Gina —

While certainly it would be wonderful and important to his salvation to receive Baptism and become Catholic, by no means does he need to become Catholic for you to get married in the Church.

It would be preferable for him to be baptized because he sincerely believes and accepts the Catholic faith, not out of any sense of compulsion or obligation. If he is not baptized at your wedding, you will need a special, but routine, dispensation from the bishop.

If he still wants to be received into the Church, he should enroll in RCIA classes; your pastor can tell you who to speak to. However, it is exceedingly unlikely he'll be able to receive Baptism within your ten month period of time.

Typically, adult baptisms are done at the Easter Vigil and require many months of preparation. (enrolling in the fall or even earlier.)

Eric

Hi, Gina —

Along with Eric's fine answer, I want to encourage your future spouse and tell him the extra time involved in the RCIA process is worth the wait.

I would encourage him to consider buying a cheap copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to learn everything we believe as faithful Catholics. Once someone truly understands what we believe and how we really partake in divine nature with Our Lord, they will be able to summarize the faith, despite all the interior scandals, as:

• Being Catholic is a blast!

A Catholic who is grounded in (his|her) faith and practices it, makes the devil's job of bringing them down much harder.

Hope this helps,

Mike