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doris
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One of my best friends from college has asked me to be godmother to her baby.
She and her husband attend an Anglican church although her husband was raised Catholic.
I'm honoured to be asked but I feel slightly uncomfortable about it. I've asked around and it turns out that there is nothing in canon law on the subject.
Can anyone here share any insight?
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Home educating in London, UK with dd (2000) ds (2002), dd (2004), ds (2008) and dd (2011).
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aussieannie
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We were asked a couple of years ago and we consulted a priest who said that we couldn't. Though I'd be interested to know what documents are out there. The family were very understand, which was a blessing..
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MaryM
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We were asked several years ago to be godparents for a friend's daughter - they are Episcopalian. When I did the research at the time I understood, as Anne said, that we were not permitted to be godparents. We could be a witness but not sponsor. Though I'm not sure about law or documents on this, but now I'm curious and looking for the info again.
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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Faith Facts from CUF - Should I be a Godparent?
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Mary M. in Denver
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Lara Sauer
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A friend of mine from college, who at the time of her marriage was separated from the Catholic Church and subsequent births of her children, asked me to be the godmother of her second son. She had been married in the Episcopal Church and had her children baptized there.
I asked our priest at the time, Fr. William Saunders, whom many of you might know from his "Straight Answers" column that used to be in our diocesan paper (Arlington, VA) if he thought that I could accept the responsibility.
I explained to him that my friend was Catholic, but for a variety of reasons, she was no longer practicing. He asked me if I thought there would be hope of her returning to her faith, and I said, yes, most definitely. He then said he thought that I should accept the responsibility, while making sure that she understood that I would be approaching the baptism from the understanding of our shared Catholic faith, and that I would be praying for the day when they would return to it.
Happily, she and her children returned to the faith not long after.
I will pray for you as you try and come to a decision about this very important matter.
Peace.
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doris
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Thanks all. I looked up the very useful document referenced by Mary M and it seems that there is some church teaching on the matter.
I've said no and I hope and pray I won't have caused offence.
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Home educating in London, UK with dd (2000) ds (2002), dd (2004), ds (2008) and dd (2011).
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MaryM
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Doris, what we did and I should have mentioned that in my earlier post, was decline, but did attend and serve in a more witness role - though not official. They had asked multiple people as they like their children to have lots of godparents (which I don't know if officially is okay, either - but that's another story). I know that relationship dimension (with friends or family) is a very touchy one - one that you don't want to jeopardize. We kind of joke about it and consider our selves "fairy" godparents.
My daughter also has "fairy" godparents - the couple who were when she was baptized. Since we see them more often than her godparents they treat her as if she was their goddaughter (they are godparents to one of our sons). I think there are many ways to be a visable and active part of a child's life in helping with their faith formation and as a role model of living a Christian life without it being the official capacity. And it just makes sense that the church would have some guidance in general about not officially serving as representative for a child to be raised in a faith that is not the one we embrace.
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Karen T
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I had kind of the opposite situation. when oldest ds was born, dh and I were nominal Catholics at best. I had converted long before we met but was definitely a cafeteria Catholic back then, and dh is a cradle Catholic whose family never lived the faith at all, just went to mass every Sunday. None of my family is Catholic and his brothers stopped even attending mass as soon as they left home. At the time we had no Catholic friends, either, as we were moving a lot for the Navy. Anyway, we had just moved to a new town and wanted ds baptized, at 4 mos old. My sister and brother-in-law were (and still are) the most responsible out of all our siblings and at least attend church, though they are protestant. They would be our kids' guardians if something happened to us, so we ended up having them be godparents, not knowing any better! No one ever asked if they were Catholic and it didn't occur to us to say!  It was much later before I realized what a no-no that was. for my next child we chose dh's mother, and for our youngest we now have some very close Catholic friends. I have no idea still where that leaves ds, now 16 yo and just confirmed. My sister and BIL completely ignored his confirmation, as they are ignoring my younger kids' upcoming FHC.
What's interesting, though, is that for both of my younger kids' baptisms, I had to get proof of the godparents being baptized, confirmed Catholics from their priest, and I had to provide that same kind of proof when dh and I became godparents to our god-daughter. These are with different parishes than the one oldest ds was baptized in but if that had happened with him, we would have realized the problem!
Karen T
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Godparent to Anglican baby?
