Baptism and religious family
February 22, 2011 at 1:36 pm
(This post was last modified: February 22, 2011 at 1:49 pm by OnlyNatural.)
I went to a Roman Catholic baptism this weekend. My boyfriend's cousin had a baby a few months ago, so she went through the silly water-sprinkling ritual to appease the deeply religious family.
I had a hard time refraining from snickering and rolling my eyes throughout the whole thing. It's pretty amusing from an outsider's perspective. Kinda pathetic too. Mostly we just repeated dry, ritualistic prayers, answered 'Lord hear our prayer' after every damn thing the priest said, said the Lord's Prayer at least 3 times. Lots of talk about renouncing Satan, and cleansing this child of original sin, and allowing her to join the faithful family of the One True God, so she can have a place in heaven.
What I found most disturbing was the constant urging to instill the Catholic doctrine in this child, for her parents and family to make sure she is 'educated' about God, that she says her prayers and participates in rituals, that she develops a strong faith. The priest even talked about her possible future as a 'sister of the faith' (a nun), and our need to make disciples out of all young people, teaching them about Christ their savior, and God their heavenly father. All the older generations were nodding emphatically and blessing each other and getting down on their knees to pray about it.
This is the family I'll be marrying into someday. But there's no way I'm raising my kids in any church. Neither my boyfriend nor I want a religious wedding either. I guess we'll cross that bridge in a few years, but I have a feeling it's not going to be pretty...
Oh, and apparently the priest performing the baptism had spent a bunch of time in jail... I guess he found Jesus in there or something
I had a hard time refraining from snickering and rolling my eyes throughout the whole thing. It's pretty amusing from an outsider's perspective. Kinda pathetic too. Mostly we just repeated dry, ritualistic prayers, answered 'Lord hear our prayer' after every damn thing the priest said, said the Lord's Prayer at least 3 times. Lots of talk about renouncing Satan, and cleansing this child of original sin, and allowing her to join the faithful family of the One True God, so she can have a place in heaven.
What I found most disturbing was the constant urging to instill the Catholic doctrine in this child, for her parents and family to make sure she is 'educated' about God, that she says her prayers and participates in rituals, that she develops a strong faith. The priest even talked about her possible future as a 'sister of the faith' (a nun), and our need to make disciples out of all young people, teaching them about Christ their savior, and God their heavenly father. All the older generations were nodding emphatically and blessing each other and getting down on their knees to pray about it.
This is the family I'll be marrying into someday. But there's no way I'm raising my kids in any church. Neither my boyfriend nor I want a religious wedding either. I guess we'll cross that bridge in a few years, but I have a feeling it's not going to be pretty...
Oh, and apparently the priest performing the baptism had spent a bunch of time in jail... I guess he found Jesus in there or something
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