Baptism for grandchild

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R_C said:
Please, non-believers, spare us your wisdom and common sense, thanks.

You don’t even quite understand what Baptism is, and if you did, you wouldn’t believe in it anyways. We have known what it is with certainty for two thousand years.

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For the record, I am Catholic and a believer. Which is exactly why I found it shocking a grandparent would consider a secret baptism. First the church teaches the primary responsibility is with the parents and also Catholics hopefully know that God is merciful and he will lead unbaptized kids to the church through other ways than their parents.

And honestly, I would find it just as shocking that a grandparent secretly vaccinate a child. First off, if the parents don’t know about it, and the baby receive a second vaccine, that could be too much for the system and harmful. And also, if it was really a horrid mistake, a grandparent would call the authorities, not give a secret vaccine.
 
Anglewannabe said:
For the record, I am Catholic and a believer. Which is exactly why I found it shocking a grandparent would consider a secret baptism. First the church teaches the primary responsibility is with the parents and also Catholics hopefully know that God is merciful and he will lead unbaptized kids to the church through other ways than their parents.

And honestly, I would find it just as shocking that a grandparent secretly vaccinate a child. First off, if the parents don’t know about it, and the baby receive a second vaccine, that could be too much for the system and harmful. And also, if it was really a horrid mistake, a grandparent would call the authorities, not give a secret vaccine.
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In retrospective, I should have really kept my mouth shut 😊

Never too late for a proud sinner to become bit more humble…
 
R_C said:
In retrospective, I should have really kept my mouth shut 😊

Never too late for a proud sinner to become bit more humble…
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Well, I have no problem opening my mouth and putting my foot in it. And I say the following as a believer, putting myself in the parents’ shoes

To the OP: quite simply, if I was in the parents’ shoes and found out the grandparents did this I would tell the grandparents there would be NO FURTHER CONTACT WITH THEIR GRANDCHILD UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, period. I would go so far as taking out a restraining order against the grandparents.

They obviously have no respect for me, my family, and an unusual understanding of what Baptism is. If I had any inkling to return to the Church this would do it for me
 
R_C said:
I would rejoice at her desire to have my child sealed with the indelible character of the justified and filled with the sanctifying grace and washed forth from the stain of original sin. Now, would I be upset at the arbitrary action that took place behind my back? Of course! 😃 But I would perfectly understand her concern, because I know what the Sacrament of Baptism is - perhaps and probably even better than my Lutheran mother-in-law (in the example).

My whole point was to make a clear difference between a believer like you pointing out out of wisdom and prudence that it’s not a good idea to do this (not because of their personal opinion or feelings, but because that is what the Church teaches), and someone who doesn’t care about baptism or religion or God suggesting that it’s not a good idea because it would not feel nice or other such reasonings.

In Italy there is a (quite small) atheist movement that goes around exhorting people to not baptize infants and to send letters to have their baptismal record struck down under the excuse that they did not chose to be baptized. This harms infants of those lapsed Catholics who would have otherwise out of prudence still baptized their little ones, and it harms the very lapsed Catholics who by effectively asking this in writing are risking to be subject to a formal excommunication of apostasy. This is why I was a bit disturbed by the comments: I have heard similar remarks before, in militant contexts, and I am aware of the issues they carry on. We do not know why the parents of the child are not baptizing him if they are Catholic, but it is presumably for a related issue - obviously they do not know how important Baptism is for their little one, or they reject it due to some of those “common sense” ideas about forcing the child into a religion, et cetera.

I do apologize if I sound like I am stirring things up, not my intention at all. I do not approve of doing things secretly either, for it is not the way in which Christians act ordinarily. I just felt compelled to make a statement with no offense intended towards anybody, which is added to the very extensive list of things I will have to be held accountable for one day :o
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This seems like a “magic” understanding of Baptism. Baptism is not magical. The vows that we make in Baptism require that we live the life of a Baptized person - going to Church on Sundays, praying every day, learning the Scriptures, and so on. But someone being raised as an unbaptized person cannot do any of these things, so instead of freeing the person from sin, you are actually dropping them even deeper into an even worse state of sin, from which there is no remedy, since we are told in the Letter to the Hebrews that there can be no salvation for a Baptized person who behaves and lives as if he were an unbaptized person.

It’s bad enough when adults who know and understand the consequences go ahead and do this, but it would be totally unfair to do it to an unknowing little child.
 
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