WAW Using God II

[pigskin]

It's OK - knitted is pretty passionate about my situation; I take no offense at all. Often she raises some good points.

To address your concerns knitted, my kids are NOT being given the choice of which church to attend. They ARE being given the choice of whether or not they would like to attend my W's church IN ADDITION to their catholic obligation. What got me so upset on Sunday was that my W was going to take the kids to her church and keep them so that they would miss Sunday mass.

The catholic upbringing is non-negotiable in my mind. If my kids want to choose their own faith when they are 18, so be it, just like you say, knitted. But they do not have a choice until then.

However there is nothing in the catholic doctrine that prevents children from learning about their non-catholic parent's denomination. As long as they uphold their catholic obligations. I don't have a problem with it. As I've said many times, not a single leader or influential person from my W's church who knows about our situation condones my W's behavior.

I didn't invite my W to spend our daughter's birthday with us so that I could tell her "Look I'm a good Christian". I would never do that. I'm just trying to lead by example. Showing her that even though she infuriated me on Sunday, I still am willing to treat her with kindness. It will be ironic that she felt uncomfortable enough with me on Sunday to have a church worker witness our interaction, yet she will come to my house and have dinner with me tonight. Maybe someday she will ponder how my actions were 180 degrees off from hers and it will wake her up a little bit.