In Re Marriage of Tisckos

514 N.E.2d 523, 161 Ill. App. 3d 302, 112 Ill. Dec. 860, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3247
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedSeptember 24, 1987
Docket4-87-0215
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 514 N.E.2d 523 (In Re Marriage of Tisckos) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Marriage of Tisckos, 514 N.E.2d 523, 161 Ill. App. 3d 302, 112 Ill. Dec. 860, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3247 (Ill. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

JUSTICE LUND

delivered the opinion of the court:

The parties’ marriage was dissolved by judgment order on October 19, 1981. Custody of the parties’ daughter, born January 3, 1979, was awarded to the mother, with visitation granted to the father as set forth in the dissolution judgment:

“The Petitioner is awarded the care, custody, control and education of the minor child of the parties, Meggann Elizabeth Tisckos. The Respondent shall have visitation privileges with his daughter every other weekend, commencing with this forthcoming weekend, during the period of 6:00 p.m. on Friday to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday. Respondent in addition shall have visitation privileges on every Tuesday and Thursday evening from the hour of 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The Petitioner, however, shall have the minor child of the parties on every Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, July 4 and January 3, the birthday of the minor child. The Respondent shall have visitation privilege with the minor child on the day of the eve of Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, July 4 and the birthday of the said child. During the Summer months at a time mutually agreed upon by the parties hereto the Respondent shall have a total of four weeks of visitation with his minor child.”

In July 1986, the respondent father filed a petition to modify the terms of the dissolution judgment, seeking (1) visitation from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays; (2) specification of the four weeks he requested for summer visitation; and (3) a more specific award of alternate holiday visitation.

At hearing on the petition, an issue was raised as to the daughter’s attendance at religious services on weekends while in the respondent father’s custody. The court entered an order modifying visitation on December 10, 1986, which included a reference to the minor’s attendance at religious services during weekend visitation:

“So that the religious education and training of the minor child solely in the Roman Catholic faith shall continue, the [respondent] on his weekend visitation shall deliver the minor child of the parties to the [petitioner] at her home each Sunday by no later than 10:30 a.m. so that the minor child may attend Roman Catholic Church services at the parish church where she attends elementary school. The [respondent] thereafter at the hour of 12:15 p.m. may again obtain the child from the [petitioner’s] residence for the completion of that weekend visitation. The [respondent] may, however, during his weekend visitations have the option of transporting the child each Sunday to a Roman Catholic Church to fulfill her Sunday Mass obligation rather than deliver the child to the [petitioner] each Sunday morning for the purpose. So as not to cause confusion in the mind of the said minor child regarding her religious training, the said child shall not attend any religious services other than those approved by the custodial parent, the [petitioner] herein.
During the [respondent’s] uninterrupted visitation in the summer months the [respondent] shall transport the minor child each Sunday to a Roman Catholic Church so that the minor child may fulfill her Sunday Mass obligation; within reason.”

This portion of the order was the focus of respondent’s motion for rehearing, which the court denied after argument on February 24, 1987. This appeal followed.

At the inception of the hearing on respondent father’s motion, counsel informed the court (1) the parties had agreed on a specific schedule for alternate holiday visitation; (2) the father’s weekend visitation would continue every other weekend from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Sunday, and terminating at 8 p.m. on Sundays when the following Monday was not a school day; and (3) weeknight visitation would be on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on nights preceding school days, and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at all other times. The parties remained in disagreement on the hours at which the father’s weeks of summer visitation would begin and end because it involved Sundays and the issue of the minor’s attendance at church services; and the mother wanted the child back for Catholic church services when the father had weekend visitation. By way of background, both the mother and father were raised in the Catholic religion; they had a Catholic church wedding; and their daughter' was baptized in the Catholic church. The mother was raising the daughter in the Catholic faith. The daughter attended school at the Blessed Sacrament parish, a Catholic school, for her education during the week. The father had remarried, had a son, and had changed his religious affiliation to the Baptist faith.

Respondent was against interrupting his visitation in the middle of Sunday and testified he and his new wife and son (and his daughter during alternate weekend visitation) were involved in activities on Sunday morning from 8 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. at church and Sunday school at the Springfield Southern Baptist Church. The first service started at 8:30 a.m., finished at 9:30 a.m., and the family then went to Sunday school, which lasted until 10:45 a.m. He taught 11th and 12th graders at the Sunday school. He testified that about a year and a half earlier he spoke to Father Sotirosf at Blessed Sacrament and was told that if his daughter was prevented from attending Catholic church by an outside influence, e.g., her father, the church would not hold it against the child. Respondent testified the petitioner had not disapproved of his taking their daughter to Baptist services until the last 60 to 90 days.

The daughter’s report card showed she received high marks in her subjects and showed good effort in her school work. Respondent father acknowledged that his daughter was receiving her first Sacrament of Reconciliation, or penance, within a month, and during the second grade — this school year — she would make her first Holy Communion. The respondent father acknowledged it is a mandatory re-

quirement of the Roman Catholic Church that those of Catholic faith attend Sunday mass and mass on holy days of obligation. In questioning by the court, the father stated he saw no problem in his daughter’s attending church with him, since she was not being forced to become a Southern Baptist, but was simply attending with him because it was during their visitation time.

The petitioner mother called the Reverend Hugh R Cassidy, pastor of the Blessed Sacrament parish and chief administrator of the parish school. Father Cassidy said the school tried to convey to the children the religious values of the Catholic church. He said the church considered it an obligation of Roman Catholics to attend Sunday mass and masses on holy days of obligation. Asked whether it would have any effect on a seven- or eight-year-old child if she were taken on alternate Sundays to a church of the Southern Baptist denomination, Father Cassidy said he believed it would, explaining:

“I think by virtue of the educational process, this religious educational process in which we are trying to portray and convey to a child or to children certain religious values that we feel that when a child would be going to different churches at different times, that we place the child in a dichotomy, and I think that children would be extremely confused.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
514 N.E.2d 523, 161 Ill. App. 3d 302, 112 Ill. Dec. 860, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-marriage-of-tisckos-illappct-1987.