Does an unconscious person need to manifest an intention for baptism?

[Sirach2]

If I come upon someone unconscious in an accident and do not know if they have been baptized, should I baptize them conditionally? Some contend that Canon Law #865.2 applies, requiring a manifest intention for the sacrament, and say not to baptize.

§2. An adult in danger of death can be baptized if, having some knowledge of the principal truths of the faith, the person has manifested in any way at all the intention to receive baptism and promises to observe the commandments of the Christian religion.

In case they would die, wouldn’t it be a vital act of vital charity to do so conditionally, for their salvation?

Can you clarify please?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

The canon would indeed forbid baptizing a person that has not manifested any desire to be baptized. The sacraments presuppose faith.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**1123 **"The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the Body of Christ and, finally, to give worship to God. Because they are signs they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it. That is why they are called ‘sacraments of faith.’

To simply baptize without cause would be to border on treating sacraments as magic or superstition:

**2111 **Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.