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Can you share more about this? I would be very interested to know some more of the details.

Thanks...

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

This caused a firestorm in the metropolitan's own Church. I don't remembr the outcome, but it was discussed on this board and you may find it in the archives.

BOB

The relatively recent case of an Orthodox hierarch receiving Holy Communion at a Greek-Catholic Divine Liturgy involved a Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan (in Romania). There was a bit of a controversy, but in the end no particular action was taken.

Fr. Serge

That is because he repented of it. The Romanian Church then issued a statement that similar actions would carry full ecclesiastical penalty for anyone doing anything similar.

What is a Roman Catholic to do who is married to a Methodist? I converted after we were married against my wife's wishes. My decision to join the true Church has greatly strained my marriage. There was nothing I could do. I discovered the truth of Christ's Church and I HAD to be part of it. My wife is adamant on not "giving in" to becoming Catholic. It's very frustrating. She will deliberately avoid anything that's Catholic just to show me that she's still against my acceptance into the Church. I feel like St. Monica. I could just weep for her. It's just very frustrating. I live in a Protestant world. Our families are all Protestant, staunchly most of them. Quite a few are the typical un and ill informed anti-Catholic types. We had our daughter baptised Methodist because my wife wants our kids to not be Catholic. I feel soo robbed. But I gave in because I feel like I owed it to her since it was me who changed churches once we were married. She's due to have another child this October and I know we'll be baptizing him/her in the Methodist tradition. I can't stand it. It makes my stomach sick. The thing that really upsets me is that I feel like my wife isn't even that "practicing". She doesn't do any devotions, she doesn't read her Scriptures, etc. She just goes to church on Sundays and we mostly talk about religion if something comes on the TV and she feels the need to make comments. By no means am I the model Catholic. Though I do try. I try to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every morning, I say Rosaries though not often as I should, I read Catholic books on a daily basis, I take Eucharist to our hospital. Lord have mercy on me. I'm not saying these things to build myself up or draw attention to myself. I just wanted to give you all an idea of how different we are in our practice.

So what I'm saying is that she wants to have all this control over our families religious tradition, though she's not (just my observation) as serious as I am about it. Plus, it's not Biblical nor Traditional for her to be in charge that way. I'm failing as a husband, though I feel I can't act because I'll put further stress on our marriage.

I'm sinning for saying this, but if I would have known then what I know now, I probably wouldn't of married her. I wanted someone who is excited about the faith and wants to do ministries in the Catholic Church with me. I went to Iraq with the Army for a year and I guess I came back "knowing what I want". We were married before I left and I thought everything was OK. I'm so unhappy, not with our religious situation, but other things. I feel like she's not meeting my needs. She knows I like to be touched, just the simple touches on the leg or rub on the shoulders. But it's almost as if she goes out of her way not to touch me. She knows I really like it, but she doesn't do it. I know some will say we need to see a therapist. Been there, done that. She didn't feel like it helped.

Appreciate any advice. I've heard a lot from my friends and my priests telling me I have to love her with that sacrificial love of Christ and to pray for her and to ask the Blessed Mother to intercede for my wife's conversion, etc. It's hard to do these things.

Pax Christi

IgnatiusBenedict

Dearest Brother in Christ,

The most important thing right now is your marriage. Love your wife like Christ loves the Church...

All marriages have their bumps, and no one is denying that you are having one. Your actions, which are your zeal, seem to be causing REaction from your wife in pulling away from you. This is such a human knee jerk reaction in many people. Your wife may fear your new religion because she doesn't see you as being the same person she married. Your new found faith may be making her feel as if she has lost the equilibrium of the dynamics of control that existed before in determing the family traditions, etc. Your new found faith may be making her feel the same way one feels when there is another party in a marriage, or a controlling mother in law, and the wife senses she is not respected the same way any more and that her wishes are not heeded and heard. Try to be understanding. She is not rejecting Christ, but the zeal of a convert.

Perhaps you can simply quietly embrace your new found faith while still vocally respecting hers and telling her that you understand her reservations. Communication is very important.

One interfaith couple I know is a good example of such a marriage working well, (the husband is a *devout* RC and the wife is social/ethnic GO)...he quietly attends Mass every single Sunday no matter where he is, and then he faithfully attends Liturgy with her right after. The children are Greek Orthodox and he is very involved in helping out and being involved in her church community and you would never know that he was of another faith tradition! They have been married for over thirty years!

They also seem to have and enjoy common secular activities. Perhaps right now you are making your newly embraced faith the whole focus of your life, and forgetting other activities and shared interests which initially brought you and your wife together? Try to rediscover them or invent some.

Would it be nice if you could all worship together. Ofcourse! But that may never happen. Atleast she believes in Christ and isn't a non-Christian. Do not judge her on how faithful or practicing she is. Religion just isn't that important to her, so accept it, accept her and love her *unconditionally*-- Methodist or not Methodist!

My priest who is young and married said something interesting one day about relationships. He said that if we want someone else to change, WE have to change first....

So, I am not saying to not pray for your wife's conversion, but let it be silent in your words and in your actions. Love her, tell her that nothing is changed, enjoy life outside of religion with her, and do whatever you can to make your marriage work. Remember those traits that made you fall in love with her and write them down and read them daily....Tell *her* what made you fall in love with her. Try to remember that marriage is is your vocation, and that ultimately the work you put into saving it is what will prove you to be a faithful and good Catholic and Christian.

Anyway, I hope something that I have written here helps you...just offering some objective female advice, (taken from personal observations, recollections, from sermons of the married clergy, from articles, and from Orthodox Christian marriage workshop therapists)... for what it is worth. :-)

In Christ,
Alice

Everything that Alice says is wise and right. Also, look at St. Paul's instructions in I Corinthians (though your wife is a believer, not an unbeliever). Also, read Ephesians. Your fundamental vocation is to love your wife as Christ loved the Church. Since you are now Roman Catholic, look at your catechism and you will see that your wife, a baptized Christian, also has a real relationship with Christ. Do not view her as lost. View her as a sister in Christ who does not share all doctrinal beliefs with you. Also, since you were married before you became Catholic, you must realize how difficult this is for her. Imagine you staying methodist and your wife converting to the Seventh Day Adventists or some other Christian denomination that is substantially different from your own. How would you feel? She has the right to have a say in the upbringing in her own children and you need to remember that she did not marry a Roman Catholic. I'll keep you in my prayers. Please see your priest and discuss these things with him.

God bless.

Joe

Alice and Joe,

God bless both of you. I humbly agree with your wise and profound advice.

I will say that it's not that I haven't been loving her, because I do. I respect her in every way and I do understand her frustration with my conversion. I do attend Mass every weekend and I also go with her to her Methodist service. Alice, I wish she was Orthodox rather than Methodist. I wouldn't have any qualms with raising our children that way. Being at a Protestant service is probably like being in Purgatory. The services have no theological depth or reverence to them. Anyway, I'm sure you all know.

The frustration comes from her not even giving Catholicism a chance. She was raised to think bad things about the Pope, Blessed Mother, Confession, closed-Communion, etc. I do not force anything on to her, for the record. And because I recognized the hurt and everything, I agreed to have our children brought up as Methodists or wherever she goes. She thinks I'll "brain wash" them as they get older. So I say "our children can't know the faith of their father? We're going to withhold it from them?".

Alice, I know you mentioned that couple who the husband is involved in his wife's parish. I would have no problems with it if she was Orthodox or heck, even Anglo-Catholic. But I can't because it's Protestant. I refuse to get too involved there. I will do certain things with her such as work in the nursery room during the service, sit there at their Sunday school lesson, etc. It makes it easier because some of our friends attend there as well. But I refuse to get more involved there than with my parish. In my mind, that would be like turning my back and going back to being Protestant.

I must say, she has come along way. Time has allowed that. She has said some good things about my parish to her parents out of the blue. It sort of threw me off when she said it, and it made me happy. I know there's hope there and we are to never lose hope. I guess mostly my frustration comes from myself by not being patient enough and allowing God to work, not me. I will pray for her and love her as Christ loves the Church. Thanks for your advice.

Pax Christi
IgnatiusBenedict

IB:

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

A lot of more basic questions come to my mind. Was your wife aware of your conversion/study process that lead up to your becoming a Catholic? I almost get the feel that this whole thing took her by complete surprise--like it had already happened when she found out about it. Was she aware of Catholic materials--Bible, catechetical books, etc.--around the house? Did you engage her in conversation at all before and during the process of your conversion? If it seemed to her taht she was shut out of your spiritual journey it may have threatened her own trust foundation of your marraige. She may have initially thought that this was your way of saying that things were over and that you were striking out in a new direction solo.

Giving in isn't the answer either. That's a tough thing and you've already gone down that path. But there are some things to consider. Most Protestant catechetical materials that I have seen--and they aren't every one out there--include the bitter polemics of the Reformation, as though it were yesterday and that the things objected to in the Catholic Church are still extant. I've seen it in my own family with one cousin. She allowed her husband to take her children to his Lutheran parish and recently one of her teenagers made a really nasty remark at a family funeral about not wanting to be Catholic or have anything to do with the Catholic Church. The young man is what I would call "rabid" anti-Catholic. Understand that United Methodist ministers still must take an oath against "papist errors" before they are fully ordained. (I read this oath in one of their service books while waiting for a service to start in a Methodist church a few years ago.) So understand that you have an uphill battle to teach the beauty of your own faith and the Church's authentic tradition.

In Christ,

BOB

Hey Bob,

It's funny you could tell the situation from the little information I put. Well, I really had no intentions of becoming Catholic. I was a set Methodist when we got married. I was then called to deploy to Iraq 2 months after we married (we knew the deployment was coming so we moved our wedding back). I get over there and I went to protestant services the whole time. I never went to any Masses. However, I was doing research on the Church while I was over there. Not on purpose. I wanted to see what these pesky Romans believed. At first, it was abrasive because I didn't like the claims the Church made and the devotion to Mary it had (I understand now ) So while over there and upon my arrival to the States I still had no intentions of becoming Catholic. I was just more sympathetic to the Church now. I didn't have that hard anti-Catholic stance I once had. So I was reading Christianity Today one evening and they had this book called Is the Reformation Over - An Analysis of Catholicism from an Evangelical Perspective (some title like that). So I bought it and read it. It changed my mind on the the Church and I thought, if all these things are corrected, what's stopping everyone from getting back together and stop the divisive behaviors? Also, what's stopping me from being Catholic? My wife knew I was reading the book as it sat on our night stand. I also would make comments to her about her parents when they would make slams against the Church. So she had to of known that I was a "sympathizer" so to speak.

But I didn't really have any serious talks with her on what I was thinking/feeling towards the Church. I knew how she was raised and that she was against it, so I didn't think to mention it to her because I was assuming I knew how she would respond. Well, I look back on that and see it as a HUGE mistake. I should have clued her in on what I was feeling and what I was learning. So, following down the coarse of an idiot I set for myself, after about a few months of studying and praying about it, I went to her and I said "honey, I want to be Catholic". Well, needless to say she was devastated. I couldn't hold it in any longer and at the time that was the way I broke it to her. Hind sight being 20/20, I would have gone about it differently.

So I know, I made my bed and I'm sleeping in it. But, I also feel that if she truly respected me as a good Christian man before, why automatically dismiss my conversion, as she's done? She has mentioned in the past that I've bought into the Catholic propaganda and that I only have information from one side. I told her that I grew up on the other side, I know what they purpose and I don't buy it. A lot of this is my fault for how I told her and sort of kept it from her. But I also feel it's her fault as well. She is not willing to even bend for me 10%. She will not read the Fathers or truly find out why we believe what we do. She says she "knows" just from what I've said, but she doesn't truly "KNOW" from her heart and mind, ya know? Sure I can tell her we believe the Eucharist is His literal Body and Blood, but what does that really mean? Finding that out is almost impossible at this point. She's not willing to learn from me or on her own. That's what's frustrating to me. I just want her to look at the evidence in the Father's and Scripture in light of the Tradition. At least give it a chance and if it doesn't work then that's between God and her. But she won't even do that. She agrees with a lot of what the Church proclaims morally. She is about 40-50% there with what the Church teaches Theologically. She's a Eucharistic person, she loves Communion. I told her that there are so many treasures surrounding our teachings on the Eucharist. I told her that's what our whole service is based on. But she won't look at it because she doesn't like the closed-Communion. She says "who is the church to say I'm not good enough". I've told her none of us are good enough.

So you're right Bob. It is an uphill battle. Though she doesn't know about the Methodist ministers and their anti-papal vows.

Kyrie Elasion
IgnatiusBenedict

IB:

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

At the risk of "jumping in where angels fear to tread" let me take a look at the answers to some of your problems in your own words.



It's always a wise idea to include your spouse in the reading program, especially if it means an earthquake in your marriage. At that point, she could have entered the dialogue going on inside you because you'd have brougth it out in the open. Ahhh, so this is the catalyst that has begun this process of growth in you. She doesn't see it as growth but she would at least have had a hint. Because she DIDN'T read it, her thinking is stuck back where you were before you deployed and when you were married.



Not necessarily. She could also have assumed that you were suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome after your deployment and would come back to where you were in a couple months. So she'd indulge your little "flakiness" about Catholics as caused by being so close to death; now get yourself back together.



I'll bet you could also finish this "about everything else, too." People here have no idea what it is to be on death's door every day and they get a media-hyped idea that it makes everyone a bit crazy but that there are drugs and psycholgists to help you get back to the la-la land they live in. Look at all the ways we shield ourselves from so much just walking around in this country if we have enough to eat, heat in the house, and a job. We ignore the homeless, the jobless, and anyone else that makes us uncomfortable. We keep a mental and physical distance from them so they don't shake up our little world.

Sounds like you needed to take your inlaws on head-on long before this. At least let them know that you won't tolerate bigotry of any kind, even if it's religious, around your children. The question is who is the one setting the agenda for what your children are to learn or are learning. It sounds like you have a tendency to give-in too quickly.



Let me get this straight. You trained to be combat smart, but you forgot how roadside bombs and hidden grenades can damage people. The grenade is the anti-Catholic reaction you knew was there. You didn't find a hidden mine. You stomped on one fully visible with both feet, man. And haven't you ever heard about what you do when you ASS U ME????????

And then you lobbed a grenade into her area. Why didn't you just say, "Honey, I think we should sleep around," or "Honey, I want have two wives like the Iraqis." It would have had about the same effect.

One observation: some people are only able to grow so far before they stop being who they are. Once out of their "comfort zone" they feel threatened to the point where they cannot function.

Where are your parents in this thing? I've heard about you, your spouse, your children, and your inlaws. Are you an orphan? What's the other side think about this?

___________________________________________

I'm going to stop now and offer some sound advice. My wife and I spent the first 20 years with one counselor or another with one or another problem. In my humble opinion, you need a good, professional marriage counselor--someone neutral; not your priest and not her minister.

The counselor will take each of you separately and listen to your story. Then he will bring you together to work on this whole matter. This is a big thing; this is a complicated thing; and this is not something you will solve on an internet forum or by choosing sides with family members. If your spouse will not go, go yourself but go. You will get a fresh perspective and a chance to really dig into the motivations.

And don't wait.

In Christ,

BOB

Along the same lines, my father was Greek Orthodox and converted to Catholicism through a Latin Rite Catholic church. My mother is Roman Catholic. The priest never informed my father that he would be automatically entered into the Byzantine Rite of the Church, per Canon law, regardless of the fact that he converted in a Roman Catholic church. I was informed that, although my brother and I were baptized in a Roman Catholic church according the Roman Rite - we are Byzantine as well, except in the case that my parents may have requested that we be ascribed to our mother's right. I am still awaiting the notations on my Baptismal certificate, where it would be noted. I was informed, though, that there was not a notation of request to be ascribed to our mother's rite. I don't see how this would be requested since my parents were aware of this situation in the first place. Do I understand correctly that my brother, my father and I are Byzantine? This is truly fascinating to me...sorry for the long post!

*** I meant to say that my parents were UNAWARE of this situation in the first place, per my post above. *** Thanks!

This is true but he is free at anytime during the marriage to transfer to her sui juris Church and raise their children in that Church.
Stephanos I

Les Tsu
I would say that certainly you are Byzantine from my understanding of the canons.
Stephanos I