baptism

[Monica4316]

Hi
I have a question… are there different ways of baptizing in the Catholic Church?
At my parish, the priests pours some water over the person’s head… but I heard in some other parishes, they use immersion or sometimes the person stands in a shallow basin with water and the priest pours more water over them… and I heard in the Eastern rites, they baptized by immersion only?

So does it just depend on the parish?

does anyone know how people were baptized pre-VII?

btw, I’m talking about adults… not babies
but adults on the Easter Vigil.

thanks!

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

Hi
I have a question… are there different ways of baptizing in the Catholic Church?

Either pouring or immersion are acceptable ways of baptizing. Churches being built or remodeled today often include large baptismal pools so immersion can be done, but that’s often not possible in older churches.

From the Catechism:

1239
The essential rite of the sacrament follows: Baptism properly speaking. It signifies and actually brings about death to sin and entry into the life of the Most Holy Trinity through configuration to the Paschal mystery of Christ. Baptism is performed in the most expressive way by triple immersion in the baptismal water. However, from ancient times it has also been able to be conferred by pouring the water three times over the candidate’s head.

1240
In the Latin Church this triple infusion is accompanied by the minister’s words: “N., I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In the Eastern liturgies the catechumen turns toward the East and the priest says: “The servant of God, N., is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” At the invocation of each person of the Most Holy Trinity, the priest immerses the candidate in the water and raises him up again.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

Hi
I have a question… are there different ways of baptizing in the Catholic Church?
At my parish, the priests pours some water over the person’s head… but I heard in some other parishes, they use immersion or sometimes the person stands in a shallow basin with water and the priest pours more water over them… and I heard in the Eastern rites, they baptized by immersion only?

So does it just depend on the parish?

does anyone know how people were baptized pre-VII?

btw, I’m talking about adults… not babies
but adults on the Easter Vigil.

thanks!

Pre-1983 Canon Law there were three methods of Sacramental Baptism, Immersion/ partial-immersion, Pouring, and Sprinkling.

In the new Code only Immersion/partial immersion and Pouring are mentioned. Sprinkling is no longer licit because it leaves too many “if’s”.

 

[Monica4316]

thanks!
I heard in the early Church when they baptized people in homes (as opposed to lakes or rivers), they didn’t have enough water for full immersion so they used pouring instead.

what would you say is the most common form today in Catholic churches? would it be pouring? (and immersion getting more popular as new churches being built?)

about sprinkling… I’ve never seen that done… I agree there’s too many “ifs” there! Is it just that, sprinkling some water over the person? hmm… yea immersion or pouring sounds better

 

[Phemie]

thanks!
I heard in the early Church when they baptized people in homes (as opposed to lakes or rivers), they didn’t have enough water for full immersion so they used pouring instead.

what would you say is the most common form today in Catholic churches? would it be pouring? (and immersion getting more popular as new churches being built?)

about sprinkling… I’ve never seen that done… I agree there’s too many “ifs” there! Is it just that, sprinkling some water over the person? hmm… yea immersion or pouring sounds better

Pouring is probably the most common because of the way the baptistry was designed in older churches. The baptismal font just doesn’t allow for immersion. New churches and those undergoing renovation often have immersion fonts installed, designed to accommodate immersion baptisms for both adults and infants.

That said, some parishes improvise. We have a bin in a wicker basket that we have been using for the last 8 years to perform infant immersion baptisms. The choice of immersion or pouring is left up to the parents and the choice is about 55/45 for pouring. In my experience if the couple doesn’t have family around they often opt for immersion but having a grandmother tut tutting about the ‘new fangled way’ of baptizing usually means a pouring baptism. If the couple isn’t sure, we set up for immersion – you can do always do a baptism by pouring with that set up but you can’t do immersion if set up for pouring.

We also improvised a few years ago when we had for our first Easter Vigil adult baptism in 15-20 years. We set up a much larger container into which the 10 year old could step and water was poured over her.

 

[Monica4316]

thanks for the info!