My girlfriend is Roman-Catholic, and recently we were talking about getting married. I do not practice any religion, and do not want to affiliate with any religion. She told me that I absolutely have to get confirmed to get married to her (since she wants it to be in a Catholic church). But I do not want to be confirmed. I am not prepared nor have the interest in giving that commitment to the church. We both have strong feelings about our sides. She also told me that just because I get confirmed doesn’t mean that I have to go to church or give that commitment. So I asked what is the point of doing it in the first place? She is confirmed, but does not go to church or really practice. She also said that getting married outside of a Catholic church would “disown me from my family”. I have no problem getting married in a church…
Is it possible for us to get married, still in a Catholic church, without me being confirmed?
Any advice/help is appreciated… just please don’t preach to me, nothing is going to change mine or my girlfriends mind on our feelings of religion.
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Getting Married To A Catholic But I’m Not Religious.?
Posted on July 25, 2012.
Get ready to have good leg workouts, every funeral and wedding you’ll be doing squats the whole service. (And up- mumble something, and down, and up-mumble something, and down…)
just do it, it’ll not affect you
Yes, if your not a Catholic you can get married in the Church because she is.
If she is telling you that you must change, then you have to decide if you are willing to do that for her …
Women are plentiful, but there is only one YOU … Don’t compromise it …
Your girlfriend is not really a christian. What company has light with darkness, or a believer with an unbeliever? If she was truly committed to her God your relationship would have never gotten this far. In a wordly sense you two should be fine together. In a spiritual sense you are both in serious need.
You’re setting yourself up for failure, marrying into a cult like that.
So, basically, your girlfriend and her family expect you to convert to their religion if you want to marry her.
marriage is about compromise. if she really wants to get married in a Catholic church then you need to find a way to do it, if that requires being confirmed, then just do it. if you can’t compromise on something like where to get married, consider how difficult it will be to raise your children.
if you want to marry this lady, get confirmed and save yourself a lot of grief. then you can do what you want about practicing being catholic.
The BEST thing you can do is to go to Las Vagas to get married,My church will NOT marry you,We say she should think about dumping you and go fishing again.-Jesus Christ
For greater fullness of graces and greater glory in heaven,
Pray the Holy Rosary for world peace and for all of Gods children to pray the Holy Rosary,and here is a blessing and a loving hug from God for you all.
Explore and discover the many gifts of APPARITIONS that God has sent to show you the way into heaven.
The Holy Family.
You do not have to be religious to be Catholic, just as baptism. To be considered religious, you must have a deep faith in God. Most people really are not considered “religious”, they just believe in God. Relax and congratulations.
If you are baptised in any Christian church i.e. Anglican, Catholic, Baptist etc, you should be able to get married in a Catholic Church. My husband was baptised an Anglican, never attended church in his life after that up until we got married. The Priest did have to write to the Bishop to get a dispensation, but this is also pretty common practice.
honestly if the girl is religious im suprised she would want to be with you.there may be future problems because of religious differences<<,very big deal. stop acting like your going to burn if you love her do this for her, i have known people to change their own religion to get married to the ones they love.
If you are Baptized, you can get Married to her if you agree to raise the children Catholic.
If you have a problem with getting Baptized if you haven’t already or raising any children Catholic or taking the pre-Marriage courses, you should break it off because the relationship won’t go anywhere.
I am an atheist who is married to a religious Jew. My sister is non-religious (likely an agnostic) who is married to a religious Episcopalian. In both cases, we went through the process of a religious wedding for our spouse, because it made them happy. We also occasionally attend services at the behest of our our spouses, but neither of us has ‘converted’, nor do we ever plan to convert. Our spouses know this, and accept it (most of the time).
It comes down to respect. If she respects your view, if she she is not using this as a chance to convert you, then do it to make her happy and to show you respect her wishes. (See, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”.) Smile, do what you need to do, and then, once the wedding is over, get on with your life. If it really bothers you, look at some of the churches around town, there might be a more ‘liberal’ one who caters to couples like you, when we went through this, a little research found a Rabbi who was fine with marrying us even though I wasn’t Jewish.
One final piece of advice. Make sure you both agree on some of the big things, like how you will raise the kids, how you will spend Christmas. These sorts of things tend to ‘bring out’ the religion in people, and you can expect to have to compromise, or have some heated discussions, when they want to start sending the kids to Sunday School.
I’m Catholic, and my wife is Baptist. We got married in the Catholic church.
1) Confirmation confirms upon the person the Holy Spirit and is when that person is viewed as an adult (spiritually speaking) in the Catholic church. Confirmation is when you decide for yourself (verses your parents deciding for you) to be a life long Catholic and take on the faith as your own.
Therefore you should NOT enter into it lightly. Such a cavalier attitude, as your girlfriend, does more to hurt the church then a 100 atheists. You are CORRECT.. if you aren’t ready for a committment.. don’t LIE and pretend you do. Not for family, not for your future spouse, and especially not the Church. I don’t mean to insult anyone, especially your GirlFriend, but the church has enough “lukewarm” Catholics in it.. it doesn’t need anymore. Luke warm Catholics.. or “Cafeteria Catholics” as they are sometimes called, because they pick n choose what they follow… often times give people the wrong impression of WHAT the Catholic church believes.
Respect the faith and YOURSELF enough to not lie and pretend you profess a truth which you do not believe in.
2) You do NOT have to become Catholic in order to get married in the Church. Only 1 of you must be. – I know this from experience. My wife was and still is not a Catholic.
Only one of you must be an actual practicing Catholic.
3) Since she is not going to Church and doesn’t understand her OWN committment to the church.. the Church will not allow either of you to get married (in the church).. or at least should not. The local church may not know that she is non-practicing or the Priest may look the other way due to her families pull with the church..but normally, a non-practicing Catholic is asked to go to confession and start attending church months before the wedding date. I hope she doesn’t lie and pretend she has been attending or promise to start..but not follow through. Talk to her about this. A civil ceremony might be best.
4) There is a minimum 6 month wait to get married. The Church instituted this to make sure that couples are at least engaged and get to know each other for 6 months so they don’t rush into things and then end up divorced. This also reduces ‘shot gun weddings’
5) If you do end up having the wedding at the Catholic church.. you will both have to attend “pre-marriage classes” – again, an attempt by the church to make sure Couples have discussed certain things, such as how you will raise the kids, etc. BEFORE you get married. You will need to meet with a Priest or some volunteer several times before your wedding date. They may even have you take a sorta pre-marriage “compatibility test” to make sure your ideas about finances, children, etc. are the same.
6) As the Catholic party in this marriage, your GF will have to get a ‘dispensation’ from the Bishop to marry a non-Catholic within the church. A dispensation is a written approval to deviate from the norm. And normally the Church only marries Catholics. Once the Bishop rubber stamps your marriage then you can get married in the church.
7) As the Catholic party, your GF will have to agree to share her faith with her children. That is.. she has to promise to raise them Catholic. The church takes this seriously. Seeing how your GF views Confirmation (a year long class followed by a very special ceremony) she will probably lie and agree to anything without any intention to actually follow through. The church will not check up on your family, but they obviously expect people to not sign unless they are sincere. This document is not binding on you, because you are not Catholic.. however it is discussed in your pre-marriage classes and typically, she signs it in front of you, so that the 2 of you can discuss and obviously the church intends that you don’t interfere with her attempts to raise them Catholic.
— I hope you talk to her seriously about breaking commitments and doing things simply for appearance sake. You may want to question if she is even ready for marriage if she has been shown to publicly profess one thing…but privately do the opposite. Might she carry this attitude into your marriage? Therefore I seriously hope she enters your marriage more seriously then she did a Sacrament of her faith.
IMHO I would not marry this gal.. I don’t think she is mature enough. Sorry
< a Catholic church).>> give that commitment.>> me being confirmed?>> feelings of religion.>> faith in God.>>
That’s not necessarily true. You don’t have to be Confirmed. You DO have to be validly Baptized in the Eyes of the Church, in order to be married in the Church, but you don’t have to be Confirmed.
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That’s crap. Of course that’s what that means!
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Yes. You just have to be the recipient of a valid Baptism, and it doesn’t necessarilly have to even be a Catholic Baptism. If you’re not Baptized, however, that’s going to be a problem.
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Well, I am going to impart the fact that, when you marry someone, you marry that person’s beliefs and practices. That doesn’t mean you have to embrace those beliefs and practices yourself. What it does mean is that you MUST embrace the fact that the beliefs and practices of your spouse now become the beliefs and practices of the family; that means your CHILDREN. If you’re not comfortable with that; if you’re unable to make your peace with that, don’t marry a believer.
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In the Eyes of the Catholic Church, you are validly Baptized and should be able to marry in the Catholic Church.
You need to stop lying to yourself and this woman you love. Why get married Catholic? Why start your married life in a lie? Really both need to confront the reality that neither of you care about Christ, religion, or a community of believers. Why insult everyone involved with lies?
Just asking…