Is belief a requirement for baptism?
So, my parents got married in an Orthodox church (the Armenian one, to be precise). My dad, at the time, was what we call a secular humanist raised Roman Catholic. I know that the Church required his baptism certificate and I know that RC was one of the only non-Orthodox churches they would even accept as a real baptism. Granted, this was in the early ’80s, in a relatively conservative Armenian-American community, but I would say the UUs are Right Out. I have been an atheist for several years now, but I have to admit there was a little part of me (and my mom expressed this too) that didn’t feel like a secular wedding was quite the thing (I’m getting married in August). This isn’t necessarily because the girl in the question is a religious nutter; it’s just that maybe she’s never been to a wedding outside her church, or thinks they are lame. I have been to exactly two and I have to admit they both felt sort of thin and one-dimensional compared to the centuries of ritual and tradition th
I got married two years ago to a woman who was raised Catholic, who has been through varying levels of faith but definitely wanted to be married in the church in which she grew up. I met the priest who was to marry us over lunch, with my fiancee. He asked about my religious background. I explained that I hadn’t been raised in a religious household, and hadn’t been baptized. There’s nothing offensive about this, and I’m having a little trouble understanding why you’re worried about offending your fiancee’s priest. If I had said “I understand that your rules require that I be baptized, but I don’t believe, and I want to be initiated into your church although I don’t believe”, that would be puzzling to him, sure, and perhaps offensive. But, as I talk about below, this is hardly a unique situation, and they have a system for that. As it turns out, there are systems for dealing with this in the Catholic Church. The priest had to obtain a piece of paper (a dispensation, maybe?) from the bish
