In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Joe Heschmeyer to discuss the implications of being baptized Catholic without consent. Joe dives into the complexities of identity, faith, and the role of parental influence in religious upbringing. Can you truly be part of a faith you never chose? Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation!
Transcript:
Caller: I found out that at a couple weeks of age, I was baptized Catholic. I never knew this. We were never raised in any religion. I never have been. I’m getting married in six months. I. Her. Her family has a real problem with this. And I mean, I was joking around, and I’m like, hey, I had no one. I had no knowledge of it, too. I was two weeks old.
Caller: Okay.
Caller: No say in it. And three, I don’t. I mean, there’s. I don’t know if there’s any recourse. I mean, is there any. I tried to reach out to the diocese. I got nowhere.
Cy Kellett: Oh, okay. This is a very serious question, Michael. I’m going to let Joe give you an answer, and we’ll have a little conversation about it.
Joe Heschmeyer: Yeah, actually. Actually, I had a question for you. If you don’t mind me asking you a question, Michael, when you said that your fiance’s family had a problem with it. We had a problem with. With you being baptized Catholic or. What was the problem?
Caller: They didn’t know, but. And they are back there are, I want to say, highly Baptist.
Caller: Okay.
Caller: And they. They understand that. I mean, we are not getting married in their church because I’m not a member of their. Of their. Of their church, nor do I want to be as I. And they’re okay with that. It’s a second marriage for both of us. And it’s to the point where her father goes, I’m not comfortable with her marrying a Catholic. And I go, well, I’m not. And she goes, looked at me. He goes, no, you are.
Caller: Wow. Wow.
Caller: That is.
Caller: He’s pretty committed. He’s pretty committed to that position.
Caller: I am being. I am being very nice as to the wording of what he said.
Caller: I see.
Caller: Oh, I can see why.
Caller: We are. We are on the end. No, no, no, no.
Caller: Nothing. There was no bad words used, but I think words that would be considered derogatory to a Catholic, that’s a pretty
Cy Kellett: serious commitment to opposition to the Catholic Church. I suppose that an innocent baby is responsible for that all these years later. But, Joe, what do you want to say to Michael?
Joe Heschmeyer: Yeah, Michael, a few things. One, I really appreciate you calling in. It is a very unusual request if someone ask how to become not Catholic when we’re really more in the business of the opposite. But I do want to speak into, because I think there’s an important difference between Catholicism and Protestantism on the one hand, and just kind of the 21st century thinking about a lot of things on the other, like you are a Catholic because You’ve been born into the family of God. And so just like in your own family, even if you don’t get along with your parents, even if you say, oh, yeah, like I disclaimed my last name, you’re still their kid, right? Like, you still are their son. Well, so it is here, like, you’re still a son because you were born into this family and you didn’t choose either family by your own free will. And that’s okay. Like, the. The kind of underlying assumption that you should be able to choose every aspect of your person or of your family is one that we would really challenge and say that’s not really how it works. So, like, even in the example of, like, the prodigal son, if you’re familiar with that story in scripture, the prodigal son breaks away from the family. He goes off of the inheritance. He treats his father like he’s dead, and. And the father still thinks of him as a son. And in fact, he kind of rebukes the other brother. When the other brother says, this son of yours came home, he reminds him that it’s his brother too. So you are still my brother and you’re still a son of the Church. In the past, under the old code of canon law, you could have what was called the formal act of defection from the Catholic Church, where you could officially kind of deregister yourself as a Catholic. But in 2009, in Modo in proprio called omnium and mentumed, Benedict XVI closed that door. And the reason he closed it is for the pretty sound theological reason, what I just said. Like, this is not a matter of, like, today I feel Catholic, tomorrow I don’t feel Catholic. It’s. No, no. I’m part of a society and part of a family, and I can’t just, like, remove those affiliations by anything I may say or do. That doesn’t mean you’re a faithful Catholic. It doesn’t mean that you believe what the Catholic Church believes. But it does mean that even if you were to renounce God, even if you were to go, like, totally in the opposite direction, you would still remain part of our family in some kind of mysterious way.
Caller: I mean, I hate to say it, it’s ripping a lot of things apart. This marriage will probably not take place.
Caller: Oh, I am so sorry to hear that.
Caller: That.
Joe Heschmeyer: It’s tragic to me that. That kind of. That kind of anti Catholic kind of. I think it’s fair to use the word bigotry, you know, like, in the same way that if you found out that like, you were of a different ethnic heritage that you didn’t even know about and that was enough to like, cause the marriage to falter. I think there’s maybe a. Look, I’m not in the business of giving marriage advice, but like, that’s a red flag to definitely sort out before you go into a marriage. And poor Richard’s Almanac, Ben Franklin has that famous line that you should keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut after. This is one of those things to keep your eyes wide open about. Like, how are things going to work with the in laws if they’re, if they’re having that kind of reaction to the fact that your parents baptized you as a baby once?
Cy Kellett: I feel like we can’t give you. I do feel like that, at least on the emotional level. That’s an unsatisfying answer. As true as it is to us, Michael, you’re like a long lost brother found. But I know we’re not that to you. But we, it’s. We’re not in the business of getting people out of the Catholic Church. It’s just not what we do on a daily basis.
Joe Heschmeyer: Honestly, the easiest answer to tell you is just like, become Catholic, convert your wife and her family, and then you can get married and everything will be cleared away. But like, I know that’s not the most practical short term advice.
Cy Kellett: No. And I just feel like it’s not satisfying. And we want, and you know, we’re not trying to be flip about it, but it really is not our, it’s not the business we chose to be in getting people out of the Catholic Church. And I think that’s about the limit of what we know as far as that goes, at least as far as I know.
Joe Heschmeyer: This is, this is the way. It isn’t. It isn’t. You know, there are plenty of Protestant denominations where, you know, you’re a member if you believe what they believe. And it’s a little more dynamic than that to be Catholic. It’s both what we believe and who we are.
Caller: Okay, Michael, but if I don’t believe, that’s a two point thing. If I don’t believe.
Caller: Yeah, right.
Caller: This is why.
Caller: But I don’t believe that should then exclude me is what I’m thinking.
Joe Heschmeyer: Yeah, I definitely understand your frustration. I can see why that’s upsetting to you. But in the same way that if you, if you broke off all conversation with your family, it wouldn’t make you not part of the family. First Corinthians 12. St. Paul gives examples of the body of Christ. And he even gives examples of parts of the body that don’t think of themselves as part of the body. He says that the ear should say, because I’m not an eye, I’m not part of the body of Christ. It would not for that reason be any less a part of the body. That’s kind of the dynamic spiritual reality. It isn’t something that’s totally within our control of just saying yes or no, too.
Cy Kellett: And Michael, I’m just going to say thanks and we’re going to move on. But this is the truth about Catholics. We believe in the sacraments. We believe they affect what they say they’re going to affect and that those effects are permanent, they’re irrevocable in a certain sense. So that and we can’t change that belief, despite the fact that I realize it’s a very emotionally unsatisfying thing for us to say to you at this moment. I’m going to go now to San Francisco, listening on ewtn. Alex in San Francisco, go ahead with your question for Joe.