Godparents

mark316

Hey just had my second child and having a bit of a conundrum about picking the godparents
Are you aloud instead of having a godfather and godmother can you have two godmothers?

Frynge

mark316 wrote: »

Hey just had my second child and having a bit of a conundrum about picking the godparents
Are you aloud instead of having a godfather and godmother can you have two godmothers?

I see absolutly no reason as to why not. I always took being a godparent to really mean that the parents want you to be involved in the childs life that bit more.

Church might not be too happy about it though.

galljga1

I have heard of it happening but check with the local church to see are they on board with the idea.
I have also heard of a child having more than two godparents.

salmocab

My baby has two god mothers and no god fathers. My wife really wanted her sister and friend and I couldn't have cared less, she asked first and the woman at the meeting she went to said no problem at all.

Little Miss Cutie

Our local church is very sticky about this, only 2 godparents, one male and one female. However I have heard of other churches being less strict.

Toots

As others have said, double check with your church. Ours is very strict - 2 godparents, one of each gender. In fairness, I can sorta see why they brought it in because it had gotten ridiculous, one christening we were at there was about 10 people up when one of the kids was being baptised. No harm in asking them though, if it is a rule, they might be happy to make an exception.

pwurple

Never seen any issue with that around here. I have a handful of godchildren, varied between only one godparent, two of same gender, three people, and the one of each.

Best thing is to have a chat in the church. With the priest, not the random busybody administrator (if they have one).

farmchoice

it will depend on the parish. it became quite common a few years ago and my middle one has 2 god mothers but i heard that it has now been stopped as the church did not want to encourage the idea of same sex parents of any kind!! now to be honest that story could be complete BS my only actual experience of it was that it was allowed.

Mrs Doyle

Coming from a large family of girls,2 of my sisters had both godparents as women-one in Dublin,one in cork.dont think there was an issue but I know one of the godparents was officially the godfather (as opposed to 2 god mothers)!

Penny Dreadful

My godson has two godmothers - me and his other aunt. There were no problems with that.

To avoid family conflict we opted for 4 godparents for our daughter, my sister and brother in law (who I really wanted) and my sister in law and her husband (who my husband really wanted). Again there were no issues with that. Only two names were allowed to go down on the paperwork but my sister in law and her husband don't know that so there was no problem at all.

My sister did the same for her son- has myself and my husband as godparents and her brother and sister in law too. Again done for the same reasons I did it.

greenman09

I'd love to change one of ours,is it possible?

farmchoice

greenman09 wrote: »

I'd love to change one of ours,is it possible?

you will need to email the pope, he'll sort it out, but it can take up to 10 working days.

popefrankno1@thevatican.co.uk

greenman09

farmchoice wrote: »

you will need to email the pope, he'll sort it out, but it can take up to 10 working days.

popefrankno1@thevatican.co.uk

Duly noted.

the_sonandmoon

Yep, I'm one of 2 godmothers, to my nephew. He has no Godfathers. His older sister has one of each. Makes no difference, except that I buy him better presents for his birthday and Christmas. The other godmother is the mums friend.

munchkin_utd

Frynge wrote: »

I see absolutly no reason as to why not. I always took being a godparent to really mean that the parents want you to be involved in the childs life that bit more.

Church might not be too happy about it though.

its against canon law, as in, here where its spelled out:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P2Y.HTM

where you have 2 of the same sex often technically one is a sponsor and the other just a person who stands at the front of the church letting on they are one.
You also must be a catholic "who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on" and theres other rules and regulations and its pretty clear what is and isnt allowed.

If the priest isnt following the rules then fair play to him for being so flexible with something he hasnt the authority to be flexible on.

Penny Dreadful

munchkin_utd wrote: »

its against canon law, as in, here where its spelled out:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P2Y.HTM

where you have 2 of the same sex often technically one is a sponsor and the other just a person who stands at the front of the church letting on they are one.
You also must be a catholic "who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on" and theres other rules and regulations and its pretty clear what is and isnt allowed.

If the priest isnt following the rules then fair play to him for being so flexible with something he hasnt the authority to be flexible on.

Given that 3 of the 4 godparents we're planning on asking for our yet to be born baby are gay men then this is going to be quite interesting!

lazygal

I thought the Catholic church viewed homosexual activity as a grave sin? Suppose it won't be an issue if they're celibate as the church rules would suggest they should be.

ChickCave

the_sonandmoon wrote: »

Yep, I'm one of 2 godmothers, to my nephew. QUOTE]

Same here in 2010! But I got my own baby baptized at the same church 2 years ago and they have changed the rules and you now must have 1 male, 2 female.

Penny Dreadful

lazygal wrote: »

I thought the Catholic church viewed homosexual activity as a grave sin? Suppose it won't be an issue if they're celibate as the church rules would suggest they should be.

They do view it like that but I don't care. I don't believe in sin either. People do good things and they do bad things - its as basic as that for me mostly. Some people are exceptionally good and kind and some are outright hateful. I don't see them as sinners.

I am only going ahead with the Christening thing for easier access to school. It makes my a hypocrite I know but I'm not going to send my kids to poorer quality school ages away from where we live to make a stand on this issue.

lazygal

Yeah most people I know are open about doing it for schools places only.

Penny Dreadful

lazygal wrote: »

Yeah most people I know are open about doing it for schools places only.

Its quite ridiculous really isn't it? Friends of my husband refused point blank (they're much more principled than we are obviously:o) to engage with having to have a Christening to get their kids to the local school. It took them ages to find a school to take their oldest child and ended up having to keep her at home for a year longer than they wanted it took so long.
Now they have 4 kids and are bursting at the seams in their house but feel that they can't really move house without going through all that carry on again to get their kids into another school.
Its lovely how everyone's taxes are taken to pay for schools that can say "yes" or "no" depending on your (supposed) religion.

lazygal

We couldn't do it ourselves. I'd rather home school than get ours "done".

Tasden

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

They do view it like that but I don't care. I don't believe in sin either. People do good things and they do bad things - its as basic as that for me mostly. Some people are exceptionally good and kind and some are outright hateful. I don't see them as sinners.

I am only going ahead with the Christening thing for easier access to school. It makes my a hypocrite I know but I'm not going to send my kids to poorer quality school ages away from where we live to make a stand on this issue.

I dunno how far ahead you're planning here but I'd advise you to check with the school before baptising as some catholic schools will accept kids that aren't baptised. Just to be sure because the longer people baptise kids to get them into school the more it perpetuates the problem for those who like you, don't want to have to travel miles in order to make a stand against it but who aren't willing to baptise either.

Penny Dreadful

Tasden wrote: »

I dunno how far ahead you're planning here but I'd advise you to check with the school before baptising as some catholic schools will accept kids that aren't baptised. Just to be sure because the longer people baptise kids to get them into school the more it perpetuates the problem for those who like you, don't want to have to travel miles in order to make a stand against it but who aren't willing to baptise either.

Where we live now the local school gives preference to kids that are baptised. We hope to move in the next year or so and the schools there are the same.
Ultimately I'd like both of the kids to go to the same school and have it as the local school too- they're good schools and its nice for kids to have friends locally if possible (granted knowing Murphy and his law mine will make friends with kids as far away as possible:D).
I agree that a stand should be made on this and I really do admire those who are fighting the fight.

Tasden

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

Where we live now the local school gives preference to kids that are baptised. We hope to move in the next year or so and the schools there are the same.
Ultimately I'd like both of the kids to go to the same school and have it as the local school too- they're good schools and its nice for kids to have friends locally if possible (granted knowing Murphy and his law mine will make friends with kids as far away as possible:D).
I agree that a stand should be made on this and I really do admire those who are fighting the fight.

The school my child is in gives preference to baptised kids alright but its not a requirement. Well preference goes to a small catchment area and then the rest to baptised children regardless of location. So in that case it would only become a requirement if it was oversubscribed if that makes sense.
But absolutely parents have to do whats best for their kids. I'd just always advise being certain its required before baptising if you otherwise wouldn't baptise.

Penny Dreadful

lazygal wrote: »

We couldn't do it ourselves. I'd rather home school than get ours "done".

Getting kids "done" did make me LOL.

There are times I think its pathetic that we went ahead with the whole thing and we really did just take the easiest way out. Its done now though.
Home schooling:eek: For me or the kids just doesn't bear thinking about.
They'd be fabulous at English and History and the like but lacking somewhat in other areas.

Tasden wrote: »

The school my child is in gives preference to baptised kids alright but its not a requirement. Well preference goes to a small catchment area and then the rest to baptised children regardless of location. So in that case it would only become a requirement if it was oversubscribed if that makes sense.
But absolutely parents have to do whats best for their kids. I'd just always advise being certain its required before baptising if you otherwise wouldn't baptise.

Where we currently live has a large catchment area and so it was really going to be difficult to get the kids into a good school locally if we didn't go ahead with the baptism.

If this is the worst thing we ever do for or to our kids then their lives will be pretty ok.

Tasden

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

Where we currently live has a large catchment area and so it was really going to be difficult to get the kids into a good school locally if we didn't go ahead with the baptism.

If this is the worst thing we ever do for or to our kids then their lives will be pretty ok.

Ah its no harm to your kids like, it just means that when people are fighting for equal access to schools-for people the same as you who cant get their kids in without a baptismal cert- that the figures don't add up because plenty people are baptising their kids, so there is a demand for religion in schools going by all the "catholic" kids. Vicious circle

salmocab

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

I am only going ahead with the Christening thing for easier access to school. It makes my a hypocrite I know but I'm not going to send my kids to poorer quality school ages away from where we live to make a stand on this issue.

If your only doing it to get into schools why bother having 4 godparents, why would you not just get a couple of people to the church have the christening collect the baptism cert and then go about your day?

ChewChew

My niece has one godfather and three godmothers which I am one of and there was no issues at all with the church and she was baptised in 2000.

My own daughter has a set of guideparents. We didn't and don't intend on baptising her and certainly won't be doing it for schools so when she was two weeks old her sent her name off for two local educate together schools and we certainly didn't pick her guideparents so as to avoid family conflict. If someone's nose was out of joint then they're certainly not the kind of folk we'd want as a guideparent

Penny Dreadful

salmocab wrote: »

If your only doing it to get into schools why bother having 4 godparents, why would you not just get a couple of people to the church have the christening collect the baptism cert and then go about your day?

If we didn't have a christening we would have a welcome to the family party or some such for the baby anyway. If we're getting one event done then I think we just went with having everyone get together then, picked people we'd like to have positively involved in our kids lives as godparents/ guide parents and have that as the party or event.
There were 4 last time because family politics dictated it to a degree- my husband wanted his sister and her husband and even though I knew then ( and have unfortunately been proved right) that they'd have little or no interest in our daughter, it mattered to him. I knew my sister and her husband would be (and are) much more involved in her and our lives and so opted for them.
To make him happy and avoid conflict this time we opted for 4.

Penny Dreadful

ChewChew wrote: »

My niece has one godfather and three godmothers which I am one of and there was no issues at all with the church and she was baptised in 2000.

My own daughter has a set of guideparents. We didn't and don't intend on baptising her and certainly won't be doing it for schools so when she was two weeks old her sent her name off for two local educate together schools and we certainly didn't pick her guideparents so as to avoid family conflict. If someone's nose was out of joint then they're certainly not the kind of folk we'd want as a guideparent

Our local educate together school is dealing with very large class sizes and has some issues with English not being the first language of quite a few of the kids in the school. It takes time from the teachers teaching other subjects and I don't like that.
The other options are the national school or Gael Scoil which have smaller sizes and better facilities. It was an easy give for me on that basis.
Each to their own and all that though.

Lucuma

4 godparents! I have never heard of that. We will struggle to find 2 I don't know how you had surplus enough to pick 4 per child !!

Both our families are at the stage where all Aunts and Uncles are now already godparents so we've run out of people. For no.1 as all bros + sisters are already godparents to other children, I picked a 1st cousin of mine as godfather and my OH's sister-in-law as godmother. Although his SIL is already a godparent to her friend's child, she wasn't a godparent to anyone in his family yet so it was ok to pick her. This time around I actually don't know what we're going to do....there's no-one available. We'll either have to lump somone that already has a godchild in the family with yet another one, or else look to in-laws or cousins again.

farmchoice

Lucuma wrote: »

4 godparents! I have never heard of that. We will struggle to find 2 I don't know how you had surplus enough to pick 4 per child !!

Both our families are at the stage where all Aunts and Uncles are now already godparents so we've run out of people. For no.1 as all bros + sisters are already godparents to other children, I picked a 1st cousin of mine as godfather and my OH's sister-in-law as godmother. Although his SIL is already a godparent to her friend's child, she wasn't a godparent to anyone in his family yet so it was ok to pick her. This time around I actually don't know what we're going to do....there's no-one available. We'll either have to lump somone that already has a godchild in the family with yet another one, or else look to in-laws or cousins again.

ya the whole thing becomes pretty tired pretty quick, by the time you are on kid 3-4 you are running out of people and if your siblings and cousins are at the same life stage its a real pain.

being a god parent is a bit of a pain in the hole as well, remembering birthdays buying cards, presents etc, its is a full time job as it is, mothers day involved me buying 5 cards and 3 presents, then there's fathers day, valentines day, all the birthdays, Christmas, its never ending.

and its not the money i'd spend every penny i have on the lot of them its the hassle!!!!!

pwurple

farmchoice wrote: »

being a god parent is a bit of a pain in the hole as well, remembering birthdays buying cards, presents etc, its is a full time job as it is, mothers day involved me buying 5 cards and 3 presents, then there's fathers day, valentines day, all the birthdays, Christmas, its never ending.

and its not the money i'd spend every penny i have on the lot of them its the hassle!!!!!

You can refuse.

salmocab

pwurple wrote: »

You can refuse.

I refused a few years back on the grounds that an atheist is a bad choice, they brought up the subject with my wife who told them that I wouldn't have any interest and they still bloody asked me.

stoplooklisten

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

Given that 3 of the 4 godparents we're planning on asking for our yet to be born baby are gay men then this is going to be quite interesting!

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

They do view it like that but I don't care. I don't believe in sin either. .........

I am only going ahead with the Christening thing for easier access to school............

Wow, you really are making a mockery of other peoples beliefs.

pwurple

salmocab wrote: »

I refused a few years back on the grounds that an atheist is a bad choice, they brought up the subject with my wife who told them that I wouldn't have any interest and they still bloody asked me.

All happy so! They asked, you said no thanks. The system works.

Don't really get why you were annoyed by them asking you directly. I'd be the opposite. if my spouse answered on my behalf, like I was a child, without me making my own decision, i would be miffed.

salmocab

pwurple wrote: »

All happy so! They asked, you said no thanks. The system works.

Don't really get why you were annoyed by them asking you directly. I'd be the opposite. if my spouse answered on my behalf, like I was a child, without me making my own decision, i would be miffed.

well I gave a slightly abridged version, they broached the subject with my wife who said she didn't think it was my cup of tea but that she would talk to me, I said i didn't want to do it and she told them that, to which they said sure we will ask him anyway. Which they did and I turned down but it was an awkward and unnecessary moment.

Lucuma

I was recently asked to be godparent for the first time (by a sibling). The message I got included ''his birthday is 20th July, memorise it!' . Under no illusions what's expected of me there!

Thinking now I should have replied with ''What does his birthday have to do with my role in providing spiritual guidance??'

You always think of the good retorts later ;o)

Penny Dreadful

stoplooklisten wrote: »

Wow, you really are making a mockery of other peoples beliefs.

And yet it would be a struggle to get my kids into the local school that my taxes go towards paying for it I and other didn't go along with the christening thing.
Also I refuse to respect the beliefs of anyone who has an issue with someone's sexual orientation.

salmocab

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

And yet it would be a struggle to get my kids into the local school that my taxes go towards paying for it I and other didn't go along with the christening thing.
Also I refuse to respect the beliefs of anyone who has an issue with someone's sexual orientation.

TBF most catholics don't have a problem with peoples sexual orientation.

Tasden

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

And yet it would be a struggle to get my kids into the local school that my taxes go towards paying for it I and other didn't go along with the christening thing.
Also I refuse to respect the beliefs of anyone who has an issue with someone's sexual orientation.

But yet you're signing your kids up to the church that has those issues. Making promises (however false) to raise those children with such beliefs. Labelling them as a member of a church that holds very strong opinions on certain people's sexual orientation.

Lucuma

Penny D is doing what thousands of people across the country (the majority of irish parents in fact) are also doing it's just she is honest enough to come on here and say it. I don't think she should be attacked for that (and also why does a thread about having 2 female godparents have to descend into the usual catholic school argument blah-de-blah......) there are loads of other threads on boards for that (try the atheist forum). It's been hashed out to death on here so many times before.

Tasden

Lucuma wrote: »

Penny D is doing what thousands of people across the country (the majority of irish parents in fact) are also doing it's just she is honest enough to come on here and say it. I don't think she should be attacked for that (and also why does a thread about having 2 female godparents have to descend into the usual catholic school argument blah-de-blah......) there are loads of other threads on boards for that (try the atheist forum). It's been hashed out to death on here so many times before.

Because Penny D herself brought it up. It's hardly being attacked.

Penny Dreadful

salmocab wrote: »

TBF most catholics don't have a problem with peoples sexual orientation.

Yet it was quoted back to me for my making a mockery of other people's beliefs.

Tasden wrote: »

But yet you're signing your kids up to the church that has those issues. Making promises (however false) to raise those children with such beliefs. Labelling them as a member of a church that holds very strong opinions on certain people's sexual orientation.

I am. I don't really feel I have a huge amount of choice in it though. I can send my kids to the local educate together school that is over crowded and has gone on record as saying that they're having issues with teaching the curriculum because so much more time has to be given to explaining things more slowly and lessons taking longer because so many of the children that attend have poor or no English. I'm not going to sacrifice my kids education for the sake of making an empty promise or for people being offended at my dojng so. The alternative is to drive to schools further away and I'm not willing to do that either.

Lucuma wrote: »

Penny D is doing what thousands of people across the country (the majority of irish parents in fact) are also doing it's just she is honest enough to come on here and say it. I don't think she should be attacked for that (and also why does a thread about having 2 female godparents have to descend into the usual catholic school argument blah-de-blah......) there are loads of other threads on boards for that (try the atheist forum). It's been hashed out to death on here so many times before.

Thank you.

stoplooklisten

Interesting how so many people are willing to make a mockery of the church and when it's pointed out to them, they are suddenly the victims

It seems many people are secretly religious but society has made it uncool to admit.

Penny Dreadful

stoplooklisten wrote: »

Interesting how so many people are willing to make a mockery of the church and when it's pointed out to them, they are suddenly the victims

It seems many people are secretly religious but society has made it uncool to admit.

I have no victim complex going on at all. I made my decision and I'm happy with it. I'm sure th Church would really prefer not to be quite so involved in education these days. I think the State should be in charge of education in a secular fashion as should also be the case with healthcare too.
If people then opt to send their kids to a faith based school for religious reasons then there is no (or less at least) duplicity.

Again, if people are religious I have no issue with that, nor do I see it as cool or uncool. It's their own private business.