#81: Talking About Being Godparents

In their ongoing struggle with each other to win the competition that religion has become (see #4); Notre Dame Students continue to employ a wide array of tactics.  Some students like to use short term strategies such as what they give up for lent (see #74).  Other students like to make long term commitments such as serving as Eucharistic Ministers (see #45), while others might even go so far as to convert to Catholicism from another religion.

The most effective way, however, for Notre Dame Students to prove how Catholic they are is for them to talk about how somebody has chosen them to be a godparent for a child.*

Being chosen as a godparent is a special honor for Catholics of all ages as godparents are symbolically entrusted with the spiritual development of their godchildren.  In practice, however, being chosen as a godparent is an honor for people because it exemplifies the deep and long-lasting relationship that a person has with the parents of the child.  Either way, becoming a godparent is a great honor that is incredibly meaningful to everybody involved.

Because of their distinction as being incredibly Catholic, many Notre Dame Students are given the honor of becoming godparents.  While this most often happens when students’ older siblings have children, students can oftentimes become godparents for extremely young cousins or friends.  Either way, students will relish this honor and distinction.

Once a student has become a godfather or godmother, they will make sure that all of their friends at Notre Dame know they are a godparent.  They will casually drop references to their godchild into regular conversations like: “You hate THE SHIRT this year, well that’s too bad.  Oh, that reminds me that I have to go to the bookstore to get an infant-sized THE SHIRT for my godson” (see #2).  They will change their Facebook picture to one of them holding their godchild (or, when the child gets older, them with the child), and they will even go so far as to partake in a video chat with their godchild and his/her parents on a lazy weekend afternoon.

Notre Dame Students will do these things so that all of their friends are made aware of the fact that they are seen as religious enough to spiritually guide a young life into this world; or, they might just do it to brag.

*The Confirmation Sponsor Corollary

Similar to the way in which Notre Dame Students talk about how they are godparents in order to show that they are more Catholic than other students, even more students talk about how they have been chose as Confirmation Sponsors. 

While being chosen as a confirmation sponsor (and a student’s subsequent discussion of this honor) is certainly a way for Notre Dame Students to show how religious they are, it is less prestigious than being chosen as a godparent because the choice of confirmation sponsor is left to the candidate, allowing many older brothers and sisters to take positions that might not be indicative of their assumed religiosity.