Baptism of Homosexual Couple's Child

[mangy_dog]

Thanks for your response.

I suppose my feelings on this are torn.

How else can The Church impose discipline on us to “encourage” conformity with Her Teachings outside of the Sacraments?

If grave, willful, scandalous, persistent and unrepentant disregard of The Bible, The Canon and the Catechism simultaneously is not grounds for refusal of a sacrament then what is?

We are to be pursuing holiness and the Pastor is to direct us toward that goal, how is this consistent with that?

Peace!

I echo everything you say here except the “torn” part. I’m not torn. If that makes me less charitable - so be it.

 

[roveau]

My wife is currently proceeding through RCIA (praise God!) with intent to be baptized, receive communion and confirmation on Easter! She came home after a recent class on the Sacrament of Baptism and posed this question to me:

Can a child (adopted or created via Assisted Reproductive Technologies) of a “married” homosexual couple receive the sacrament of baptism?

There happened to be a Deacon in their class and he was unable to answer the question. I did some research and formed this email (a coagulaiton of material culled elsewhere) which I sent to the Deacon in question:

The Deacon responded warmly to my email and I thought all was fine.

Evidently this letter brought a tempest of activity in the Parish, with the PFIC (Parish Father in Charge – not sure what to call him ) coming into her class today (which is highly unusual) to address this issue directly.

He stated that this is a “pastoral” decision and that given two couples:

one who are openly gay and “married” but attend mass faithfully and are fully invested in every other church teaching other than the teaching on homosexuality, and…

a typical Catholic couple who never attend mass and have not participated in the sacrments but being born Catholic wish their child to be baptized…

He would be more inclined to baptize the first couple’s child.

This does not ring correct to me. I know we are ALL sinners, but at what point does the Canon Law actually go into effect if not here?

Please help me understand!

I’d go with the priest because it fulfils the stated requirement in Canon Law of the likelihood that the child will be raised as a Catholic.

The child should not have to suffer for the sins of its parents.

My sister was refused the baptism of her children because she couldn’t demonstrate that she went to Mass regularly. So, her children (mostly grown up now) remain unbaptised to this day despite both parents being Catholic… and of different genders…

If that’s the (Canon) law, that’s the law. But it doesn’t say that children belonging to parents of the same sex or parents who are habitual sinners should not be baptised. it just doesn’t say that. There just has to be a reasonable chance that the child will be raised Catholic.
.

 

[Russell_NZ]

Pope John Paul II, when he was signing the 1983 Code into law, canon law expressed that the law “is in no way intended as a substitute for faith, grace, charisms and especially charity in the life of the church and of the faithful. On the contrary, its purpose is rather to create such an order in the ecclesial society, that, while assigning the primacy love, grace, and charisms, it at the same time renders their organic development easier in the life of both the ecclesial society and the individual persons who belong to it.” [Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges, para. 16]

A child is considered a person. What is crucial is that this is all placed within the new law written on our hearts, the law of love.

Canon 864 ‘Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is capable of baptism’…is a primary theological canon and call for the universal capacity of Baptism. It is reflecting Jesus’ command that the gospel be preached to all nations and to every creature [Mt. 28:19; Mk 16:15-16; Jn 3:5] and represents a concise statement on the absolute universality of the juridic capacity for baptism from which no human being can ever be excluded. To be a ‘person’ is to be capable of baptism.

Whether the parent are married or not, same gender or not, Canon 867 obliges them to have the child baptised. Baptism is a necessity of salvation. Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life and the gateway to life in the Spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua) and a time of joy and celebration not only the family but also for the entire church. It is to the glory of God. I truly fear getting this wrong… As my Master said “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”

The canon law does require that there be a realistic hope/well-founded hope that the child will be brought up in the catholic religion. St. Ignatious of Antioch, Apostolic Father and the first to use the term ‘catholic’ said ‘wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church’. Where is Christ in this? Isn’t the focus to be on the infant or child who is receiving the sacrament as the visible sign of His invisible Grace? In Pastoralis Actio 30 concerning this ‘well-founded hope’ issue that some use as a weapon against the innocent, it stipulates if the assurances that are offered are enough, for example, the selection of godparents and godmothers who seriously take care of the child or also, the support of the community of faithful, the priest will not be able to refuse or defer the administration of baptism, as is the case of children of Christian families.

Pastoralis Actio 31 then adds consideration must be given to “any promise that offers grounds for hoping for a Christian education.” which reflects broad margins.