Babies Christening. Has anyone else found it a frustrating experience?

[angelcake78]

My son is 20 weeks old tomorrow.

Me and my partner are both Catholics and would like to get him Christened but have found the process so far very frustrating.

The priest took 3 weeks from us ringing him and asking about how to go about it before getting in touch with us to pick up a form to fill in.

Once we got the form it was pretty confusing to fill in as we were told we could only have 2 Godparents (though we would have liked more), when we knew others who live within the same diocese as us had been allowed more Godparents.

One again we rang the priest to question this and didn't hear back from him. Eventually after 2 weeks I called in to church and spoke to him. He told me that the form was correct so we had to choose just 2 Godparents.

I filled the form in and posted it into the church the next day.

Once again we waited to hear back. After 3 weeks of no reply we rang up to be told that we were on the priests 'to do' list. That was a week ago.

We know from filling the form in that we still have to do a course which takes 2 months to complete.

My Mam is currently going through treatment for cancer and obviously we would have liked to have had this sorted sooner.

Has anyone else been through anything similar? We're both very frustrated as obviously if we were dealing with other people this service just wouldn't be seen as good enough but with it being the church you feel like you can't complain.

Sorry about the rant .Am just frustrated with how slow things are going.

[Hidden]

Yes and I'm sad to say I had to dump the Catholic church as it was turning into a joke and their attitude was less than satisfactory for me. I've gone to a cofe church instead. Such a different experience and sorted within 1 week. Obviously, you may not want to do the same but I just couldn't accept the church behaving that way. I sympathise entirely

[Hidden]

I've not had experience of this, but it sounds stressful, to say the least! Especially with other worries

I'm not Catholic, so this might be a bit of a 'no-no' suggestion...but is there another church nearby you could go to? X

[ScotianGirl]

The Catholic Church is a hierarchy so you can go above the local priest to the diocese management, or to the Bishop of the diocese. I imagine they won't like the fact that the priest is messing up a chance to grab another soul! (Sorry, joking as I am Catholic too). Seriously tho there is a whole management structure so just complain to the level above, hopefully you can get somewhere, or, is there another Catholic Church and priest that isn't too far away?

[Hidden]

I have mine done Anglo catholic ! went 2 church , book the date I wanted both times , he took our details & that was that . Sorted the baby's out in a couple of weeks cos we wanted 2 bring the date forward which again no problem !

My mums family is Roman Catholic & sadly only had dealings with them 4 funerals ! My aunt who lost her 26 yo son 2 a industrial accident ended up throwing the priest out of her house because of how rude he was being & had 2 get a replacement 4 service & similar when my grandad passed !

Try a different church , even another catholic 1 , it's generally the priest that decides how it's run ! So they do vary from church 2 church .

We had 3 godparents 4 1st , 4 the 2nd , when I asked if we could have 4 he said that was the maximum ! I thought 3 was the general rule, at more relaxed church christenings iv seen 6 for 1 child !!!! A bit over the top ... So can understand having a limit , 2 seems rather tight .

Ask friends & family if they can recommend a church with a nice priest .

[haynesie]

Hi, my partner is catholic and we're getting our little boy christened. Our priest is lovely, (helps that his nanny goes to church every wee I think) and we organised our christening over Facebook chat with him lol. The form does only have room for 2 names but you can have more. We have 4, but you can only choose 2 people's names for the form if that makes sense? It's a 1 afternoon course for us. Boo! But our wedding one was 8 evenings so 1 afternoon doesn't sound too bad!

Sorry you've had a bad experience, must be how efficient the church/priest is. Good luck x

[Zahara]

Your experience seems frustrating, but I'd like to ask a few questions or make some assumptions as to why you have such a delay.

1, is it probable your parish is so big and they have a long list

2, are either of you practicing Catholics of just Catholics by birth?

I asked because while the form is absolutely correct (you can have just 2godparents), the delay is WRONG.

I had my baby on 27th of March and she was Christiened 2-3 weeks later on Easter Sunday, I only gave 1 week notice.

Might be wise to take this to someone higher to the Parish priest to complain?

[missklt]

Its took me a week to get in touch with my vicar and I now have a meeting with her next Thursday to discuss when we want lydia grace christened. Im hopin we are jot waiting months x

[angelcake78]

Thanks for all the replies.

Am still waiting to hear from the priest.

Yes there are other churches nearby that I could got to but am just worried in case they have the same process and I therefore take even longer to get the christening organised.

I really just want to hear back as I need to try and work the christening out around my mams chemo. I know it's a bit low but am seriously thinking of playing the big C card to see if it hurries things up.

[Allyemo]

With both my previous children I knocked on his door until he came filled in the form there and then and got him to agree. Again this was after phoning and phoning leaving messages etc and no call back. No I'm living abroad ill be back in the summer I've got my MIL on the case now that gives me at least 8 weeks to sort it out.