“This is a story that sounds like it’s coming from the 1600s and not 2024.”
Really. In 1611, my ancestor was burned at the stake by the state religion in England for “heresy”. His heresy was that he refused to have his infant and young children baptized. He believed it was up to the children, when they were old enough to understand, to make their own decisions.
An infant baptism isn’t a “Catholic festival”, but the underlying issue is disturbing.
And the Anglicans who executed your ancestors were perfectly happy to execute Catholics too. Of course Catholics were “traitors” subject to hanging, drawing, and quartering (or simple beheading, if of noble birth), not burning as heretics ... but the final result was the same.