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| On the pre-cana topic...We did pre-cana at Trinity in 2004. I enjoyed the experience and believe it was very beneficial in terms of my relationship and marriage. While a lot of the subject matter was very practical (e.g., a lot of focus on finances & communication), there was a spiritual richness about the whole thing. And, I don't remember any mention of family planning or birth control. One of the couples in our group had been together for a long time and were parents of a toddler. We (even though my husband is not Catholic) continue to be parishoners at HTC even though we, mostly for practical reasons, do not venture into Georgetown more than once every two months. I think we're going to our local church (VA) for Easter even though we've never been inspired to become parishoners there. |
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It all boils down to the individual priest. FWIW, the jerky head priest at our former parish refused to baptize my sister's second child b/c she and her husband weren't married in the catholic church (she is catholic, went to catholic school preK-HS, rec'd all sacraments, etc. and her husband is christian but not catholic). What made this even more infuriating is that their first baby was baptized in the same parish (albeit by a different priest). He gave her a lecture, made her cry, and told her the only way he would consider doing it was if her husband agreed to sign up for classes to convert to catholocism. What's weird is that they were parishioners who attended mass and even contributed money regularly through the church envelopes -- so obviously they were committed to being catholic and raising their kids in the church. I called the archdiocese of Washington and spoke to a few folks to find out what the rules were regarding this and it turns out that the priest was just being a jerk. Apparently he has a reputation for running his parish like a dictator. (The folks in the archdiocese guessed who I was talking about even though I didn't offer up his name/parish.)
Having said all that, the catholic priest who performed the interfaith ceremony (catholic and jewish) along with a rabbi when I married my husband was such a kind man. He got a special dispensation from the archdiocese so that our marriage would be valid, and he let us off the hook for pre-cana and instead we did a long pre-wedding counseling session with the rabbi (we opted for this to make my husband feel more comfortable). That catholic priest was a great man --- all he wanted to know from us was that we loved each other and planned to raise our kids with some kind of religious upbringing in the future. Bottom line: start calling priests and asking questions. If you get major push back, look elsewhere. Best of luck to you. IMHO, it really shouldn't be this hard to find someone to baptize a baby. |