Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Interfaith divorce: War over child’s religion - Catholic Father vs.Jewish Mother

Interfaith divorce: War over child’s religion - chicagotribune.com

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Rebecca Reyes opened an e-mail from her estranged husband in November to learn to her shock that he had their 3-year-old daughter baptized in the Catholic Church even though she said the couple, in happier times, had agreed to raise her in the Jewish faith.

What happened over the next few months brought the couple's private battles into the open and raises questions about how far the court system can — or should — go in dictating what faith separated parents teach their children.

After the unannounced baptism, a Cook County Circuit Court judge took the unusual step of temporarily barring Reyes' husband, Joseph, from exposing their child to any religion other than Judaism. But Joseph Reyes then allegedly defied the order by taking his daughter to Mass at Holy Name Cathedral — with a television news crew in tow.


Of course this reminds us of the Mortara Case when a child was taken away from his Jewish family because he'd been baptized a Catholic. The boy was successively raised a Catholic and became a priest.

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