Baptismal question

[ChadS]

I work with a woman who told me her granddaughter is going to be baptized in April. However, she then told me that she’d already baptized her grand-daughter at home a few weeks back.

I told her she should inform the priest so proper paperwork could be done. She asked why and I said you can only be baptized once and the priest would have to do a “conditional baptism.”

She said she wasn’t going to tell him and what she did was between her and God.

Remind you I only know her from work and have absolutely no relationship with her outside of work or her family. I also have no idea which parish she belongs to. This situation unsettles me, but I don’t know that it is my place to meddle.

ChadS

 

[Vico]

I work with a woman who told me her granddaughter is going to be baptized in April. However, she then told me that she’d already baptized her grand-daughter at home a few weeks back.

I told her she should inform the priest so proper paperwork could be done. She asked why and I said you can only be baptized once and the priest would have to do a “conditional baptism.”

She said she wasn’t going to tell him and what she did was between her and God.

Remind you I only know her from work and have absolutely no relationship with her outside of work or her family. I also have no idea which parish she belongs to. This situation unsettles me, but I don’t know that it is my place to meddle.

ChadS

If the priest does not know, then he will not commit an error by baptizing. If the first was valid, then it will be the effective one, otherwise the second one will be the one that is effective.

 

[Padres1969]

I work with a woman who told me her granddaughter is going to be baptized in April. However, she then told me that she’d already baptized her grand-daughter at home a few weeks back.

I told her she should inform the priest so proper paperwork could be done. She asked why and I said you can only be baptized once and the priest would have to do a “conditional baptism.”

She said she wasn’t going to tell him and what she did was between her and God.

Remind you I only know her from work and have absolutely no relationship with her outside of work or her family. I also have no idea which parish she belongs to. This situation unsettles me, but I don’t know that it is my place to meddle.

ChadS

Since she shouldn’t have baptized her granddaughter in the first place, and may have err’ed in form, I can’t see any value in her mentioning it to anyone else seeing as it’s likely to do nothing but hurt her child and the family. Let the priest baptize the kid with no ambiguity licitly and without any error of form. If it ends up being effectively a second baptism and no one is the wiser, no harm done.

 

[Phemie]

I’d been telling my Pastor about my desire to baptize my grandsons.

“Someone in another parish did that, then she told me. I wish she hadn’t. It’s a mess I wish I didn’t have to deal with and nobody will ever know about it.”
“Isn’t it in the Register?”
“No, I couldn’t enter it, she told me in confidence.”

Must say that kind of surprised me – unless “in confidence” was code for “under the seal.”

 

[ChadS]

I appreciate everybody’s answers. Trying to bring this to anybody else’s attention would do nothing than to possibly hurt the family and cause issues. So I won’t even bother.

I’m certainly not a theologian but I wish a lot more people had more of an interest and knowledge in the sacraments they receive. This woman seemed genuinely surprised when I told her she should inform the priest. As far as I can know she was raised Catholic and has been attending her entire life due to other comments she’s made in other conversations.

If “I confess one baptism…” doesn’t mean what I think it does … somebody tell me!

ChadS