CBS3 in Chicago reports that a judge has legally barred a father from taking his child to Church because, according to the mother, a Christian Service would “confuse” the child and cause her “irreperable harm.”
I can believe that this argument is going on but what I can’t believe is that a judge would sign off on something this crazy. And make no mistake, this is crazy:
A father has been hit with an unusual restraining order: Keep his daughter away from any religion that is not Jewish. After the girl’s parents split up, the father went to a Catholic church and had the girl baptized, CBS station WBBM-TV reports.
Joseph Reyes, 35, had his daughter baptized and sent his ex-wife a picture of the ceremony.
Rebecca Reyes says she only learned of her daughter’s Baptism when Joseph sent her the picture, and that he sent it out of malice. Joseph Reyes denies this.
“I sent it because Rebecca asked me for pictures,” he said.
Rebecca Reyes says she wants her daughter raised Jewish, and that her husband pledged to do so, even going so far as to convert to Judaism himself.
“That’s not accurate,” he responded. “I’m not going to call her a liar, but … at the very least she’s mistaken regarding that conversation.”
…Reyes’ divorce attorney, Joel Brodsky, said when he first saw the petition for a temporary restraining order against his client, he couldn’t believe what he was reading.
“I almost fell off my chair,” he said. “I thought maybe we were in Afghanistan and this was the Taliban. This is America. We have a First Amendment right of freedom of religion.”
The restraining order asks the judge to bar Joseph from taking his daughter to church. According to the petition, failure to restrain him will “continue to the emotional detriment of the child.”
Rebecca and her attorneys declined to go on camera but they did release the following statement: “We stand by our petition. We feel the judge will do whatever is best for the child.”
The attorney for Joseph Reyes says he will appeal Friday’s order.
What kind of judge would allow something like this? Lunacy. Pure and simple.
Something tells me that if the father were Muslim, this restraining order wouldn’t have been approved.
December 14, 2009 at 6:47 am
Wow…just…um…wow.
December 14, 2009 at 10:04 am
Ahh…the evils of mixed marriages.
December 14, 2009 at 10:40 am
This kind of thing isn't that unusual in divorce cases. I know of cases, personally, where the father was to he was only able to take his child to a CATHOLIC church or NO church at all!
December 14, 2009 at 1:36 pm
This doesn't terribly surprise me that much either. Family courts are filled with litigants who are entirely insane, and they are staffed by attorneys and judges who think they wield allmighty power. In the world of Crazy Family Law Stuff, this is just par for the course.
December 14, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I am not shocked by this in the least. Divorce is nasty business. The "custodial" parents have a lot of influence in these cases. Often the Dads are denied due process. It is a travesty. Keeping this sadness in mind, here's what that horrible old Baltimore Catechism has to say about it.
Q. 1042. Why should Catholics avoid mixed marriages?
A. Catholics should avoid mixed marriages:
(1) Because they are displeasing to the Church and cannot bring with them the full measure of God's grace and blessing;
(2) Because the children should have the good example of both parents in the practice of their religion;
(3) Because such marriages give rise to frequent disputes on religious questions between husband and wife and between their relatives;
(4) Because the one not a Catholic, disregarding the sacred character of the Sacrament, may claim a divorce and marry again, leaving the Catholic married and abandoned.
Boy, imagine. The Church has wisdom.
I feel sad for the Dad, more so for the daughter. But he should have known better. The judge, in part, is correct.
December 14, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I guess he has to keep her out of public school too, where she would be exposed to different points of view…
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-6258-Huntsville-Natural-Parenting-Examiner~y2009m9d8-Homeschooled-girl-forced-into-public-school-because-religious-beliefs-too-sincere
December 14, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Marriages between different faiths is very confusing for children. The child does not want to offend the mother or father and thus if the parents are so different as one believes Christ is God and the other believes at best he was a controversial rabbi the child has a real problem intellectually. In order to not offend the parents they generally adopt neither religion – not good for the child. The judge should allow the parents to decide and if they can not decide the child will eventually … This is just very sad.
December 14, 2009 at 5:06 pm
This is cut from the same cloth as the case of the non-parental lesbian ex seeking custody in VA/VT.
December 14, 2009 at 6:44 pm
The father should file a restraining order back. What about the child's first ammendment rights – the girl is baptized, she has a right to attend Christian services? The courts treat her like a piece of meat.
December 15, 2009 at 10:04 am
Okay. I'm confused. I thought that our society was one of "multi-culturalism" and "diversity." So when did I fall asleep only to wake up with the SS police in charge? Just recently, a judge told a mother she could no longer home-school her child since the child's Christianity evidently made her "rigid":
The court order stated: "According to the guardian ad litem's further report and testimony, the counselor found Amanda to lack some youthful characteristics. She appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith." The guardian noted that during a counseling session, Amanda tried to witness to the counselor and appeared "visibly upset" when the counselor purposefully did not pay attention.
And this:
According to the court order, the guardian concluded that Amanda's "interests, and particularly her intellectual and emotional development, would be best served by exposure to a public school setting in which she would be challenged to solve problems presented by a group learning situation and…Amanda would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior."
Full Article
Would this not be precedent? You can't have it both ways. You can't tell a Christian homeschooling mom that her child needs to be "exposed" to different points of view but yet legislate another woman of faith that her point of view is the only one her child is allowed to experience. Major confusion. Liberals are trying to play both ends of the argument, which is failing miserably and our children are caught in the middle.
It's outrageous and this judge needs a strong dose of rational thinking, since obviously he's lost it.
December 15, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I think out of all the cases I've seen in the news recently, this one tops them all: 8 year old sent home from school and order to under go a mental evaluation before returning to school, because he drew a picture of a crucifix. The teacher asked the class to draw pictures of Christmas and the 8 year old drew a Crucifix.
The teacher said the child claims that it was a picture of him, but the family is saying it was a picture of Jesus. Either way, this one of all the stories I'm reading is the scariest. This is Christian discrimination at it's core and has NOTHING to do with divorce or 2 parents using a child as a pawn in their divorce case.
December 15, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I'm going to take another viewpoint on this. At the onset this appears to be "malicious" baptism just to tick off the mom. In the Catholic Church this sort of baptism would be invalid.
This guy appears to be doing this just to tick off his ex-wife. There is no grace involved in him doing this. He promised to raise the child Jewish, he should stick to his promise if he's not invested in any church, himself.
December 16, 2009 at 5:51 pm
We don't really know the story. Maybe the guy was Catholic but it didn't mean much to him, he was in love, so he told the woman he would raise the child Jewish. After they break up, he wonders what went wrong in his life, and he starts to think about his faith, goes back to the church, and wants his daughter baptized.
We really don't know the story, honestly.
I think most priests would have picked up on the malicious baptism thing and refused to do it, don't you?
I am afraid the father in this case can only -without the interference of a judge- say to the child, (when she is old enough) when you are with me, you come to the Catholic Church, and this is what I believe, but when you are with your mother, you go to the synagogue and let her tell you what she believes. When you are older, I hope you will choose to be a Catholic, but it will be your choice. Meanwhile, you can find out all you can about both religions, and I will help you do that.
If parents handle these things maturely, this doesn't have to be a catastrophe. Sure, it is better for children not to have this kind of uncertainty, but it is the war between the parents which is causing the real harm. Most children do choose for themselves when they get older anyway.
Susan Peterson
December 17, 2009 at 5:53 am
We are surrounded by coward public servants who cater to popular issues.
Trendy modernist judge,knew that christians don't
resort to violence unlike the muslims.
The spiritual battle continues from all walks of life.
December 17, 2009 at 2:09 pm
The ex-wife claims that the father did convert to judaism when he married her.
If this is true, how can he be a catholic?
December 17, 2009 at 2:13 pm
He, the father, either converted (or reconverted back) to Catholicism. So either he was a Catholic prior to marriage and went back to Catholicism (reconverted/started practicing again) or he just flat out converted to Catholicism. Either way it's not unseal, people convert or come back all the time.
December 17, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Thank you SAGMinIl,
but how many times can a person leave the Catholic faith and return, out of convenience for himself.
I think that man have no real faith anyway and the judge was correct.
February 14, 2010 at 8:46 pm
One small correction to a comment: there is no 'invalid' baptism; intent on the parnt(s)' part, the child's part or even the priest's part is beside the point. So long as the baptism was conducted by the correct formula, the child is baptized for eternity.
The ex-wife is certainly suggesting that the father baptized the child out of spite.
So what?! I'm not saying that's a good thing, but the court can't micromanage everything a parent does with their child and try to sort out good intentions from bad.
In most cases, the court lets the religious instruction be chosen by the parent who's with the child at the time…because the court simply doesn't want to get into the business of nosing around and micromanaging.
I'm amazed that the judge upheld such a thing, even if the husband was acting in bad faith.
This probably meeans:
a) the husband was acting in spite
b) the wife was making a mountain our of a molehill
c) the judge was way overstepping himself
OR d) all or many of the above!