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Hi, Nick —
Thanks for the question.
You can marry this girl with the
consent of the bishop, which is routinely
granted. That said,
it may not be advisable to do so.
Evangelical Christians are wonderful
folk. They are usually very rooted
in their faith. While that is a good
thing, it could present a problem
when it comes to raising the children
and making other choices later on
down the line.
In order to get permission to marry,
she will have to promise not to interfere
with your obligations to raise
the children as Catholics. Her obligation would be as a witness to your promise of bringing the kids up Catholic. Typically,
Evangelicals aren't willing to follow
through with that, because of
their zeal.
All that said, Evangelical Christians
and Catholics share quite a bit in
common. Perhaps you should encourage
her to start studying what the Catholic Church teaches and why. After all,
it's part of who you are; or at least
it should be. Who knows, maybe the
Holy Spirit will lead her to convert.
This last point addresses your other
question. You can't have her convert.
That is the Holy Spirit's job and
Evangelicals are pretty rooted in
what they believe. They don't just up and convert because someone
tells them to, plus that's not the
right reason to convert anyway.
One
becomes a Catholic because they've
come to believe that the Catholic
Church is the one Church founded by Christ.
That can only happen if God reveals
that truth to a person.
- We can tell
them the truth.
- We can present reasons
for our beliefs and Teachings
- but
we can't bring about a real conversion.
Becoming a Catholic is not like
becoming a member of the local Elk's
club or member of the local Rotary
club.
It means entering the One
and Only True Church founded by our
Lord and if you don't believe it
is, then you really haven't converted.
John
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