Must Catholic children be protected from their non-Catholic grandparents?
I recently heard of a situation, and I wondered if the Vox Nova community might have any insights or wisdom about it. There’s a Catholic family with three children under the age of three. The father’s mother is nominally Protestant and, a year or so ago, moved nearby to be close to her son and grandchildren. She doesn’t mind going to mass with them and is eager to accommodate her son and daughter-in-law’s wishes whenever she can if it means spending time with her grandchildren. In addition, this grandmother paid for the family’s housing for one year, knowing that they were struggling financially.
These young parents are very concerned with being faithful Catholics and with raising their children in the Catholic faith. With the non-Catholic grandmother nearby, potentially able to be very involved in their children’s lives, the parents realized they had to make some decisions. They decided that this vaguely Protestant grandmother should not read Bible stories to the children (again, all under 3 years old), in case the children have questions about the theological content of the stories. They decided she should never be unsupervised with the children, and thus that she certainly should never babysit. Finally, shortly after the year in which the grandmother subsidized their housing was completed, these Catholic parents made one more decision and informed the grandmother that she could no longer have any interaction with the children due to their different views on family life and child rearing.
My instinctive reaction is that this is very wrong – not because having tension or messiness within families is so hard to fathom, but because in this case, it’s all shrouded in the name of Catholicism and ‘family’. But what do you think? Must Catholic children be protected from their non-Catholic family members, including grandparents? Is it ever justifiable to cut a relative – like a grandmother – out of one’s family on the basis of religious belief? If not, is there anything ‘official’ from the Church that would explain why doing so is not acceptable?
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Hmm, this couple had no problem accepting non-catholic monetary help. Standing in judgement the grandparents for not being catholic is bad enough, but treating them as if they were pedophiles is inexcusable.
I’m sure the grandparents will come to their senses once they read the part where Jesus said “You must be catholic.” Oh, that’s right, that never happened.
The reaction of the parents, based on the way in which you conveyed it to us, is remarkably unfortunte.
The grandmother has moved closer to the family, is comfortable attending Mass with the family, and has provided financial support to the financially struggling parents. She is willing to take a role in the religious formation of her grand children by reading them Bible stories, and yet, because she is Protestant the husband and wife have decided to…
My grandmother was not Catholic, and yet she always made time for our family, was comfortable attending Mass with us, and so on, and if her Protestantism (hers was a nominal one as well) ever would have formed the basis for my parents rejection of her, then that would have very much affected the way I would have viewed my parents.
Kids don’t need to be protected from difference. This young family might be, as you say, very concerned with their identity as Catholics, but it seems to me they might begin to consider their identity as Christians.
My gosh, I suppose these people are sincere in their faith, but their treatment of that poor woman is uncharitable in the extreme. My mother-in-law is Protestant, and you couldn’t find a sweeter, kinder example of a Christian anywhere, no matter how our theologies might differ. Like the lady you describe, she was always respectful of my childrens’ Catholicism and made it a point to be present — and participate, when possible — at their baptisms, First Holy Communions, and Confirmations. (She would accept a lighted candle with such reverence we Catholics could be shamed by our relative nonchalance in comparison.)
Unless a Protestant relative is some raving, anti-Catholic lunatic, I fail to see any reason to keep them at this kind of arm’s length, especially a grandmother!
Parents have to teach their children how to live in the real world. I’m afraid it sounds like these folks are raising theirs for life in some self-imposed ghetto. That’s very sad.
I’m positive that there’s nothing official from the Church that would support this position.
This is a real situation?! How awful! So much for honoring your father and mother! I agree with Kelly that the young parents here “might begin to consider their identity as Christians.”
I seriously doubt that you will find something “official” from the church that explicitly addresses a situation like this–especially since this seems so facially contrary to basic Christian morality (let alone that Church documents usually do not deal with specifics like this but tend to speak to principles).
That said, you could refer these people to the Catechism’s explication of the 4th Commandment, especially paragraphs 2214-2200 on “The duties of children” and filial piety. Paragraph 2218 quotes Sirach; note Sirach 3:16, “Whoever angers his mother is cursed by the Lord.” Paragraph 2219 quotes Proverbs 17:6, “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged.”
Thank you – especially for the direct references! But you make a good point about church documents dealing more with broad principles than with specifics.
Sorry, but I don’t think there is enough information to make a specific opinion here. The questions I need to ask:
1) The information you have given sounds like the parents went from some restrictions to many restrictions quickly “just cause” she’s Protestant. Were there any conflicts faithwize between each restriction, or that lead to each restriction? Otherwize it seems one sided that the Catholic parents just clamped down on the grandparent. Also, who, if there were conficts, started them and what did each person do for the conflict?
2) Specifically about the Bible stories, did the grandmother start to do this before the parents gave the restriction? And when the grandmother did read those Bible stories (if she did), was she giving Protestant faith advice or instruction to answer the children’s theological questions? Or was Grandma reading straight from the Bible or “St Joseph’s Little Bible Stories for Kids” from the local Christian/Catholic bookstore?
As for Mr. Muldoon, I am in aggrement that there is nothing speficially official saying “bar the kids from non-Catholic/Christian relatives from their faith education” and “do X,Y,Z to maintain a pure Catholic Faith education.” Not to mention this sounds almost in direct violation of the Church’s current stance on ecumenism.
What I can contribute to this situation as a general framework is one Scripture passage and Magisterial teaching when it comes to fighting for the faith, and parental teaching respectfully.
On fighting for the faith, one of my favourite passages from Paul’s Letter to Timothy:
1 Timothy 6:12 (NRSV – CCCB) – “Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”
On Catholic parental responsibility in a child’s faith life, from Vatican II Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, Section 3 (The Authors of Education): “3. Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators.(11) This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered ….”
You raise good questions, but I think the situation is just about as simple as I described. I don’t think there were particular conflicts between the decisions – from what I understand, the grandmother simply agreed to whatever new restrictions they issued and would ask if there was anything she was doing that was upsetting them or anything else she could do to make them more comfortable. The grandmother, by virtue of being nominally Protestant and not terribly religious, has no interest in corrupting the children’s religious education, but used to simply read whatever books the children asked her to read to them – thus, whatever books the parents had provided.
Kari – You seem to be rejecting the idea that there’s more to the story. I wouldn’t be that confident about a story from my family, much less someone else’s. Kindly old gramma may be fine with Catholics (even spics and dagos) until the booze starts kicking in, when she’s prone to falling asleep with a cigarette in her hand and setting fire to the sofa. If you ask her kids why they’re moving, they’ll say it’s for religious reasons. Families are always more complicated than they seem from the outside.
My father-in-law is an avid evangelical Protestant/evangelical republican. My wife is searching. I am catholic as are my 3 children under 5. My wife and I both worry sometimes about his influence…and rightly so because my wife has early memories of memorizing things like “who loves you more than your friends and parents? God does.”..or watching the moralism of veggie tales and listening to the tapes of some other moralistic claptrap…as well as sitting in front of the tv, watching public televangelists.
Are there cases of evangelicals you can trust? Probably. But all? I think not. Christ and anti-christ are manifested in a variety of ways and individual/social behaviors. My greatest fear will be that he exudes some sort of division and antipathy between him and my daughter because of his presentation of Christ being at odds with my eldest’s own experience…that is, that it might harm their relationship.
All that said, if you trust your friend’s faith and intuition, trust their instincts in this regard. The most important thing you could remind them of is that their actions and behavior is of far greater consequence than their child’s grandmother.
I would never, at such a young age, make my concerns explicit to my children. I will however, always talk to them about their visits with grandpa with a searching ear. And should anything arise, deal with the situation gently…which in most cases of doctrine and catechesis, simply means fulfilling the Word of God to it’s fullness, rounding it off, “catholicizing” it…if necessary, saying firmly, “no, son, that is not the case, and this is why….”
“who loves you more than your friends and parents? God does.”
BTW, while this is certainly true, it can be traumatizing for a young one who first feels her parent’s love before all else. Love of God and knowing God’s love is not a matter of memorization at an early age but of being loved by one’s kin and friends and seeing Love of God in them.
BTW2, I don’t mean to necessarily support their particular decision. Only to say that there is probably more going on than just the “faith” difference.
Church teaching supporting their decision: perhaps not any particular letter of the law, but it may be there in spirit. I wouldn’t say there is something in church treaching requiring parents to allow their own parents to be involved in their grandchildren’s lives.
This is simply tragic, and if this is what it means to raise children Catholic, well, count me out.
Oddly enough, my family is in a similar position, but we’ve chosen a very different way to handle it. My husband and I are both converts, so our kids have non-Catholic grandparents on both sides.
His parents built us a house on their land, so they could be closer to their grandchildren. They have hosted baptism parties at their house for our kids, but they don’t go to mass with us regularly. They read the kids Bible stories, and say prayers with them. They have bought us pretty rosaries. I understand why they are not Catholic, and we freely discuss our religious difference (*gasp*) in front of the children (both under 3).
We make it a point to visit my parents for a weekend, once a month or so, as they live further away. My mom will take the 2 year old to her Baptist church, and she enjoys playing with the other kids in Sunday School, singing songs, listening to a Bible story, and doing crafts. We also go to Christmas Eve services with them, as it is a family tradition. This does not replace mass for my family. We simply go to Christmas mass the next day. As with my husband’s parents, I am pleased how involved my parents are with my children.
I figure honesty about religious differences is best for children. They’ll eventually find out that Protestants exist. But will they resent their parents later for causing unnecessary family conflict? And will this ultimately turn them away from Catholicism?
“I recently heard of a situation,…”
IMHO: For people in earnest spiritual practice, it is best not to spread gossip about how other people manage their family relationships. What matters is how we manage our relationships.
Teaching their children fear instead of love seems to be the general catholic tradition that is passed through the generations without much insight into how it has consistently weakened and infected the faith with rigidity and spiritual narcissism. Now, this is what triggers my anger. Yet, I must somehow love these young catholic parents and hopefully someone can point out how their fear will drive their children away from God’s Love.
Yikes, it just sounds nuts, not to mention cruel.
I grew up with a Catholic grandmother and Baptist grandparents on Mom’s side. We spent a lot of time with both sides. I would hate to think about missing the time and experiences, and relationship, that I had with my Baptist grandparents. Yes, of course Grandma read us Bible stories. If I was staying with them on a weekend, I went to church with them (before anybody chimes in, yes, my parents saw that I went to Mass, too.)
Fast forward a generation, my parents-in-law were Protestant (my husband converted to Catholicism). They were never anything but kind to me. Our kids spent lots of time with them, and saw that their faith was an important part of their life.
Now all these lovely people are gone, and I miss them so much. I hate to think of kids missing the opportunity to have a relationship with their grandparents; there is so much to learn from the generations preceding us.
I think it is a very misguided belief that one has to seal one’s children into a little world which doesn’t include anyone who is different from them in faith.
(Please note that I’m not talking about abusive relationships. I realize there are certain situations that you have to keep kids away from.)
This sounds so implausible that my first reaction is to ask: “What is really going on?”
I hear this stuff from time to time. There might be something more to this particular case, but it is consistent with others I have heard. I remember, some time back, having a dinner with a Mormon couple who, in the course of telling me about their families, informed me that the husband’s family had disowned him upon his conversion to Mormonism…
I completely agree that something else must be going on, but it’s all being justified in the name of religion. Part of why I wondered if there might be anything written against this sort of thing was that it might be a way to show that Catholicism as such is not enough of a reason to divide a family this way, and that it would be worth dealing with whatever underlying issues are in fact at work…
David:
Me too.
This just in: Jesus Christ is not a sectarian denomination.
Hello?
That’s true, but Christians speak from within various traditions. Catholics believe that the fullness of the faith is found in the Church. Sorry, but we do. So, indifferentism isn’t the proper response to the cramped, fearful attitudes of these parents.
No. Since their beliefs are exclusionary and condescending, they have every reason to believe that such beliefs might be resented and opposed. I think that probably these parents took the only intellectually consistent tact.
First, it’s ‘tack,’ not ‘tact.’ A ‘tack’ is a directional course, as in sailing, where one ‘tacks’ to starboard or port.
Back to the couple. How do you know that their beliefs are “exclusionary and condescending?” What do you know from the post about their beliefs, except that the parents are “trying to be faithful Catholics?” Are you implying that Catholic beliefs per se are “exclusionary and condescending?” And what if they are? Aren’t everyone’s beliefs to some extent “exclusionary?” Or do you, a Protestant, believe that Catholics are both right AND wrong about, say, papal infallibility?
Or did you mean that the parents are behaving in an exclusionary and condescending manner, irrespective of their beliefs? That I would agree with.
I don’t think we can view religion necessarily as the cause in all these cases, but the symptom. Sounds like dysfunctional family dynamics with religion either exarcerbating or being used as a pawn in those interpersonal games…
Something ain’t right.
It could very well be that the parent’s of the children in question ain’t right in their heads. In that case, they ain’t right.
Something ain’t right. Mental illness quickly comes to mind.
This Catholic priest hopes there is much more to the story than what was revealed here, as the rationale given for denying the grandkids and grandmother access to each other is appalling. It makes no sense to live in such fear.
The parents seem to be operating out of an analysis of Catholicism that presumes that it is neither persuasive nor attractive…
I’ve never heard of such a thing. My wife is Protestant and I’m Catholic. We’re raising our son Catholic. I’m not sure I’d want to seal off all non-Catholic influences. How rounded would such a person be?
I’m afraid there are many self-consciously “orthodox” Catholics today, especially among certain converts (or so it seems), who regard the larger culture as so potentially dangerous to their faith that they’re choosing to live as separately as possible from everybody and everything they consider threatening spiritually. This isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. From the 70s on, there have been Catholics joining evangelical-style movements that involve forming small enclaves of true believers who live — and often pray — apart from the rest of the community, even the larger church community. Although I realize the Holy Spirit works in a variety of ways, and that — on paper, at least — this isn’t all that different from monasticism, I don’t think it’s healthy. Not only can it lead to the kind of uncharitable behavior within families we see here, but looked at on a grander scale, it’s taking Catholics in the opposite direction from where Vatican II was leading. We were told to go out into the world with hands extended to “our separated brethren,” not lock every potential heretic out and homeschool the children lest they pick up a marauding idea that might corrupt them.
How did “faithful” Catholics get so far afield from the spirit of our last ecumenical council?
This sounds a lot like what’s happening here – thanks for a thoughtful comment.
Thanks for so many thoughtful responses, everyone. I think it really is a sad situation. I think the grandmother would be comforted to hear from so many that this is not just generally accepted Catholic child-rearing practice.
Just want to chime in, in agreement with the majority of the commenters: If the story is as you say it is, there’s something nutty with the parents, because it sounds like the grandmother’s influence would actually be a wonderful influence in raising the children as Catholics, as opposed to a detriment. The parents are foolish for not seeing that.
Just a thought.
I am in a situation…my parents are fundamentalists and they believe that their group are the only ones saved. My having left the church, and married a Catholic, and converted to Catholicism means that in the eyes of their church, I and my family are by definition not saved. This has led to the unfortunate distancing…I don’t particularly relish my young children being told that they are going to hell because they are Catholic. We have had to set very specific limits, with the understanding that if those limits are violated, the relationship changes radically. We have had to have some very difficult conversations…however, those conversations are much better than cutting contact.
I believe that my faith and my children’s faith may at least cause them to question the absolutes of their belief system.
Hard to be a light to others if I shut myself off from them.
Brian:
I think you are definitely doing the right thing.
I could certainly defend the parents’ actions if the grandmother were affirmatively preaching Protestant doctrines or undermining Catholic teachings in some way, after being asked not to, or if she had shown herself to be untrustworthy somehow. If not then it seems to me that, either there’s more to it, or else the parents are paranoid.
I’m not sure how important it is to be “well rounded” in terms of religious influences during childhood. But I think kids should learn that not everyone is Catholic, and you can still love and be loved by people who aren’t.
I hope it’s OK if I bring up a situation that arose concerning exposing my kids to a certain relative of mine. She claimed to be a Catholic believer, though she was not known to attend Mass regularly, and eventually had a child out of wedlock.
For a while I was not sure whether I should tell her she was not welcome around my kids, as I didn’t want to seem to be approving of her behavior. In the end I just couldn’t do it as it seemed too hurtful, even though I still wasn’t sure that was the right answer. But as it turns out, my kids, who are now teenagers, are quite firmly grounded in Catholic moral teaching, and have not been influenced by this relative in the slightest, as far as I can tell.
It’s not always easy to know how to balance charity on the one hand, with the need to protect your kids from bad influences on the other.
Agellius, I think you made the right call. Parents have a lot more influence on kids than other family members. Your kids saw you attend Mass regularly, and honor your marriage. And they saw you treat others with kindness, and not exclude them. And who knows, that relative may be moved to become a more active and observant Catholic because she was treated with love by others in the family.
“First, it’s ‘tack,’ not ‘tact.’”
@Mark Gordon: Yes, it is. Thank you for that correction.
The behavior of the parents in this scenario is both exclusionary and condescending on the face of it. How much of this behavior is validated by Catholicism is not for me to say. That’s your call. What I can say from personal experience is that Catholics would have been welcomed at any service in any of the churches I’ve attended (I was baptized in a Lutheran Church and confirmed in a Presbyterian one), including communion services. The opposite is not the case.
And before you assure me that Protestants are welcome to attend Catholic services, don’t bother. I know that. I’ve been to many. And the last one I went to was a family wedding. My wife’s family is Catholic, on both sides. Not being able to receive communion upon the joyful occasion of that wedding Mass was hurtful.
As for the grandmother, I think that this article implies that the couple pushed her away for religious reasons. There is nothing here worth talking about if it was just personal incompatibility. The assumption must be that these Catholics got those ideas from other Catholic sources. What might those sources have been? How has such thinking arisen?
I don’t for a minute claim that the reverse would never occur in some Protestant homes, where the grandmother was Catholic. Something along those lines split off a whole part of my mother’s Lutheran family, when one of her aunts married a Catholic.
That said, the Christianity is centered on the communion.
Rodak:
I do appreciate your abstaining from communion despite finding it hurtful. That shows respect and consideration for our beliefs on your part.
To be completely honest with you, I had no choice. The officiating priest was my wife’s uncle, who knew me well. At the time, I wanted it so much that if it had been a local priest, who would have assumed I was Catholic, I’m not sure what I would have done.
But I thank you for kind thoughts.
I’ve notice that it is no longer uncommon for weddings even when both parties are Catholic, not to include the option of Mass. Avoid hurt feelings as mentioned above as been given as a reason for this (even if both families are entirely Catholic, many guest may not be). Replacement of the dwindling number of priests by deacons adds to it.
Even funerals I find increasingly the major and public service is not a eucharistic one (though I get hints there might have been a Mass with just close family).
This would be a good topic for pastors and liturgists to explore — a good development or not?