Am I officially Catholic?

[Gorgias]

The infant’s] Baptismal grace is beneficial until they reach the age of reason and can reject it).

No; this is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Baptismal grace never ceases being efficacious or beneficial, regardless of the mood of its recipient.

So Im talking about when the Child becomes of age to understand what their Baptism brought, give consent to follow what Teachings are offered them and thus converting their hearts fully to the Faith.

Awesome! Such a child embraces the grace of his baptism! Nevertheless, the child who does not do this, still does not lose the grace of his baptism, as you seem to be claiming.

As it is, in the latin Rite, Confirmation allows the candidate to offer consent and thus eliminating those who protest.

Lack of Confirmation does not ‘eliminate’ anyone.

But what good is grace if we do not consent to its conversion and direction?

Grace doesn’t have an expiration date. It is ‘good’ whether we ‘consent’ at a particular time or not.

Hebrews 10

29 How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?

It seems you’re answering a different question than the one that the OP is asking. Moreover, you seem to answering incorrectly the question you think you’re asking: the context of the quote you’ve provided is those who “sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth”. Tell me – have you not ‘sinned deliberately’ since your baptism? Does this verse not apply to you – and to us all – and not simply to those who have not yet been confirmed? It seems that you are ignoring the plank in your eye, and yet are castigating the speck in others’ eyes.

 

[rcwitness]

No; this is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Baptismal grace never ceases being efficacious or beneficial, regardless of the mood of its recipient.

You are right. His grace is never lacking. We, however, can reject and sin against His grace.

Awesome! Such a child embraces the grace of his baptism! Nevertheless, the child who does not do this, still does not lose the grace of his baptism, as you seem to be claiming.

A child, after reaching the age of reason has the ability to embrace, give thanks, appreciate, consent to, and be lead in the grace of his/her Baptism. He/she therefore also has the ability to ignore, reject, deny, etc that grace and be worse off if they had never been Baptized and instructed in the Faith of their Baptism.

Lack of Confirmation does not ‘eliminate’ anyone.

So Confirmation is optional. I thought we were directing the OP to pursue their Catholic faith.

Grace doesn’t have an expiration date. It is ‘good’ whether we ‘consent’ at a particular time or not.

You know, the opposite of ‘consent’ would be reject, deny, prohibit, protest, etc.

It seems you’re answering a different question than the one that the OP is asking. Moreover, you seem to answering incorrectly the question you think you’re asking: the context of the quote you’ve provided is those who “sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth”. Tell me – have you not ‘sinned deliberately’ since your baptism? Does this verse not apply to you – and to us all – and not simply to those who have not yet been confirmed? It seems that you are ignoring the plank in your eye, and yet are castigating the speck in others’ eyes.

**The direct answer to the OP is that they are Catholic by their Baptism, and they are Catholic to pursue with willfull consent (thanks to the grace of Christ!) the full participation of the Faith. **

My related point to others here, is that since one becomes of the age of reason and understanding, they then participate and pursue with consent the Faith or they deliberately deny the Faith and grace which brought their Baptism.

 

[Gorgias]

So Confirmation is optional.

No, of course not. Yet, lack of confirmation doesn’t “eliminate” a person, as you’ve asserted.

I thought we were directing the OP to pursue their Catholic faith.

We are. You’re just taking Catholic teaching and moving it in an odd direction.

You know, the opposite of ‘consent’ would be reject, deny, prohibit, protest, etc.

Yes, in the dictionary, that would be its antonym. Yet, this isn’t the question at hand, either! You seem to be saying that grace which does not receive consent is grace lost. That doesn’t seem to fit well with Catholic teaching.

My related point to others here, is that since one becomes of the age of reason and understanding, they then participate and pursue with consent the Faith or they deliberately deny the Faith and grace which brought their Baptism.

There seems to be a vast middle ground you’re ignoring between ‘consent’ and ‘denial’…