My husband Adam and I have been together for 25 years and have always had a mixed relationship. He is an atheist; I am a Catholic. When we got married in the church back in 2000, he tolerated the premarital classes and agreed to raise our future children Catholic. Although our beliefs are vastly different, we have always respected and supported each other. When friends make snide comments about my faith, he has my back, and I appreciate it.

As a cradle Catholic, I stereotypically expected priests to be old and assumed that we had little in common, so when …