D
dans0622
Guest
“Secretly” can be seen in two different ways: the parents did not know about it and/or no record of the baptism was made by the parish priest.If there is no record of the baptism, then it would be more difficult to say that the person was baptized Catholic.
One can say that there are two aspects of baptism: spiritual and juridical. The juridical aspect is the important one when it comes to the issue of whether or not a person is bound to observe canon law. The juridical aspect is (usually) easily determined by looking at a baptismal register. If this person’s name is in the book, she is juridically Catholic and is bound to observe canon law, including canonical form.
If it so happened that this baptism took place in the parish church and was performed by the parish priest at the request of the grandmother but was not recorded anywhere, this juridical aspect and its effects would be more difficult to discern. It seems, though, that witness testimony could fill the gap of the lack of a written record. Apparently, this sequence of events is publicly known so it seems to me that the person is juridically Catholic, even if there is no written record.
Even if the baptism was illicitly requested and/or granted, the juridic effects necessarily follow if it was a valid baptism.
Dan