Catholic baptism

It’s not required as such but is recommended. If your partners family are so sectarian as to refuse to go to your baby’s christening because of the religion you choose to bring your child up in then they are not role models you want within your child’s life! You can absolutely have a small baptism just speak with the parish priest about what you guys want from it. Have you tried having a conversation with your partners family regarding this ? Have you asked anyone from his side to be a godparent and have they explicitly said no because of her being catholic ? It might be worth just asking if you haven’t already xx

Traditionally I think so although you would be best asking whoever is doing the baptism. Maybe you could ask friends instead of family members? I’m sure if his family aren’t religious they wouldn’t mind not having anyone asked to be a godparent if they don’t want to be involved in a Catholic baptism anyway. We also come from mixed backgrounds feel free to message me!x

I’m in the same boat & my partners family have been very good as they don’t mind who is godparents as they just want the children to be happy. As they aren’t part of the Catholic Church I’m choosing my family members as it means more to them! If your partners family aren’t even going to turn up then I wouldn’t worry offending them by not choosing them

@Naomi his family have had a hard time accepting me, we've been together 4 years now!! His dad would be a very proud orange man but wouldn't attend church or anything. We haven't actually spoke to any of them about it but we know a fuss would be kicked up just asking. Neither of us would have particularly close friends we would want to be god parents either. Throughout our pregnancy they distanced themselves greatly. We would hate for our child not to be baptised because of not having great people around us xx

@Zoe that's what I thought. We are the first in our friends to have children and lost most of our friends along the way so we don't really have many friends we would want to be a god parent. His dad would be a very proud orange man so it's more about how it would make him look to the rest of lodge. They are too proud to put it to the side for the sake of their grandchild x

I'm not religious at all (I'm English and my parents didn't christen me into any faith) but partner is a Catholic. We christened our baby into the Catholic church and had God parents both related from his side, but people I have a very close and valued relationship with personally as well. I am very close with my partner's sister, so although she is technically related to 'his side', she means a lot to me as well so that is how we approached it. If someone as important as the child's grandad can't put pride to one side for their grandchild then quite frankly he doesn't deserve for his feelings to be put first, as he clearly doesn't understand priorities! Good luck!

When i booked my sons baptism in January having god parents wasn't put to me as optional, i think them being catholic is preferred but not required either. Again as others have said it will also depend on the parish priest as some are a little more lenient than others when it comes to the sacraments! X

Our local church had it that you could have a third godparent who’s not of the catholic faith which might be a option if any of his siblings/side would consider the role?

Make sure you check in with your church before starting the process - I didn't and went ahead to ask who we wanted as godparents. I don't have a sister so I ended up asking my eldest brother and it turned out that we had 2 men standing as the godparents and the church kicked up a fuss saying that it had to be a man and a woman - both men where Catholic and married (to women) with their own families, but all this was deemed not acceptable! We ended up sticking to the 2 male godparents and had their wives stand beside them at the font for the sake of it so that the church then believed that we had 2 sets of godparents 🙄 I know that there are great variations on what is seen to be acceptable by the Catholic church according to the parish priests and they have varying degrees of strictness, so I would encourage u to touch base with the church first before u start making decisions on who to ask.... hope it all goes smoothly for u though, good luck

I understand both sides but if neither of you are particularly religious why bother with Baptism. Is it more for show and following what’s expected. Not attending a Catholic Church isn’t always to do with sectarianism, some Protestants have strong Christian faith and belief part of that the orange lodge is about wnd faith in the Bible and they don’t believe in what the Catholic Church preaches hence why they won’t attend. I didn’t attend my brothers child’s baptism the other week as invites only went out the week beforehand

It would be unusual for the church to allow the baptism with out god parents. It’s mentioned throughout the service the vital role they play. Had my daughter christened 3 weeks ago

Also, just to mention that the Catholic church are now making a baptism course that needs to be completed ahead of the service - although I'm not entirely sure if this is for just the parents to attend or if the godparents have to be involved too