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Sat 25 Jan, 2003 08:07 pm
My fiance is so Catholic she prays before going to bed. I am a life long Atheist. To my surprise it was quite easy for us to get permision to marry in the Catholic church. First we went to the office of the archbishop and picked up a form which the local priest would fill out after interviewing me. This form would grant a special permision for our "disparity of faith". Then we made an appointement with the priest at the church we want to use. We brought two witnesses. Her brother-in-law and a friend of mine from the US who speaks very little Spanish. My fiance asked me to please say I believe in (a) God in order to avoid problems. During my interview the priest came to the question "What is your religion?" I told him "Believer" and that's what he put down. So I didn't have to lie after all since I was never asked "believer in what?" Sort of like the New Yorker who drove up to Vermont, got a little disoriented and asked the Vermonter sitting in front of the gas station "How many miles to Brattleboro?" and the Vermonter responded "Thirty" so the New Yorker drives and drives and finally turns around and returns to the station where the old guy was sitting outside and says "Hey I thought you said Brattleboro was thirty miles!" and the Vermonter says "T'other way". Anyway the padre did his part to smooth the process. When he asked my friend how long he'd known my fiance my friend said "About five months" in his poor Spanish and the padre said "So you've known her for a year?" and my friend said "Yes". After all the interviews the padre signed off on the dispensation and we took it back to the archbishop's office where we were told we return the following day to pick it up with the official stamp of the archbishop and turn it in to the padre. All in all a cake walk. I'm told that having no religion made it easier than had I been a practicing Protestant or some such. So there you have it.
Sounds like you got lucky, Pitter! Catholic churches (at least the for the weddings I've attended) have been militaristic with their blessings.
When's the lucky day?
Agreed
My fiance thinks we were lucky with the priest as some can be very "complicated". However there is special but official provision at least here, for Catholics to mary non-Catholics. Surprised the hell out of me...
Hi Pitter. Welcome to A2K!
I was surprised at your story also. I have a friend who had to go to classes every night for months (it seemed like), then join the church and get blessed, etc., before she could marry her Catholic fiance. Shortly after that, she stopped going to church. Sounds like you had it much easier. Maybe it is because of the geographical difference.
I hope you have a lovely wedding!
Marriage Class
The "lucky day" is 22 Feb. Yikes!!!
We also had to go Catholic marriage class three hours per evening for five nights. One of the sessions was really very good. The speaker gave an extremely thorough and frank presentation on both the physical and psychological aspects of sex. He didn't leave anything out and even at my not so tender age I learned some stuff. Another session dwealt with budgeting for a household. This was a good lesson because except for me everyone in the class was in their early twenties to early thirties. In the exercise the speaker gave us two monthly minimum saleries (the standard income here, both partners working), a total of $250 in US dollars (I didn't look but I'm sure my fiance was smirking, thinking WE won't be living on no $250 a month) and we all had to decide how to parcel it out for rent, food, busfare etc. As much or more in vogue here as in the US one humorist called out "$35 for the celular". Another session got bogged down in a psuedo psychological discussion mixed up with religious dogma, about narcisism and some other stuff.
Have you two bothered to discuss future things that might cause conflict because of the differences of religious faiths, such as raising children if you plan on having any? What about problems with the in laws, or celebrating of holidays, especially the religious ones?
I was born Jewish by birth, and married a Christian. The marriage ceremony was performed by a Rabbi, which was my mothers choice.
These days I don't follow any religious practices, and consider myself an agnostic. We have two children and have brought them up basically without religion. More important to us was raising our children with morals, principles, values, and ethics which I belive can be taught without religion.
If I were you, I wouldn't have changed the category of my beliefs or lack of beliefs in order to be married in a Catholic church.
Doesn't what you did bother you at all? I'm not looking for any trouble, but IMO it just wouldn't feel right for me to lie about my religious beliefs.
If somone can't or won't accept me for who I am, then so be it. There are other alternatives.
Just my opinion.
I have to agree with dlk33. A marriage begun with a lie is not a very good start. You say that your fiancee is "so Catholic", which indicates to me that her faith is a deep part of her life. With you be comfortable living, hopefully for the rest of your lives, with a woman whose world view is so different from yours?
And as dlk33 mentions, what about the kids? What happens when your wife is raising your children to be devout Catholics? For very devout people, there is often one answer on many issues, with no negotiations allowed. How will you deal with this?
I hate to "rain on your parade", but, IMO, you really need to talk this out with your fiancee BEFORE the fact, and come to an equitable agreement.
Obviously good points in both the above posts. In fact we have discussed our different viewpoints at length and feel the differences can be accomodated. As to lies and damn lies to the priest no it doesn't bother me. I told him what he needed to hear in order to allow the ceremony, that my fiance wants very much, to go forward.
If children enter the picture in the future they'll learn differing views of what makes the world go round. Like being bi-lingual.
I don't know about Pitter's personal case, but Catholicism in Latin America is taken differently than in the US. It's more social, and less intimately religious. I believe the reason is that more than half of Americans are not Catholic, while close to 90% of Latin Americans are (or say they are).
Here you don't need the parents marriage license -not to say a Catholic marriage certificate- to get your child to a Catholic school, you don't need the godparents to be to produce a baptism certificate to prove they're Catholics, you don't need that both parents be present -or that both be Catholics- at baptism ceremonies. Lots of people go to the ceremonies (a party, after all), but few than half "believers" go to church with some regularity. I suppose Colombia would be quite similar.
Culturally, the Catholic woman-Agnostic man marriage is about the most common coupling. It seems to have worked quite well.
So my say is that only if Pitter's bride is very very very Catholic, there would be problems.
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