From what you posted, it sounds like his parents were Catholic and took him to the Catholic church until the age of four. From then until recently, he hadn't set foot in a Catholic church. Is this correct? If so, how long has it been since he returned to the Church? Has he received any of the Sacraments?

Okay, here's how it works... I'm a lapsed Catholic myself, so if I've gotten this wrong, someone correct me.

There are seven holy sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist or Communion, Confession, Annointing of the Sick (or Last Rites), Holy Orders (becoming a priest or nun), Matrimony.

You can't just walk into a Catholic church one day and decide to be Catholic.

First, you have to be baptized into the Catholic church. Then you have to make your first holy confession by confessing your sins to a priest, doing penance for your sins and then being absolved of your sins by the priest. Then you have to make your first Communion and next be confirmed into the Church.

Anyone raised Catholic will proceed through these steps at a certain age... usually baptized as an infant, confession and first communion around second grade and confirmation in middle school or high school. Throughout your school years, you attend CCD, or "Sunday school."

An adult entering the church would also have to receive these sacraments to officially become "Catholic," but that would only happen after intensive Catholic education... adult "Sunday school," so to speak, that takes almost a full year to complete. Check www.catholic.org for more info.

Anyway, I'd find out if he's done all the work and received all the sacraments to really be Catholic himself. Your attorney can't get any priest to tell anything he said in confession, but the church's records can certainly be subpoenaed to find out if he truly is Catholic. The Catholic Church is a little like the boys' clubhouse... you have to know the secret handshake to get in. If he hasn't gone through all the appropriate education and received the sacraments, then he's not Catholic, period.

Now, this part is a little shady... when my parents got married, my mother is Catholic and my father protestant, they were married in the Catholic church by a priest and they had to both agree that any children would be raised Catholic. I don't know how this plays into any of it, but it could be this teaching of the church that makes him think his children "have" to be Catholic. It might not be a bad idea to call your local Catholic church (or his!) and find out what the church's stance is on divorced parents where the non-Catholic parent has custody and the Catholic parent has visitation.

One thing I know, you are either Catholic or you are not... you can't be half Catholic and half non-denominational. (Trust me, I haven't been to church on a regular basis in years and was even married TWICE by a protestant minister, but I still consider myself to be Catholic and both of my children were baptized by priests.) Your children are all old enough to have received the first sacrament of baptism and your oldest, if being raised Catholic, should be in CCD every Sunday before Mass preparing for his first confession and first Holy Communion. If none of this has happened or is happening, then he can't really say he is raising them to be Catholic.

~ Anne ~

Our BM grew up 'Catholic', yet it was a total joke, and she claims to people that she was raised 'in a strick Catholic home'. Guess what, she wasn't. We know her father and he said that all they did was strickly go to church on Sunday. LOL. Her mother was a nutjob, and manipulated her all her life, but she was never raised in a strick Catholic home with all those strick Catholic rules as she wants everyone to think to pitty her.

She was baptised as a baby, but that was it. DH and BM were never married in a Catholic Church, and in order to be married in most Catholic Churchs, you have to attend their marriage counceling classes too. Many priests will not just simply marry a couple (in less of course they do belong to the church and attend regularly- you know they KNOW the couple.) And also, usually, one person within that relationship has to be a member of that church or a respectable member of the family who goes regularly. It is diffidently like Anne says, a boysclub. It's certainly not always the case, but for most, that is the norm.

This is what happened to us. Originally, BM was trying to sign SS up for events, short ones, anything even if SS didn't want to go, that fell on our time, where she could 'just take him herself' if we couldn't. Anything and everything she could do to cut our time down to as little as possible, and expect us to just go along with it. It got pretty damn annoying after awhile, so we started to put our foot down.

Well, at first, she signed him up for soccer. Okay, that was fine and dandy, thought we would have a fit about it, but nope... DH was excited. That was his dream, for SS to play soccer as he did as a kid, and to teach him his skills, and even coach someday. Well, BM got all hell bent out of shape, when it didn't go her way as she had planned in her head. She expected that she was just going to sweep in here and take over, but we were all excited and planned to attend the games, practices, be involved- Oh, no way in hell, she thought. It got UGLY.

Okay, to make a long story short, she purposely tried to sign SS up for things, and eventually, some of it, we said... too bad, it's our time, we are going out of town, you didn't check with us, we had no idea about it, since you didn't inform us... you snooze, you loss.

So, her next bright idea was to sign SS up for Catholicism Class (Sunday School). Mind you, neither DH and I am Cathloic, but she thought she was soooo smart, because this would be more fuel for her fire to take us back to court because in Catholicism Class, you can not miss more than two or three days of class, or they will drop you from the class. It's a serious offense. They are on a tight schedule. See, what she didn't know was that I- grew up Catholic, went to a Catholic school for a short short spell, but I do not claim to be Catholic at all. But I know enough. (No disrespect, because I have the utmost respect for anyone religious, I just have my own experiences.)

And mind you, this was alll of a sudden, out of the blue, she's now attending the Catholic Church she used to attend when she was younger, but hadn't been there for YEARS... and in just a matter of a month, just allll out of the blue, she's refound her faith, religiously going to church and wants her son- mind you she has 2 other children from a different father, out of wed lock, father not even in the picture anymore, and Catholic Churches really really frawns on that, but she doesn't worry about them going to Catholicism Classes for thier age groups, nope, interesting how it's just SS. Never ever discussed it to us about signing SS up for this class. Just calls us one day, says oh by the way, I've signed SS up for Sunday School, it starts next Sunday. AND had the balls to DEMAND that we pay for half of it... Um, excuse me?!?!? We don't go to that Church, let alone any church due to schedules! DH was raised Baptist/Christian, I'm- well more Non-Denomination, if anything and we do not attend a church, for one, DH works on Sunday. Hell, if you want him to learn about religion, we'll gladly take him to our church of choice (during our visitation), have him attend sunday school with all the other kids, FREE OF CHARGE. STUPID. HELL NO, we are not going to pay for your classes! That is your problem, not ours. And boy, did that go over well, but there was nothing she could do about it, but she was trying to get her ducks in a ros, set us up for failure and this was just one notch in her favor... us refusing to pay for half of it, plus she figured that we would not take SS, so there was strick two, and he won't get his Confirmation, strike three, and he'll burn in hell for eternity... okay- whatever.

So, I figured it out pretty quick what was going on after a few conversations with DH. I told him, okay, fine. She signed him up, he's already in- the damage is done, she paid for it, we don't agree with it, but we in turn take him to a church of our choice so that he may learn and understand your family denomination... but I warned him what will happen. He'll turn out just like me, resist religion. Or, we can go along with it, once his Confirmation is complete, that's it. We won't participate, it's on her own during her visitation from there. That's all she is supposedly concerned about, him getting Confirmation, that's all. I mean, according to her, that's all it was about in the first place. So, let's give her what she wants.

So that's what we did... threw her for a loop that during our Sundays, I dropped him off right infront of his classroom, and right when it was done, I was right there waiting for him. Smiling, with Bible in hand and Rosary... I even sat in the pews a few times during services...Oh, that made her mad. NEVER missed a day. Although, in the end, since it wasn't working in her favor, she gave up, missed a few days, and the final straw was SS left his book out in the rain, and it ruined it. She had to purchase him another book.

And he got his Confirmation. Soon after that, we had him go with his Uncle, my BIL, who was living with us at the time to his church that he regularly attended, which was a Non-Denomination church. And guess what, Sunday School was free of charge! Imagine that? Had a great time... much more fun than that Catholic Church... and he really got a bigger picture. LOL.

Now, she doesn't go to church. And I think is learning some other forms of religion. According to SS she's been reading alot of Buddhism books.... Interesting, isn't it?

As for your situation, I don't really know other than to say, just take them to a church YOU are comfortable with. I mean, children need to be exposed to your preference too- not just his- that's selfish. And YOU have a RIGHT for YOUR children to be exposed to YOUR religious preference. I'm sure your lawyer will agree with that.