Are there harmful effects from a second infant baptism?

[Maurelian]

A good friend of mine and his wife recently had a baby. I was asking him about the baptism, and he said that after getting the baby baptised in the Catholic church, they were going to do it again at his wife’s parents’ Methodist church to appease them and his wife. He said they do plan to raise the child Catholic, and I know he means well by having a second baptism. But it just doesn’t seem right to me. Would the Church view this as harmful in any way to the baby or the parents?

 

[Peggy_Frye]

“Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated” (CCC 1272, exceptions given in Canon 869). Before a baby is baptized in the Church, instruction is given to the parents on the meaning and obligations of this sacrament (Canon 851).

An infant will not suffer any harmful effects (spiritually) from a second baptism; however, the same cannot be said for the parents. It is a mortal sin to knowingly and willingly refuse to obey the Church’s teaching on matters of faith and morals.

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart133 do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

Hopefully your friends will listen to you. If they don’t listen to you, I recommend you speak with their priest. God bless you.