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Dear Allison,
Thanks for the question.
To answer your question is, Yes, you may as long has he understands your obligations as a Catholic and will not interfere with the children of your love being raised Catholic. You also have to get a dispensation from your local bishop.
These two postings address most of the concerns you may have. I suggest you read them.
In another answer Fr. Jonathan replied:
Hi, John —
I need to respond with two things. First I need to clarify Mike's original answer and second I need to answer this direct question.
Mike stated:
- She does have to allow you to raise any future children both of you have, as Catholics.
This is actually inaccurate. She doesn't have to allow that, what is actually the case is that the Catholic has to promise to do “all in his/her power” to have the children baptized and raised as Catholics and the non-Catholic has to only witness that promise. There is a major difference in those two positions — if you don't get it read it again. The non-Catholic is not promising, the Catholic is.
What if you don't see having children: the promise you both need to make is to give the right to the other party to have children of the union. Again, notice carefully the difference, the promise is not to have children, the promise is “if my partner during the marriage wants to have children then I am willing”. You hand over your body to each other in Marriage. So if you are both saying, I will not have children, no matter what my spouse desires, then the Church will not agree to marry you.
These are very important distinctions, read and reflect upon them carefully.
Fr. Jonathan |
The ceremony for a Marriage in the Catholic Church usually takes the form of a Mass; the type you go to each Sunday.
I do have one grave concern. Although I do feel happy that you have found a good friend, I am concerned that you may not be aware of how radically different Islamic theology is from Catholic theology. We believe in a Loving Father/Loving Son relationship while Muslims only believe in a Master/Slave relationship. The idea of God or Allah having a loving relationship with anyone below him is repugnant in Islamic theology. Please read this posting and any attached postings:
The problem Allison is I have no idea whether your good friend is a westernized Muslim who is patriotic toward America and believes in the freedom of people to change their religious faiths, or if he secretly believes in the silent sharia. The silent sharia would allow him to lie right to your face, if it advances the goal of worldwide Muslim domination. If he is a practicing Muslim he probably believes in this.
None of what I am saying is meant to be hateful but is based on the Islamic faith and intended for your well being as well as the well being of your Muslim friend. Your friend doesn't have to convert to marry you in the Catholic Church, but being Catholic will totally change his life for the best — the very best, which is what I'm sure you want for him.
Although many couples, thinking of getting married, tend to put any difference in religious values they have in the background, the issue is critical to the future happiness of the family. If both the man and woman have strong religious beliefs that are opposed to each other while they are dating, this should be resolved as early as possible, or it will arise in their marriage when they start instilling religious values into their children.
If you or your Muslim friend are interested in the theological side of this, check out these web sites.
They have some pretty good videos. The only down side is some of them are pretty lengthy, but for a theology-minded Muslim, they'll like it : )
If he shows an interest in what we believe as Catholics, encourage him to consider buying a cheap copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to learn everything we believe as Catholics.
Hope this helps,
Mike
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