Baptism by Water

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ponyjoe

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In an emergency can a substance that has a high water content but is not water be used to baptize(say coke)? When people are baptized in a river it is not pure water so just how much minerals, oil, etc is allowed or is it the appearance that matters?
 
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ponyjoe:
In an emergency can a substance that has a high water content but is not water be used to baptize(say coke)? When people are baptized in a river it is not pure water so just how much minerals, oil, etc is allowed or is it the appearance that matters?
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no, it has to be water. for the sacrament to be valid proper matter (water) and form (trinitarian formula) must be used.
 
no, it has to be water. for the sacrament to be valid proper matter (water) and form (trinitarian formula) must be used
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.

I’m going to have to disagree with this. You are absolutely right that proper matter, aka water, is necessary for baptism. However my understanding is that the church recognizes “water” as anything that is over 51% pure H20. As the above poster suggested, we never use pure water, it always has polutants in it. Whereas it is desirable to use as pure of water as possible in baptism, as long as that which is used is over 51% pure water, in an emergency would be perfectly valid.

Thus, coca cola would be perfectly acceptable, but not olive oil or ranch dressing.

This is just my understanding, I have no documents to back this up.

Josh
 
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threej_lc:
.

I’m going to have to disagree with this. You are absolutely right that proper matter, aka water, is necessary for baptism. However my understanding is that the church recognizes “water” as anything that is over 51% pure H20. As the above poster suggested, we never use pure water, it always has polutants in it. Whereas it is desirable to use as pure of water as possible in baptism, as long as that which is used is over 51% pure water, in an emergency would be perfectly valid.

Thus, coca cola would be perfectly acceptable, but not olive oil or ranch dressing.

This is just my understanding, I have no documents to back this up.

Josh
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Oh no. Not at all. Coke would not be it. Baptism is constituted by a washing not a dowsing with soda pop.

Sorry, I have to be a stickler on this one, because we all need to know how to do it validly in the case of a necessity.

Canon 849 requires for a valid baptism “a washing of true water with the proper form of words” (“lavacrum aquae verae cum debita verborum forma.”) The prior code used the qualifier, “natural,” but that has been dropped. (By the way, where does that word “pure” come from as referenced in earlier posts? I’m intrigued because I don’t see it in the canon.)

This is understood to be ordinary water as the man or woman in the street would understand it, according to canonical tradition. Sweat, saliva, tears, liquid strained from plants, wine, beer and the like are among those liquids which are considered invalid matter (Huels, PC, 39 citing Regatillo, 34).

Outside of emergency, the water is to be blessed for lawfulness as the liturgical books provide (canon 853).

If baptism would be done in a river, as long as it is a river of water in the common estimation, the matter would be valid, despite the existence of minerals, etc. We know ordinary water has contaminants.

Please, let’s be careful with stuff like this.
 
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ponyjoe:
In an emergency can a substance that has a high water content but is not water be used to baptize(say coke)? When people are baptized in a river it is not pure water so just how much minerals, oil, etc is allowed or is it the appearance that matters?
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It must be something identifible as water. Coke is not water it’s Coke, coffee is not water it’s coffee. River water is well water from a river, it’s water!
 
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threej_lc:
.

I’m going to have to disagree with this. You are absolutely right that proper matter, aka water, is necessary for baptism. However my understanding is that the church recognizes “water” as anything that is over 51% pure H20. As the above poster suggested, we never use pure water, it always has polutants in it. Whereas it is desirable to use as pure of water as possible in baptism, as long as that which is used is over 51% pure water, in an emergency would be perfectly valid.

Thus, coca cola would be perfectly acceptable, but not olive oil or ranch dressing.

This is just my understanding, I have no documents to back this up.

Josh
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The Church requires that True and natural water as necessary Matter for Baptism. (Trent DS858) It considers doubtfully valid matter to be light tea or coffee, thin soup, light beer, etc.
Administration of the Sacraments pg 32
 
Br. Rich SFO:
The Church requires that True and natural water as necessary Matter for Baptism. (Trent DS858) It considers doubtfully valid matter to be light tea or coffee, thin soup, light beer, etc.
Administration of the Sacraments pg 32
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Light beer…:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: I suppose somebody will try it, though.
 
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OutinChgoburbs:
Light beer…:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: I suppose somebody will try it, though.
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It actually make a distinction between “light beer” and “thick beer”?
 
Br. Rich SFO:
The Church requires that True and natural water as necessary Matter for Baptism. (Trent DS858) It considers doubtfully valid matter to be light tea or coffee, thin soup, light beer, etc.
Administration of the Sacraments pg 32
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ponyjoe:
Where can I locate Trent DS858?
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“D” is a reference to a long list of dogmatic definitions produced by various magisterial sources, including Trent, and then collected into Denziger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum.

It was published in various editions, in this case Denziger-Schonmetzer (the 32nd-36th editions, and if I’m correct those would be the ones during and after the Second Vatican Council), and styled as “DS.”.

In this case, New Advent’s online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia gives a background of Father Denziger’s work on this up to the early 1900s at least at newadvent.org/cathen/04736b.htm .

You might be able to purchase a copy of the text through fromthehousetops.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=28 or read it at a local seminary or Catholic college.
 
There is a formula if the matter is questionable:

“If this matter be valid I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

But I guess that would be in a very, very dire emergency when no water was available.
 
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Affirmed:
There is a formula if the matter is questionable:

“If this matter be valid I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

But I guess that would be in a very, very dire emergency when no water was available.
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That’s a new one on me, and I’m just flabbergasted. Where did you find the source or document for this formula? I’d love to read it.

Certainly, the Church understands conditional baptism in that a baptized person cannot be baptized again (“if you are not already baptized, I baptize . . .”). But I’ve never heard of conditioning on the matter.
 
EWTN answered it in one of their Q&A questions. I’ll look it up and see if they still have a link. I’m sorry you are “flabbergasted”, I don’t usually just make things up for the sake of it.Couldn’t find it there, this is the closest I could find: domestic-church.com/CONTENT.DCC/19990901/SCRMNTL/baptism_one.htm

Scroll down to number 10, it will explain about how to add the wording if there is any doubt about the matter being valid.
 
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Affirmed:
EWTN answered it in one of their Q&A questions. I’ll look it up and see if they still have a link. I’m sorry you are “flabbergasted”, I don’t usually just make things up for the sake of it. Couldn’t find it there, this is the closest I could find. . . …
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It never even crossed my mind that you had made it up. There was, and is, no reason to doubt your credibility. I just assumed that if you had heard of this before, you or someone would be able to point me in the right direction so I could look it up for myself. Attribute it to occupational ”obsessionalism.”

I was flabbergasted, since I had not run across this notion before in regard to the remote matter of the Sacrament and wanted to trace down its origin. Now, let me explain why I was flabbergasted.

Though canons 845 and 869 address conditional baptism, it is over the question as to whether or not a person had already been baptized validly, that is, the person’s status. They do not mention the possibility of conditioning the baptism over the question of doubtful matter. The notion of conditional baptism is restricted to the question of status and not matter. Then I consulted the Rites of Christian Initiation (vol 1A of the NCCB version), and didn’t see it mentioned there.

Such a notion is not presented in the major commentaries on the 1983 code:
  • the new or earlier commentary on the code by Canon Law Society of America
  • the Exegetical Commentary by the canon law faculty at Navarre in 8 volumes
  • the commentary from the canon law faculty of Salamanca
It is not mentioned anywhere by two of the preeminent canonists in these things:
  • Woestman’s commentary on canons 850-1007,
  • Huels’ pastoral companion
I checked the older commentaries on sacraments in the 1917 code. It does not appear in
  • Rigatillo’s Ius Sacramentarum, the classic,
  • the Woywood commentary, nor
  • the Beste commentary.
So now I wonder where Father Luis Esteban Latorre on the web page you kindly pointed me to, got this idea? The page mentions he is a priest in the Philippines. So I checked to see if he was a member of the Canon Law Society of the Philippines but he does not appear on its roster at clsp.org.ph/directory2.html . Is he an expert in liturgical law? Where does he get his information from? Was there some kind of reply or statement made by the Holy See to the Philippines or missionary priests? To make it very clear, these are only questions and not in any way veiled and implied accusations about Father Latorre.

I’ll follow up on the EWTN thing too. If anyone catches another lead, as I say, I’d love to read it.

Now in all fairness, while these are major sources, they do not represent every commentary on baptism that exists, and it might have been treated elsewhere. But since I can’t find it in those major sources, I have to ask myself on what basis might Fr. Latorre or someone at EWTN have made such an assertion.

So thanks for providing the link and taking the time to respond. I’ll have to see what shows up.

God bless.
 
This was the link I found in my google search. I looked through the EWTN archives, but it seems that they’ve done some pruning. This website does come recommended by Catholic Culture, which may or may not mean a whole heck of a lot. I’ll keep running through EWTN.
 
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