Should we invite atheist family to First Communion?

[Anonymous]

My MIL and FIL are openly atheist, and have tendencies to be outspoken and rude/hurtful to other family members who are Christian -although they have not voiced opinions in regards to my husbands and my religious choices. They disagree with, do not support, or feel comfortable around anything religious. They attended our daughters baptism, but saw it only as a family function.

Fast forward seven years, our daughter will have her First Communion in November. In those seven years, I have listened to and watched (FB post comments, etc.) a rudeness I can't believe. My MIL and FIL are horribly rude and blatantly disrespectful to religious beliefs, other than being atheist of course. I really don't want to have them anywhere near my daughter on this special (to us) day. They don't believe in it, don't like it, and I don't know why they would come, other than, again, to get together with the extended family. I have no issue not having a party at all, just taking DD to dinner with supportive family and friends afterwards.

Am I being irrational?

[Anonymous]

What does your spouse want? I'm assuming you are DW, so does DH feel strongly about his parents being part of an important family occasion?

[Anonymous]

It's fine. I'm an atheist and while I wouldn't be rude or preachy about it, I also have no interest in sitting through a first communion. I seriously doubt they want to go so I don't think it's a problem leaving them off the invitation list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does your spouse want? I'm assuming you are DW, so does DH feel strongly about his parents being part of an important family occasion?

When he hears or gets wind of things they say, he says no. But other times he says to ignore them. It depends on th day! Just today, after an interesting FB post comment, he says no. I have a feeling when I go to write invites (if I even do!) he will say to invite them.

[Anonymous]

"Ward, June. We would like to invite you to Larla's first communion. This is a special event for our family, and we want you to be a part of it. We know you are not religious all but hopefully for that one day we can put aside the differences in our beliefs and celebrate together. We're hoping this milestone in her religious life also is a start for some of the positive service contributions to the wider community we hope she makes throughout her life. If you prefer not to come to church, we'd still like to have you at the dinner where we all celebrte our darling girl."


(Hopefully the anticipated service contributions include stuff like feeding the poor, not marching against whatever your inlws believe. If the latter, leave that sentence out.)

[Anonymous]

It is a family function for them and it would be very crappy of you to exclude them.

[Anonymous]

I'm atheist and think their behavior is awful. Don't invite them to the ceremony. You should be focused on your daughter that day and not on worrying about what they'll say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm atheist and think their behavior is awful. Don't invite them to the ceremony. You should be focused on your daughter that day and not on worrying about what they'll say.

OP here. It's as though people practicing religion effects them personally. I could care less what they believe in, and would never even make a comment, but they feel they have to interject at any mention of religion.

[Anonymous]

I would not invite them. They have made it clear that they do not respect your religious choices and it sounds like they are opposed to religion in general. In a way their attendance is disrespectful to your daughter and to your church community.
If they are upset about being left out they might want to rethink their offensive behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm atheist and think their behavior is awful. Don't invite them to the ceremony. You should be focused on your daughter that day and not on worrying about what they'll say.

OP here. It's as though people practicing religion effects them personally. I could care less what they believe in, and would never even make a comment, but they feel they have to interject at any mention of religion.

My SIL is like this. It is completely obnoxious. Nobody invites her to anything anymore.

[Anonymous]

First of all, 15:21 did such a nice job, and it's taking the high road, so that's impressive and worthy of consideration.

I, on the other hand, would just skip right to not announcing or inviting them. First Communions are usually immediate family and *maybe* grandparents or aunt/uncles. It's a time for the Catholic community to be together and reaffirm their faith. So it's not really a time to have anyone there who is not going to give that supportive vibe.

And your ILs may not just be neutral, they might do something to detract. This day is really not the day for YOU to be worrying about someone not towing the line. This is a day for you, too--it's a day for the family. You should be focused on your DD, not your ILs.

[Anonymous]

Another atheist who would not invite them. They sound awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm atheist and think their behavior is awful. Don't invite them to the ceremony. You should be focused on your daughter that day and not on worrying about what they'll say.

OP here. It's as though people practicing religion effects them personally. I could care less what they believe in, and would never even make a comment, but they feel they have to interject at any mention of religion.

I would not allow my own kids to be baptized or communion'd (??) but if accepting Jesus into someone's heart is what helps them be a funny, happy, sane, good human being in the world, then there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't negatively affect me; it's just not the route I want to take to be a funny, happy, sane and good human being in the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm atheist and think their behavior is awful. Don't invite them to the ceremony. You should be focused on your daughter that day and not on worrying about what they'll say.

OP here. It's as though people practicing religion effects them personally. I could care less what they believe in, and would never even make a comment, but they feel they have to interject at any mention of religion.

Yes, when I saw the title of the thread, I thought, of course, invite the atheists to First Communion. If they love your child, they'll want to be there. I wouldn't call myself an atheist but I'm definitely no longer a Christian. However I still have respect for other people's beliefs and would be happy to attend a First Communion of the child of a relative. But after I read your post, I realized the title of the thread should be: "Should we invite asshole family to First Communion?" Your ILs are jerks - doesn't matter what their religious beliefs are.

[Anonymous]

I also say not to invite them, but I think I also wouldn't have huge party where it's obvious that they were excluded. Invite the family members that participate in your religion and maybe some close friends that also are supportive or friends from church.

If you're inviting the whole neighborhood, friends from school, etc., it will feel like a real snub. But if it's just "This is a religious party for people of this religion to celebrate a religion event" then it should not be seen as a snub to them.