For non-cradle catholics

[Horton]

She was baptized baptist and we have both only been married to each other with the intent of forming a Christian marriage. I don’t know if my baptism was valid because of who did it.

The Catholic Church has a long list of which baptisms they consider valid. Most Protestant baptisms are valid. It really comes down to form & matter. If the church you were baptized with water and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit it generally is good to go. The one exception to this is the LDS. While the do baptize with water and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they have a much different understanding of who the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Ghost) are. Their belief is those three do not form the Trinity. Any LDS person with only an LDS baptism would have to be rebaptized in the Catholic Church.

Your marriage will be fine, religiously speaking, regardless of what your wife may decide to do. Maybe during the upcoming lent season pray for God’s will to be done in this matter everyday for the 40 days.

 

[GKC]

The church I was baptized in was a small church with some cultistic tendencies. I left when I was 15yo by choice. I distinctly recall not being able to get a straight answer on some christian essentials like the trinity.

Was the person who did it an adult, using the Trinitarian formula, and water?

 

[GKC]

The Catholic Church has a long list of which baptisms they consider valid. Most Protestant baptisms are valid. It really comes down to form & matter. If the church you were baptized with water and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit it generally is good to go. The one exception to this is the LDS. While the do baptize with water and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they have a much different understanding of who the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Ghost) are. Their belief is those three do not form the Trinity. Any LDS person with only an LDS baptism would have to be rebaptized in the Catholic Church.

Your marriage will be fine, religiously speaking, regardless of what your wife may decide to do. Maybe during the upcoming lent season pray for God’s will to be done in this matter everyday for the 40 days.

Intent, which is the easiest to satisfy, would also be considered.

 

[Mammoths]

Trinitarian words. Retrospectively I am not sure what they meant to the elder who did the baptism.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

She was baptized baptist and we have both only been married to each other with the intent of forming a Christian marriage. I don’t know if my baptism was valid because of who did it.

Your marriage sounds very much Sacramental already with no other impediments. Should be no problem going forward there even if your spouse is not fond of the Church procedures…

If you can get a Baptismal certificate from your previous Church then you are good to go there as well. Person doesn’t matter, even a Atheist can baptize. Form, Matter, intent are the important things.

 

[GKC]

Trinitarian words. Retrospectively I am not sure what they meant to the elder who did the baptism.

That’s a valid form, then.

The intent of the minister, if it is not to (contrally) not baptize in the Trinitarian form, no matter what he said, in doing so, is not a factor. Intent is an interior condition and not open to the same observation as form and matter. Accordingly, valid sacramental intent is assumed, if all other aspects of the sacrament are valid. Valid intent, strictly, is facere quod facit ecclesia, to do what the Church does, in the sacramental action. Absent anything which would permit a determinatio ex adiunctis (determine the intent was invalid), the intent is assumed to be valid and hence the baptism is valid, other factors also being so. If any doubt remains, a baptism sub conditione is suitable.

Hence, an atheist who considers the whole thing meaningless nonsense, who intends to do whatever the Church intends, whether that is accepted or understood, can baptize validly, as said.

 

[Rosebud77]

yep the first Priest I went to looked so innocent, like he wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Meanwhile he, turned the tables on me, withstood my inquisition and had an answer for all my questions and even the ones he didn’t know he was honest and said “I or we don’t know and that’s okay, we are not meant to know everything”.

I did the opposite. When I went to see the priest, and told him I had read online all the Vatican 2 documents he was stopped in his tracks. Then gathered himself and reached for a copy of the new Catechism. BUT I already had ??? he could not answer.

It was not a comfortable interview.

You see I had assumed he would know everything.

 

[Mammoths]

I did the opposite. When I went to see the priest, and told him I had read online all the Vatican 2 documents he was stopped in his tracks. Then gathered himself and reached for a copy of the new Catechism. BUT I already had ??? he could not answer.

It was not a comfortable interview.

You see I had assumed he would know everything.

And then what happened?

 

[josephback]

Justification and later the Papal authority are the doctrines that led to the break.

 

[Rosebud77]

And then what happened?

Then things got really interesting. … Believe me. Rural Ireland is special and different.

 

[rcwitness]

Was there a moment when you realized you were catholic? What was it like? Was there a point of doctrine or idea that suddenly made perfect sense and you had to go get confirmed and enter full fellowship with the RC in order to be faithful to what you had come to believe?

Interesting question.

It was a process. I was raised Evangelical Free. I entered into a state of salvation early on (probably around 7 yrs). Before that state of belief, only God knows.

As a young adult, I began to yearn for an actual membership in the Church. So I looked into denominations. A woman I worked with introduced me to the Catholic faith. She answered questions and we listened to EWTN radio, with Fr. John Corp and Dr. Scott Hahn.

I wanted to receive Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion.

I never felt that I wasn’t Catholic. Yet, I was never Taught about the Catholic Church and her beliefs.

 

[Mammoths]

Then things got really interesting. … Believe me. Rural Ireland is special and different.

Leave us hanging then.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Was there a moment when you realized you were catholic? What was it like? Was there a point of doctrine or idea that suddenly made perfect sense and you had to go get confirmed and enter full fellowship with the RC in order to be faithful to what you had come to believe?

It was more of a spiritual push in my case. I was an atheist at one point, and it was a spiritual push that saw me become Christian, Presbyterian at the time (although I’d been baptised Presbyterian as an infant, and had some Sunday School).

It was a similar spiritual push that saw me go from being a Protestant to Catholic. I’ve done a fair bit of reading since on Catholicism, but I’ve had other “spiritual” (name removed by moderator)ut as well eg. my old Protestant (predeceased) pastor turning up one night in a vision and saying “The Catholic Church is** CLOSEST** to the truth” with some emphasis on the word “closest”. I’d already made the decision, and I forget just what prompted his appearance in the “vision”, but I suppose I was going through a dry gully at the time.

I’m not like Scott Hahn and some others who’s primary motivation seems to have been intellectual - they’ve crossed the Tiber after first checking the validity of the Catholic Church to being the original and only. Some of them were highly placed in “evangelical” churches and had the theological background to boot.

I suppose my journey was the other way around - I crossed the Tiber and then starting checking the claims of the church. But I didn’t have the advantage, or possibly disadvantage, of having a cantankerous tribe of theological objections running around in my head before I started.

 

[mjjddh]

Was there a moment when you realized you were catholic? What was it like? Was there a point of doctrine or idea that suddenly made perfect sense and you had to go get confirmed and enter full fellowship with the RC in order to be faithful to what you had come to believe?

I was 10 years old and watched “The Song of Bernadette” on a Sunday afternoon with my family. As I matured, I would occasionally watch a Mass on TV and read about the faith. Then, I started looking at pictures of the churches. Wow! What beauty!! As a teenager, I decided that I was going to marry a Catholic so I could become one. I did, but it took me 19 years after saying, “I do,” to make the move and then it was our parish priest who pushed me off the fence. I was joining the church and he told me that I could not become Catholic until we were married in the Church (we were married in a civil service by a magistrate). I was hesitating because it was a HUGE commitment and I wanted to be sure that I could keep it. Well, I went to RCIA, then confession (after begging to be rebaptized – after all the Protestants do it! LOL and being told no.) So, I confessed 38 years of sins, joined the Church in 1998 and have never looked back. I’m home and I love it. I tell my family, who are not Catholic, that we worship with all of our senses – our entire body. That’s another thing I love about being Catholic. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t join in worshipping our Lord!

 

[Rosebud77]

Leave us hanging then.

after reading and being attacked on so many threads… I am not sure folk here are ready for my story … and I am too ill and worn to parry any more attacks from folk who, if you will pardon my frankness, seem to have so little respect for old age and infirmity.

Thankfully on my long and painful journey I have met those of compassion and reality. I am home where my Lord greets me with open arms and “church” now in my increasing illness and frailty is Jesus wherever I am …here often now in my bed with my Prayer Table in direct sight.

One thing is that the hermit/solitary calling is deeply honoured here. The denomination is transcended by it. That was so as soon as I arrived…