You might wish to tell that to Fr. Heitzman, who taught my CCD class. He was pretty emphatic about Hell, and the likelihood of going there if one didn’t straighten up and fly right.
Oh, I’m sure she just rolls her eyes when he starts, in the tradition of wives everywhere. “Eternal damnation, that’s nice dear, come eat some pie.”
For some reason, I thought a Catholic would be in big trouble if they married outside their religion. Like, they couldn’t be in good standing in the church anymore. Either way, it sounds like the two of them just decided to take their chances when they chose to marry outside their faiths.
Kalhoun, a catholic can indeed marry outside of his religion. My father is catholic and my mother is not. At the time, in the early 60’s, a priest was not allowed to officiate at the sacrament of marriage unless both parties were catholic. She didn’t want to convert so they got married at city hall. My father continued to be received in the church and to take holy communion. The church has since relaxed the rules and will marry interfaith couples, but I believe there’s the still the stipulation that the couple must agree to raise any children in the faith.
And, FWIW, no, I don’t believe my mother is going to hell.
Well, they had to get married because Robyn was pregnant with their first child, so pretty much, they would roast in hell for premarital sex.
However, I am guessing that she is Catholic too. I’m wondering if he was misquoted. I cannot imagine a family of such strong religous convictions not having more of a bee up their nose if their future movie star cash cow son married someone other than their own kind. ( I beleive he was on the set of either Mad Max or Road Warrior when they needed to get married.)
However, when she married him, she agreed to raise the kids catholic, so she probably goes to **St. Mel’s ** and is everything but baptized into it.
[rant]And so what if she is ‘constantly pregnant’. It’s not like they cannot afford all those kids. And it is her/their decision. Do I think they are tools for having so many kids because some tract of their religion tells them so? Partially, but what is right for them probably won’t work for me and vice versa. FTR, it’s 7 kids in 19 years. That is spacing them out pretty good by any catholic standard. My cousin and his wife are expecting their 7th in 12 years. And another former friend of mine just had her 7th in 11 years. And my best friend growing up 's mother had 13 in 22 years. ( and they adopted one.) [/rant]
The article does not paint an overly pretty picture however, but when you are exceptionally wealthy, the patriach of your church, the patriarch of your large family and probably patriach of your larger extended family AND a BIG SHOT MOVIE STAR, he’s probably use to things going his way and does not know any other way.
Since their only daughter (they have six sons) recently became a nun , I’m guessing the kids were all raised Catholic.
An aside: much of the controversy over Passion is Mel’s use of the teachings of the (illiterate and anti-semitic) 19th century nun Anne Catherine Emmerich, a woman he so reveres that he keeps a patch of cloth from her habit as a relic. (She is not a saint, though she has been beatified.) Mel’s director in The Patriot was a German born director named Roland Emmerich (whose biggest movie to date is the Broderick abomination Godzilla). I wonder if the two Emmerichs are related and, if so, if that played any part in Mel’s choice.