C
Catholic4Christ
Guest
Hello all! What are your parish’s protocols for baptism like? My wife and I have a child on the way, so I went to my parish to ask about baptism. To my dismay, they won’t let us take the every-other-month baptism prep class until after the baby has been born (I’m sure we won’t be busy with a newborn 
), and won’t let us even schedule the baptism until we’ve taken the class and given them a copy of the official birth certificate (which typically takes a few weeks to obtain).
Since we probably won’t be able to take the class until at least a month after the kid is born due to the class schedule, and since we have to wait at least that long to schedule the baptism, I could easily see the baptism date being upwards of two months after the birth of our child.
I respectfully asked why we couldn’t take the class pre-birth, since it seems like a rather long time to wait before even scheduling the baptism, and received the polite but unhelpful response of, “Oh, that’s just the protocol. Lot’s of people here do it that way” (which I took to mean, “That’s just how it is here.”).
Is this a standard experience? I certainly wasn’t expecting to have the baptism the day we left the hospital or anything, but not being able to even schedule it until we have the birth certificate and have taken a class that we can’t take pre-birth seems kind of like a lot of hoops to jump through. Maybe I’m not being fair to the parish, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason to delay so much, but I don’t know what it is since the person at the office only said it was “protocol.” Not mad about it, just curious if a couple months plus is a normal wait time.
I was also told at the parish office that if our child’s godparent needs a proxy at the baptism, that the proxy must fulfill all the same requirements for a godparent (16+ years old, Confirmed, not living with someone outside of a valid marriage, goes to Mass at their church on Sundays).
I obviously am on board with these rules in regard to a godparent (I don’t want my kid to have a non-practicing godparent; I’m very gung-ho about our kid having good Catholic influences in their life), but I assumed that a proxy was just there to speak on the godparent’s behalf. We only know one or two people who fulfill the requirements for godparent, but there is a good chance they won’t make it to the baptism; if we knew more people who fulfilled the requirements, we would just go ahead and ask them to be godparent rather than just a proxy.
Since we are short-term out of towners (I’m a graduate student) with absolutely no family or friends in the area, no practicing Catholic family anywhere (other than one very elderly grandparent who won’t really get a chance to help educate our kid in the faith), and only a couple practicing Catholic friends who may not be able to make it, our godparent pickings are slim.
If push comes to shove we would happily ask around the parish, but as non-locals who are only here temporarily, we know that it is unlikely we or our child will be able to maintain any kind of relationship with them (spiritual or otherwise) after the next year or so.
Is it normative that a godparent-proxy must fulfill all the same requirements as an actual godparent? I know many Catholics who we would be honored to have as our kid’s ‘proxy-godparent’ at the ceremony (for example: love God, believe in the Church, but not Confirmed), but it seems that this is not an option.
We would ask our own parents, but they would be very little help in this regard; my wife is not a Catholic, and through unusual circumstances I was not baptized until I was seven years old. We appreciate the advice and prayers!
), and won’t let us even schedule the baptism until we’ve taken the class and given them a copy of the official birth certificate (which typically takes a few weeks to obtain).Since we probably won’t be able to take the class until at least a month after the kid is born due to the class schedule, and since we have to wait at least that long to schedule the baptism, I could easily see the baptism date being upwards of two months after the birth of our child.
I respectfully asked why we couldn’t take the class pre-birth, since it seems like a rather long time to wait before even scheduling the baptism, and received the polite but unhelpful response of, “Oh, that’s just the protocol. Lot’s of people here do it that way” (which I took to mean, “That’s just how it is here.”).
Is this a standard experience? I certainly wasn’t expecting to have the baptism the day we left the hospital or anything, but not being able to even schedule it until we have the birth certificate and have taken a class that we can’t take pre-birth seems kind of like a lot of hoops to jump through. Maybe I’m not being fair to the parish, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason to delay so much, but I don’t know what it is since the person at the office only said it was “protocol.” Not mad about it, just curious if a couple months plus is a normal wait time.
I was also told at the parish office that if our child’s godparent needs a proxy at the baptism, that the proxy must fulfill all the same requirements for a godparent (16+ years old, Confirmed, not living with someone outside of a valid marriage, goes to Mass at their church on Sundays).
I obviously am on board with these rules in regard to a godparent (I don’t want my kid to have a non-practicing godparent; I’m very gung-ho about our kid having good Catholic influences in their life), but I assumed that a proxy was just there to speak on the godparent’s behalf. We only know one or two people who fulfill the requirements for godparent, but there is a good chance they won’t make it to the baptism; if we knew more people who fulfilled the requirements, we would just go ahead and ask them to be godparent rather than just a proxy.
Since we are short-term out of towners (I’m a graduate student) with absolutely no family or friends in the area, no practicing Catholic family anywhere (other than one very elderly grandparent who won’t really get a chance to help educate our kid in the faith), and only a couple practicing Catholic friends who may not be able to make it, our godparent pickings are slim.
If push comes to shove we would happily ask around the parish, but as non-locals who are only here temporarily, we know that it is unlikely we or our child will be able to maintain any kind of relationship with them (spiritual or otherwise) after the next year or so.
Is it normative that a godparent-proxy must fulfill all the same requirements as an actual godparent? I know many Catholics who we would be honored to have as our kid’s ‘proxy-godparent’ at the ceremony (for example: love God, believe in the Church, but not Confirmed), but it seems that this is not an option.
We would ask our own parents, but they would be very little help in this regard; my wife is not a Catholic, and through unusual circumstances I was not baptized until I was seven years old. We appreciate the advice and prayers!
), and her initials cut out of gold paper. I found some pretty lace to wrap around the base. Two years later I did something similar for her brother, even tho we were in a different parish that didn’t require decorated candles.
