DON'T FORGET THAT ANNULMENT!

Q: My partner is divorced. He was not Catholic at the time of his first marriage but his spouse was, and their wedding was performed by a priest in church. During the marriage, he converted to Catholicism. We're both currently practicing Catholics and hope to marry one day. Is it possible for us to be married in a Catholic church and continue receiving the sacraments? This would be the first marriage for me, and our faith is important to both of us. - T., from Ohio, via godsquadquestion@aol.com

A: My priest advisors confirmed that you are indeed a Kosher Catholic (well, they didn't exactly say it that way). There are no obstacles to you receiving the sacraments and being married in a Catholic church. Your partner, however, will need an annulment of his first marriage to be married in the Church. He has no choice about that, but he does have choices regarding the annulment. He can apply for an annulment in one of two places: in the diocese where his first marriage was performed, or in the diocese in which he now lives.

I wish you God's blessings on your path to matrimony. If everything works out, I'd be pleased if, in my honor, you served those little kosher hot dogs with the crust around them at the reception.

Q: I am Roman Catholic. My ex-husband was born of a Jewish father and a Christian mother. His mother converted to Judaism only when she married her second husband. My ex-husband never had a bar mitzvah but considered himself Jewish following his mother's remarriage. Our four children were all baptized in the Catholic faith, with his consent and participation.

Following our divorce two years ago, I largely refrained from advancing our children's religious status in Catholicism (i.e., formal religious instruction and sacraments such as First Communion and Confirmation) out of respect for my ex-husband's faith. However, this year, he began bringing the children to religious school at his temple each weekend he has them, and has announced that our oldest son will have his bar mitzvah in a few months, following tutoring in Hebrew.

I was never consulted about this decision. I believe my husband and his mother and stepfather have put significant pressure on our son to do this and he's acquiesced in an effort to please them.

Given that my son has already been baptized and is the son of a Catholic mother, does his bar mitzvah signify, in the eyes of the Jewish faith, that he's choosing to become a Jew and renouncing his status as a Catholic? Is a bar mitzvah, thus, the equivalent of a conversion ceremony, or would that be a separate process? Should the rabbi performing the ceremony have contacted me to determine whether or not I'd agreed that our son should be bar mitzvahed?

How would the Jewish faith view any subsequent sacraments my son may choose to pursue in the Catholic faith, such as a First Communion? - C., via godsquadquestion@aol.com

A: Let's begin by clearing up who's on what team. Your son is not Jewish because you, his mother, are not Jewish, and also (although this is irrelevant to orthodox Jewish law), he was not raised as a Jewish person or given a Jewish education.

By the way, your ex-husband is also not Jewish for the same reasons. The pending bar mitzvah of your son at age 13 is a sham and should not be done until and unless your son first decides to formally convert to Judaism (something your ex-husband might also want to consider if he's encouraging his son to celebrate a bar mitzvah).

If your son had formally converted to Judaism as a child, then his bar mitzvah would be the formal acceptance of his Jewish identity. A person converted as a child to Judaism also has the right to renounce such a conversion until the age of maturity, which is the bar mitzvah.

It was not necessary for the rabbi to ask your permission for your son to convert. On the other side of the ledger, you must know that as a baptized Catholic, your son will never need to re-convert to Catholicism if he decides Judaism is not an authentic spiritual path for him. If he does come to that conclusion, even after a bar mitzvah he can return to the Church.

Baptism or Jewish identity by birth are fixed for life, and although one can convert out of the faith, the path back is not the creation of a new religious identity but rather the reclaiming of one's spiritual roots.

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