My sister and her family are non-practicing Catholics and my husband and I try really hard to live out our strong Catholic faith. We have two young children (ages 2 and 1) and another on the way. I'm seriously starting to doubt whether I want my sister and her family to be very involved in their lives. They do many things that are against our faith and I've even told her not to do or say certain things in front of us because it's disrespectful but she doesn't listen to me.

We used to have a close relationship until my husband inspired me to be a practicing Catholic again. I try to evangelize with her but she always has some smart comment or scientific explaination for everything. I pray for her and her family to convert but recently they've become even more secular. Examples include taking her young boys to see inappropriate movies, wasting a large sum of money on unnecessary material things and vacations, dressing immodestly, and her new desire to get a whole arm tattooed -- plus she continues to cuss in front of my kids! She has this new "F___ the world" take on life and I don't want my family to be around that. What should I do? Is it okay to keep my distance from her?

A.V.--

Your only legitimate concern about your sister is that she curses in front of your children. The rest of your concerns involve matters that are within your sister's personal responsibility (going to church, how she mothers her children, how she spends her money, how she dresses and decorates herself). For you to insert yourself into your sister's "business" -- for lack of a better term -- is certainly going to annoy her and could contribute to the "take on life" you report.

It is not altogether uncommon for new converts or reverts to the faith to experience strain in their relationships with non-believing family or friends because their newfound zeal inspires them to seek to "improve" others so as to meet their newly raised standards. Please understand, such zeal is commendable. But you owe it to your family to channel it appropriately into how you and your husband live your own lives, hopefully inspiring family and friends by your example rather than by more direct forms of "evangelization." If you use it as a reason to distance yourself from your family, it will only further strain relations and may make your sister wonder why she'd want to have anything to do with practicing a religion that seems to her to have taken her sister from her.

As for your legitimate concern, if you have asked your sister not to curse in front of your children and she has refused to stop, then try to take comfort in the fact that your children are too young right now to understand. If they start to mimic their aunt, you can then satisfy your feelings by instructing them privately that those words are not appropriate and you expect them not to use them. (It might be a good idea to let them know that this is information you are entrusting to them for their own education, and that you also expect them not to correct their aunt when she uses inappropriate words.)

Recommended reading:

God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts by Gregory K. Popcak
When Difficult Relatives Happen to Good People by Leonard Felder

Michelle Arnold
Catholic Answers

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