Baptism

[Stevonsky]

Hello there,

             I have a question which should be pretty obvious but as with everything else I find it helps to get the opinions of others.

My best friend intends on having her son baptized. She wants me to help organize the event as she is not particularly confident in these matters and I am essentially the go to guy for organization. However my issue is I have been raised and remain to this day Roman Catholic. She wants the child baptized in a church of England church. I am curious as to how deeply involved, if at all I should and can be with this entire process.

The other issue is that of her wanting me to be Godfather to the child. Again answers pretty obvious here but I am looking for opinions and explanations from people to aid my explanation to her about my possible decisions. I am happy she has chosen to have the child baptized, as our God is one and the same, but am unaware on the official stance on situations like this.

Thank you for any and all feedback

Steve

 

[zgraf]

I am happy she has chosen to have the child baptized, as our God is one and the same

I don’t know the official Church position – but since nobody else has answered, I think you pretty much hit the nail-on-the-head right there…
For now I would just try to be as supportive as possible, and help get the child baptized. Help (as any good godparent would) to ensure the child grows up to know Christ and believe in the gospel…

If you do find out later what the Church’s position is on this matter is, then you can tweak your approach accordingly – if in fact any changes need to be made…

Peace!

 

[SerraSemper]

Godparents are there to guarantee the raising of the child in the faith. In this case, the OP would be standing up to guarantee the raising of the child as a Protestant. While it is admirable that the child is being baptized, a Catholic cannot do this in good conscience. What the OP could do, however, is be a honorary godparent or something to that effect. We have something similar in Catholicism where there can be a godparent, but then others can sort of be honored guests/sponsors, particularly non-Catholics. The OP could probably bow out of it gracefully by explaining how honored he is, but that this would be the implication of being godparent, and could an official godparent be chosen and he would be sort of an honorary witness or something…