Does the RCIA have to have proof of baptism?

[Dan331]

My wife wishes to become Catholic. She was raised in a non-denominational Christian church and attended Christian school from kindergarten through high school. We were properly married in a Catholic church three years ago. She has started attending RCIA classes and I am her sponsor. She was baptized by her non-denominational Christian pastor when she was 13 years old. She vividly remembers the event. The problem is that she does not have any documentation of the event. The non-denominational Christian church only started keeping copies of their baptismal records five years ago because they now can scan the documents and keep electronic files. They do not keep hard records and have no records from the early 1990s when her baptism took place.

The RCIA director has repeatedly asked us for some sort of documentation of her baptism. My wife does not want to be considered a catechumen because she is already Christian. She should be properly understood as a candidate and therefore not need to be baptized again. She is strongly opposed to getting baptized again. Secondly, we were married in the Catholic Church. She did not have documentation of her baptism then either but that did not bother the priest who performed our ceremony. We don’t understand why this is a sticking point; surely this type of thing must happen often. The RCIA director shouldn’t expect all other Christian churches to be as meticulous about keeping documentation of sacraments as the Catholic Church. Is the RCIA director just being over-zealous in requesting this documentation? What should we do?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Actually, it was the priest who presided at your marriage that was “under-zealous.” When two Christians are marrying in the Catholic Church, both must provide proof of baptism so that it may be recorded in the Catholic party’s baptismal record that he has received the sacrament of matrimony. Given the circumstances you report, you may want to check your own sacramental record to make sure the notation was made that you and your wife received the sacrament of matrimony.

As for your wife, she needs to understand that the Church needs to begin a sacramental record for her. For those Christians who have proof of baptism from their non-Catholic churches, that record is simply attached to their new Catholic sacramental record, and then notation of their reception of the rest of the sacraments of initiation (first Communion, confirmation) is added. Either your wife’s non-Catholic church must provide a baptismal certificate now (perhaps by having her pastor and witnesses attest to the event), or your wife must receive conditional baptism in the Catholic Church.

If your wife must receive conditional baptism, perhaps it will help her to understand that a conditional baptism is not a re-baptism. The baptismal presider (priest or deacon) uses the formula, “If you are not already baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” If a prior baptism already occurred, nothing happens. If, for whatever reason, there was no prior baptism, the conditional baptism takes effect. Conditional baptism supplies for whatever possible defects there may have been in a prior baptism and enables the parish to start a sacramental record for the new Catholic.