Delay in infant baptism

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Ebastill

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Feeling frustrated at myself and at my parish. I waited a month before contacting my parish about scheduling a baptism for my baby, and they are saying they can’t fit it in until July. My parish doesn’t baptize during Lent, so I realize I am partially at fault for the delay (although I don’t understand the rationale of no baptisms during Lent, but that is a question for another thread).

What would you do in these circumstances? Try to get them baptized at a different parish? Accept the July date and get over it?
 
Email or talk to the priest directly and see if he’d be willing to do a private Baptism before or after Mass. That’s what I’d do. Tell him that the office told you they can’t do it until July. That’s quite far off. It’s one thing to wait until after Easter, but July is a little bit excessive.
 
I wonder what those people in the office would do if there were to have been a danger of death?
 
Oh man! I remember this happened with my first daughter and it was so frustrating! First, make sure they aren’t just talking about baptisms in a Mass. Usually, in our current parish now they dont do it in a Mass during lent. But they are often done outside of lent. Second. If another parish close by has no problems doing it just do that! Third, contact the priest directly to see what he says. Now, here’s a little secret I’m going to share with you. We had several bad baptisms in a row. So for our last child, I had heard a bishop remark once how one of the things that he didn’t like about his position is that he rarely baptized infants anymore and that was one of his favorite things. He said no one ever bothered to ask. So with our new bishop I remembered that. So i saw him at a conference and just walked right up and asked if he would baptize our baby. He said yes, and we set it up with his secretary. It was awesome. It never hurts to ask.
5. You can always threaten to do it yourself. and then they can deal with the hastle of trying to record that… JUST KIDDING. DONT DO THAT! But I do always have holy water in the delivery room …just…in…case.
 
Ebastill said:
and they are saying they can’t fit it in until July.
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WHAT? That is totally nonsense. A baptism takes 5 minutes during mass. To say that they “can’t fit it in” is totally ridiculous.

Speak directly to a priest or deacon in your parish about baptizing your child.
 
It takes longer than that at our parish, but there’s no reason it has to be done during Mass. I understand why lots of priest prefer it done at Mass, but when the result is waiting for an infant baptism for half a year, that’s a problem!
 
Do any of you realize there is a reason parish secretaries give you the information they do? Most often it is because the pastor of the parish has told them to do it that way. The pastor runs the parish but most of the time the poor secretaries are the ones who bear the wrath of the parishioners. Do any of you have any idea of what goes on behind the scenes to keep a parish running? How uncharitable of you all to blame the parish staff for not getting things done the way you want them done NOW.

I’ve never seen my parish do baptism during Mass except of course during the Easter Vigil. There is a schedule of dates for when baptisms are done and it is a matter of being able to fit into one of those dates. Many parishes don’t schedule baptisms during Lent, so it would put scheduled dates out to the end of April. It is quite possible the schedule, which is kept by the parish secretary to give to the priest(s), is full up until that time.

To baptize your child at another parish you will need to have permission from your own parish. All the paperwork needs to be done at the other parish including verification of eligibility of godparent and the baptism class. Then that parish has to record the sacrament which means all of the child’s sacramental record will be held at a parish other than the parish the family belongs to.
 
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Do you realize that many parishes can’t afford full-time secretaries and their office is manned by a succession of volunteers who are left alone to answer the phones with limited information about how things work? It’s possible that the pastor is totally aware that parents are being asked to wait half a year to baptize their infants, despite the Church’s instructions to do so as soon as possible and just doesn’t care. But it’s also possible that he isn’t aware of the back log and is perfectly happy to increase the number of Masses he does infant baptisms at or just do a private one before or after Mass.
 
Yes. We all realize that. And it’s a shame. We were active in our parish known to the staff, youth ministers, etc. My first daughter was born in August we were somewhat bullied by the staff that we would have to wait. So divine mercy Sunday was the date. 8 months later. After that we became more assertive. And knowledgable. As far as receiving permission parish shopping has muddied that water because technically your parish is your geographical parish. And many don’t attend their geographical parish. And since registration is not really binding… one could easily just go to another parish. For instance our geographical parish will have no records of my family. Priest seem to have preferences. I haven’t seen a baptism at Mass outside of the Easter vigil in over a year. And some priests are more than happy to let this be completely staff driven. After we called the Bishop to have our last baby baptized the Cathedral priest was rather upset. He was given no notice. He walked into the Chaplel one day and boom! There’s the Bishop baptizing one if his parishioners. I think he was not expecting his boss that day. For this next baby (july) I’m already getting the wheels moving now. We will seek an extraordinary rite baptism. Somehow I think this will be interesting…
 
Hoosier-Daddy said:
We will seek an extraordinary rite baptism. Somehow I think this will be interesting…
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I was a godparent proxy for an extraordinary rite baptism. It was quite interesting to see the differences in the rites, and I was surprised that I got to hold the baby for almost the whole baptism!

About the original topic though—I have been speaking with the PA of faith formation, not a secretary. She has made it seem like she is consulting Father throughout the scheduling process. She said he doesn’t like to do baptisms on solemnities, which I guess is why the entire month of June is a bust? I can try to talk to the priest, but my hopes aren’t high.
 
Weird. Several of my kids were baptized on pretty big days. I have a Divine mercy baptism, 2 baptism of lord baptisms. Since we celebrate our baptismal birthdays in our house it makes for fun times. Can you just ask Father next time you see him?
 
You could tape a bottle of holy water to the child and when the priests asks about it you could say “well, just in case there is an accident or emergency we want to be ready…”
 
Horton said:
Do any of you realize there is a reason parish secretaries give you the information they do? Most often it is because the pastor of the parish has told them to do it that way.
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Not in my experience.
 
Horton said:
Do any of you have any idea of what goes on behind the scenes to keep a parish running?
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Since I do the the parish books, log and schedule the mass stipends/intentions, create the weekly bulletin, do all the sacristy work, do all the parish administration, create the altar flowers every week, am in charge of safe environment and CCD plus all the sacrament prep, lead the pro life group, and am parish council president— all as a volunteer— I will say yes, I do.
 
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Horton said:
To baptize your child at another parish you will need to have permission from your own parish. All the paperwork needs to be done at the other parish including verification of eligibility of godparent and the baptism class.
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Theoretically.
 
The OP didn’t say if it was their first or not. They may not even have to take the class.
 
Officially, our diocese is supposed to have a class, but in our parish, if Father has seen you in Mass more than once since he married you, the “class” is usually more like a casual interview, that may or may not be done on the phone.
 
Officially, it’s supposed to be to instruct parents in what the Church teaches about Baptism and their responsibilities in raising their children to be Catholic. In practice, it seems to be an opportunity to remind parents who might only be doing the Baptsim to please their own parents that there are spiritual consequences for Baptising a baby and then not doing diddly-squat for their formation for the rest of their lives.
 
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