share the faith with a whole family of non-Catholics and even convert a few! So I hope I do a good job raising my children in the Catholic faith, and I pray now for their future spouses and especially their future mothers-in-law, that they may be as respectful and supportive as mine has been (and thus God's work might be just a little easier for them! )
(BTW, dh's aunts and grandmother LOOOOOVE me now ...)
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Kristine
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Nina Murphy
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Thank you, wonderful ladies, for your thoughts and sharings here.
I have been given new perspectives.
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God bless,
~~Nina
mother of 9 on earth,
and 2 yet-to-be-met
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: Same religious upbringing ?--husbands
