Catholics Parents Baptising Children in a Baptist Church

[lilran711]

Here is the thing my wife and I are both Catholic, however we are a military family and do to moving so much we have very few if any “practicing Catholic” friends of families, and are having issues God-parent selection. The Couple we original had in mind we found out their marriage was invalid so back to square one.
Being the Catholic church reconizes any trinity baptism she just wants to have our daughter baptised in the Baptist Church she grew up in because we both really want to get our daughter baptised and hate putting it off this long.

Is that possible? it seems strange I know but I can’t find anything in the Catechism that says that isn’t possible. We just want or daughter baptised.

Thank you all and God Bless.

 

[FrDavid96]

Here is the thing my wife and I are both Catholic, however we are a military family and do to moving so much we have very few if any “practicing Catholic” friends of families, and are having issues God-parent selection. The Couple we original had in mind we found out their marriage was invalid so back to square one.
Being the Catholic church reconizes any trinity baptism she just wants to have our daughter baptised in the Baptist Church she grew up in because we both really want to get our daughter baptised and hate putting it off this long.

Is that possible? it seems strange I know but I can’t find anything in the Catechism that says that isn’t possible. We just want or daughter baptised.

Thank you all and God Bless.

That would not be a good thing to do. Please consider talking to the Catholic Chaplain about some assistance in finding at least one Godparent–I’m sure he can help you here. Having your daughter baptised outside of the Church, would do her much spiritual harm.
Would it not be so much better to have someone who is at least qualified to be a sponsor, but not necessarily a close family friend, as compared to having your daughter baptised into a schismatic sect (even if it would be a minimally “valid” baptism)?

 

[Filioque]

The other thing you can do, if you have someone who is a Catholic in good standing wherever home is, they do not need to be physically present, just morally, and you can have someone that the Catholic Chaplain feels is upstanding to stand in for them as a proxy. Your family/friend back home would be the God-parents, and the person/s who stand for them, will both be a source of graces for your children and obtain graces themselves for their charity.

 

[Departed_Light]

[Edited]

I think that the remarks from posters that advised you to seek the council of your pastor, even if he is an itinerant one, would be a good thing to do.

I wish you peace and congratulations for the blessings of your child!

 

[Seatuck]

Here is the thing my wife and I are both Catholic, however we are a military family and do to moving so much we have very few if any “practicing Catholic” friends of families, and are having issues God-parent selection. The Couple we original had in mind we found out their marriage was invalid so back to square one.
Being the Catholic church reconizes any trinity baptism she just wants to have our daughter baptised in the Baptist Church she grew up in because we both really want to get our daughter baptised and hate putting it off this long.

Is that possible? it seems strange I know but I can’t find anything in the Catechism that says that isn’t possible. We just want or daughter baptised.

Thank you all and God Bless.

Children baptized at a Baptist Church are Baptist not Catholic. You would in effect be setting up a situation which would need clarification at some point with the church your children would be going to religious education for. Might be a bit difficult. It’s also a moral obligation for Catholics to raise our children Catholic. So yes even though it would be a valid baptism it wouldn’t be a Catholic baptism. Do you see the problem?
I’m sure the Catholic Chaplain runs into to this type of thing all the time. See what he says.

 

[IrishAm]

The other thing you can do, if you have someone who is a Catholic in good standing wherever home is, they do not need to be physically present, just morally, and you can have someone that the Catholic Chaplain feels is upstanding to stand in for them as a proxy. Your family/friend back home would be the God-parents, and the person/s who stand for them, will both be a source of graces for your children and obtain graces themselves for their charity.

My grandchildren were born overseas and were baptized by the Catholic military chaplain with a proxy (who they did not know well) standing in the for the real Godparents who were back in the states. Happens all the time!

 

[TheDoctor]

The other thing you can do, if you have someone who is a Catholic in good standing wherever home is, they do not need to be physically present, just morally, and you can have someone that the Catholic Chaplain feels is upstanding to stand in for them as a proxy. Your family/friend back home would be the God-parents, and the person/s who stand for them, will both be a source of graces for your children and obtain graces themselves for their charity.

First, thank you (or your wife or both) for your service and may God watch out for you whenever you find yourself in harm’s way.

I cut Filoque’s response because it was exactly what I was thinking. There are options, but I also would not recommend the “baptist baptism”.

 

[Sr_Sally]

My grandchildren were born overseas and were baptized by the Catholic military chaplain with a proxy (who they did not know well) standing in the for the real Godparents who were back in the states. Happens all the time!

This was also the case with my sister who was born in France. We kept in touch with the french couple who were the proxies for many years, which was very enriching for my sister. Because we moved so much, all of us have relatives as Godparents so my parents knew that we could always find them.

It happens that even if you don’t move frequently that your child might lose contact with their Godparents. In that case, you can usually find people at your current parish who can be role models for your children and help them learn the faith even if they aren’t official Godparents.

 

[benedictgal]

Here is the thing my wife and I are both Catholic, however we are a military family and do to moving so much we have very few if any “practicing Catholic” friends of families, and are having issues God-parent selection. The Couple we original had in mind we found out their marriage was invalid so back to square one.
Being the Catholic church reconizes any trinity baptism she just wants to have our daughter baptised in the Baptist Church she grew up in because we both really want to get our daughter baptised and hate putting it off this long.

Is that possible? it seems strange I know but I can’t find anything in the Catechism that says that isn’t possible. We just want or daughter baptised.

Thank you all and God Bless.

First of all, welcome to the forums.

The answer to your question is, no, for many of the reasons that everyone else on this thread has indicated. However, I take a different spin on things.

I am presuming that you were married in the Catholic Church. When you and your wife gave your consent you promised to accept children lovingly from God and rear them according to the laws of Christ and His Church. This effectively bound you to ensure that they were to be baptized into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. You and your wife made this solemn consent of your own free will. Thus, you are bound and obligated to fulfill that consent.

Baptizing your child into another ecclesial community does not fulfill your obligation. As I see it, it will go squarely against the consent that you freely gave in front of Christ through His minister, the priest. It would also mean, as I see it, that you are relativizing things, thinking that one ecclesial community is just as good as the Catholic Church. That is certainly not the case.

The other posters have given you excellent advice. I, too, have two cousins in the mililtary, both of whom have just returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of them have small children and they were able to have them baptized into the Church.

Thank you for the many sacrifices that you are making for our country. They are invaluable. However, please do not deny your child the all-important Sacrament of Baptism.

 

[LilyM]

This was also the case with my sister who was born in France. We kept in touch with the french couple who were the proxies for many years, which was very enriching for my sister. Because we moved so much, all of us have relatives as Godparents so my parents knew that we could always find them.

It happens that even if you don’t move frequently that your child might lose contact with their Godparents. In that case, you can usually find people at your current parish who can be role models for your children and help them learn the faith even if they aren’t official Godparents.

My older sister also had proxies. In her case it was because my own parents had just moved to this country from another very shortly before she was born, and the couple who they wanted to be her godparents obviously couldn’t fly all that way to be present.

 

[FastLearner]

Being the Catholic church reconizes any trinity baptism she just wants to have our daughter baptised in the Baptist Church she grew up in because we both really want to get our daughter baptised and hate putting it off this long.

First of all, how old is your daughter? Baptist churches do not perform infant baptism. Second, why has your daughter “[grown] up in” a Baptist Church?

 

[benedictgal]

First of all, how old is your daughter? Baptist churches do not perform infant baptism. Second, why has your daughter “[grown] up in” a Baptist Church?

I think you misread the post. The OP noted that his wife, the child’s mother, grew up in the Baptist ecclesial community, not the little girl to be baptized.

 

[a_cermak]

First of all, how old is your daughter? Baptist churches do not perform infant baptism. Second, why has your daughter “[grown] up in” a Baptist Church?

No, but they often will baptize very young children (pre-school age). It’s become an argument among Baptists, the paedo-baptist v believer’s baptism (they’re arguing the same texts that other argue–whole families converting in the NT). That and the Arminian v Calvin thing is rather amusing to watch from a historical perspective (it’s like they’re caught in some kind of time loop).

Why not just baptize your child yourself? In an emergency (and since you are having such trouble getting baptism, this could be considered such) any baptized Christian may baptize.

 

[benedictgal]

No, but they often will baptize very young children (pre-school age). It’s become an argument among Baptists, the paedo-baptist v believer’s baptism (they’re arguing the same texts that other argue–whole families converting in the NT). That and the Arminian v Calvin thing is rather amusing to watch from a historical perspective (it’s like they’re caught in some kind of time loop).

Why not just baptize your child yourself? In an emergency (and since you are having such trouble getting baptism, this could be considered such) any baptized Christian may baptize.

Actually, the emergency must be extreme, in other words, the danger of death must be involved. No such emergency exists here, as I read it. Rather, it is a fixable problem. The parents need to sit down with the priest and discuss the legitimate and valid options available to them.

 

[FastLearner]

No, but they often will baptize very young children (pre-school age). It’s become an argument among Baptists, the paedo-baptist v believer’s baptism (they’re arguing the same texts that other argue–whole families converting in the NT). That and the Arminian v Calvin thing is rather amusing to watch from a historical perspective (it’s like they’re caught in some kind of time loop).

Please excuse my ignorance, but doesn’t infant baptism undermine the entire Baptist movement? I was under the belief that each Baptist “church” is ecclesiastically sovereign with independent belief connected solely by sola scriptura, soul competency, and believer’s baptism. Without strict adherence to “believer’s baptism”, aren’t they just another “non-denominational Christian” group?

 

[FrDavid96]

Please excuse my ignorance, but doesn’t infant baptism undermine the entire Baptist movement? I was under the belief that each Baptist “church” is ecclesiastically sovereign with independent belief connected solely by sola scriptura, soul competency, and believer’s baptism. Without strict adherence to “believer’s baptism”, aren’t they just another “non-denominational Christian” group?

The original name for “Baptists” was actually “Anabaptists” because they reject infant baptism, they don’t believe that baptism means very much, and they believe it can be repeated. They eventually dropped the “ana” (non) part. To them, baptism is just a nice little ceremony, but little more.

 

[a_cermak]

The original name for “Baptists” was actually “Anabaptists” because they reject infant baptism, they don’t believe that baptism means very much, and they believe it can be repeated. They eventually dropped the “ana” (non) part. To them, baptism is just a nice little ceremony, but little more.

I wouldn’t go that far, I don’t think most Baptists have quite that low a view of Baptism. Most believe it washes your sins away. However, they will allow rebaptism in the case of a person baptized too young (in their view), a baptism that was gone into without the right view (kind of like an annulment?) and for pastoral reasons (tender souls who are overly scrupulous and feel the need for a do-over).

In fact, rebaptism is another of those arguments the Baptists seem to perennially have. By and large, they seem to just re-argue the same historical arguments every decade or so.

But yes, at first paedo-baptism (and here we’re usually not talking infants, but pre-school children) looks like it doesn’t fit in with Baptist philosophy. On the other hand, given that each church is in charge of its own affairs, there’s really not anyone to demand a cut off age for baptism. And the view of most Baptists toward Scripture is quite literal, and the Epistles, Acts and the Gospels all have instances of entire families converting and being baptized, that would surely have included the children.

 

[kimbaichan]

The original name for “Baptists” was actually “Anabaptists” because they reject infant baptism, they don’t believe that baptism means very much, and they believe it can be repeated. They eventually dropped the “ana” (non) part. To them, baptism is just a nice little ceremony, but little more.

Ana comes from Greek meaning again because they rebaptised folks who had been baptised as infants. With the Baptists I was brought up with baptism was not connected with salvation but it did have other benefits.

 

[FrDavid96]

I wouldn’t go that far, I don’t think most Baptists have quite that low a view of Baptism. Most believe it washes your sins away. However, they will allow rebaptism in the case of a person baptized too young (in their view), a baptism that was gone into without the right view (kind of like an annulment?) and for pastoral reasons (tender souls who are overly scrupulous and feel the need for a do-over).

…

I’m not trying to be argumentative here, but if one takes a look at a lot of the literature which Baptists (or independent denominations closely related to them) are always spreading, they often say that Baptism is something entirely optional for the individual. Most will say that baptism itself is nothing more than a symbolic act.

Do an internet search for some phrase like “do I have to be baptised to be saved” and it’ll reveal a lot of what many Baptists (or perhaps we should use the word “evangelicals” since that’s a more all-encompassing word?) believe–it will also reveal the vast disagreements between them on baptism.
Do a search for “can I be baptised again” (or twice or more than once) and it’ll likewise reveal a lot.

 

[graceandglory]

That would not be a good thing to do. Please consider talking to the Catholic Chaplain about some assistance in finding at least one Godparent–I’m sure he can help you here. Having your daughter baptised outside of the Church, would do her much spiritual harm.

Just to share an anecdotal story… The angst I felt over not having my children baptized, when I was in a protestant church, actually assisted in my re-conversion to the Catholic Church. My kids were 4 and 12 when they finally received their Catholic baptism. It was the best day of my life, and for them, they are the only ones among their Catholic friends who can say, “I remember my baptism.”

“We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” My 12 yr olds were ecstatic with the feeling of being cleansed of ALL their sins of their whole life from the waters of baptism!
I hope you don’t have to wait that long… Just wanted to share a hopeful story.

Do talk to your chaplain.