When Mark Mecker got married, he gave little thought to the fact that his wife, Cathy, was a member of another religion. Larry Dorfman and Roger Lenke felt the same way about their wives.

But raising children in an interfaith family did require some forethought.

Y-Press interviewed the three interfaith families about the issues and difficulties they faced: Mark and Cathy Mecker are Episcopalian and Catholic; Karen and Larry Dorfman are Episcopalian and Jewish; and Roger and Joanne Lenke are Jewish and Catholic.

"I was raised Catholic, in a conservative Irish Catholic family," Karen Dorfman said. "And in college during the '60s, I decided I'm never going to church again."

Years later, she became an Episcopalian.

When she and Larry were married, they said, there weren't many interfaith families in Indianapolis.

"Rabbi Jonathan Stein married us in his study, and we were the first interfaith couple he ever agreed to perform the ceremony for," Larry said.

Because only one of them was Jewish, the wedding couldn't be performed in the temple.

Like Karen Dorfman, Joanne Lenke was raised Catholic but stopped attending church when she met the man who was going to be her husband. Similarly, Roger Lenke had been raised Jewish but wasn't going to temple. Neither considered conversion when they married.

"I feel like I would be betraying what I grew up with," said Joanne.

"I have too many problems with the Catholic Church," added Roger, who is a doctor. "They don't believe in birth control, and they don't believe in a lot of women's rights."

The Lenkes didn't combine their faiths for their wedding, either. No priest would perform the service, Roger recalled, "so we ended up with a justice of the peace."

Cathy and Mark Mecker were married in a Catholic church after dating nine years. Because Mark was Episcopalian, he was interviewed by the priest before the couple could be married; because the two religions are similar, he did not have to take Catholicism classes.

There haven't been very many problems with religious differences in the Mecker family, because both parents practice branches of Christianity. "There's just a lot of issues that go back in time historically that I think separated the two churches," said Mark.

Differences between Christianity and Judaism run deeper. About a third of Jews marry outside their faith, according to the Jewish Outreach Institute, an organization dedicated to interfaith understanding. Nonetheless, many face criticism from family.

But these families did not experience any opposition. "They just wanted to know where the party was," said Larry Dorfman.

The next major religious decision the couples faced came when they had children.

Ever since Alex Dorfman was little, his parents celebrated Christian and Jewish holidays. His mother took him to Episcopal services until he was old enough to stay home with his dad. Later, he attended an Episcopal school -- St. Richard's -- and went to Jewish Sunday school.

"He kind of grew up respecting and learning about both religions equally," said Larry Dorfman. When Alex was about 11 years old, he decided to be bar mitzvahed.

"We were pretty strong about keeping him on that track once he had made that decision," his father said.

Similarly, the Mecker boys are immersed in both religions. They have always attended Mass with their mother at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, and they also go to Episcopal services at St. Richard's School, which they attend.

"We've never really asked the boys to pick one or the other. I don't think they've ever felt like they had to pick," said Cathy Mecker.

The Lenkes' decision regarding religion was born of crisis: Michael was born prematurely, and his parents hadn't discussed how they were going to raise him.

"We couldn't get a priest to come and baptize him because we didn't belong to a congregation, so it really put me off the Catholic religion," Joanne said. "It truly broke my heart."

At the time, they decided not to raise Michael as a Catholic. When he was a toddler, they enrolled him in preschool at the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation. "And when I got there, and we were eagerly embraced as a family, it felt right," Joanne said. The Lenkes celebrate some Christian holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, but attend Jewish services and observe Jewish holy days.

The families believe that raising their children in an interfaith household has been very beneficial and educational for them.

"It's teaching him tolerance, that there's more than one religion," said Roger Lenke.

And it has helped the parents, too.

"It has caused me to seek to understand other people and where their beliefs are, and how they've come to define spirituality," said Cathy Mecker.

"I became more tolerant the further I moved away from Catholicism," said Karen Dorfman, who attends temple on High Holy Days.

"I think you're exposed to different things in life, and the more things you're exposed to, the better person you become," agreed Roger Lenke.

So although these families have faced a few problems, they would not do anything differently.

"We're not doing anything illegal. . . . We're just embracing a lot of different things and exposing our child," said Joanne Lenke.

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Anna Kostrzewsky, 17; Keisha Mitchell, 14.

REPORTER: Amber Patton, 13 .