I don't get it...if you are a non-Catholic Christian, then why aren't you a Catholic Christian?

[Janet1983]

I’m not worried about the fate of the baby.
I am VERY worried about the fate of the parents.
That little baby is in Heaven; what a tragedy for the mother and/or father if their spiritual neglect of that little child means that they will never join their wean in Heaven. It is that serious.

You are saying that the parents of these unbaptized infants will suffer condemnation for their choice of not having their baby baptized?
Where in the Catechism would I find that if I were looking for it?

 

[LittleSoldier]

I can not read your mind. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt because I doubted you really thought I thought a hungry crying baby was sinning. If you thought I thought that all crying babies all the time were sinning, I apologize for my off the wall comment. It was wrong of me to think you were being silly making a point to me.​

I’ve had two babies and observed many others. It seems obvious to me a young one early on learns their parent or other adults around them can be manipulated. That, IMO, reveals that they have a sin nature. Is it full blown sin? Not the issue, IMO.​

Remember these are my opinions. I speak for ME; not for a church and I’m not stupid enough to think I speak for God.​

Now, could you please tell me why this point is so important to you?

I wrote this post before I read your reply to my other post, so I need to apologize. I was becoming very frustrated and thought that you were really trying to goad me.

I’m sorry. I was uncharitable and I have no good excuse for it, except that uh, I’m human and make mistakes.

Sorry. Really. And I’m happy that you weren’t trying to goad me. (It’s happened to me before from someone who appeared to be very nice, even PMd me with some very nice comments and suddenly smacked me hard across the face. Ever since then I’ve had a problem with reading people on the forum. I’m getting better - honest!)

Maybe part of the problem here is how we define one very simple word: “baby.” Some people think a child is a baby until they’re four years old and some think a baby is a child just up to one year old. I’m not sure what my definition would be, but I’m speaking of very young children who have no concept of self-identity. I’m not sure what the “age of reason” is according to the Church but I believe that a child younger than whatever that age is cannot sin, as she does not know the difference between right and wrong.

That probably doesn’t make it easier for the parent dealing with a two year old or a child before the age of reason who is obviously lying. But I guess we have to look at it from the child’s POV - does she know it’s wrong to lie? I’m sure a three year old child doesn’t. She may be lying simply because she’s frightened or because she wants something and has learned from past experience that she can obtain what she wants by lying. She doesn’t have a clear conscious notion of what “lying” is - not yet. That develops later and at that point, of course the child is sinning. And that is why we, as parents, need to help our children develop a good conscience.

I believe that part of the Sacrament of Baptism is that the parents need to agree to raise their child as a Catholic.

Again, I’m really sorry.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[Zooey]

So your saying that the parents will be damned to hell because they did not get their child baptized. Can you tell me or show me where it say that?
You said it was neglect. Well child neglect is against the law, should the authorites get involved for the neglect of not having their child baptized? Remember you said neglect is neglect.

If anyone cause these little ones to offend, it were better that a millstone were round their neck, & they were cast into the depths of the sea…A very smart Man said that, 2000 years ago.
That very smart Man will be the Just Judge of neglectful parents. In His court, there is no appeal.

BTW, don’t worry about my children; they are grown up and have been baptized at the time they decided to be baptized. They’re okay in spite of how bad a parent I was.

Thank God.
But you were simply lucky. If they had thrown away Christianity altogether, then, yes, you might well have to suffer, perhaps temporally, perhaps forever, for denying them the graces that would have drawn them to Him. God knows…
And yes, I am worried. Very worried. I hear so much talk about “young people falling away” or “jumping ship”, and so many of those parents…waited. And waited some more.
Many are still waiting…

You are saying that the parents of these unbaptized infants will suffer condemnation for their choice of not having their baby baptized?
Where in the Catechism would I find that if I were looking for it?

If anyone cause these little ones to offend, it were better that a millstone were round their neck, & they were cast into the depths of the sea.
It’s in the Gospel. It’s the word of the Word Made Flesh.
I believe you can find it, without a catechism.

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

You are saying that the parents of these unbaptized infants will suffer condemnation for their choice of not having their baby baptized?
Where in the Catechism would I find that if I were looking for it?

In the Catechism? The Catholic Catechism? Are you asking a Methodist to support her position with the Catholic Catechism?.. Now I have heard everything

God bless you

 

[Zooey]

Maybe part of the problem here is how we define one very simple word: “baby.” Some people think a child is a baby until they’re four years old and some think a baby is a child just up to one year old. I’m not sure what my definition would be, but I’m speaking of very young children who have no concept of self-identity. I’m not sure what the “age of reason” is according to the Church but I believe that a child younger than whatever that age is cannot sin, as she does not know the difference between right and wrong.

That probably doesn’t make it easier for the parent dealing with a two year old or a child before the age of reason who is obviously lying. But I guess we have to look at it from the child’s POV - does she know it’s wrong to lie? I’m sure a three year old child doesn’t. She may be lying simply because she’s frightened or because she wants something. She doesn’t have a clear conscious notion of what “lying” is - not yet. That develops later and at that point, of course the child is sinning.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

Little children still practice “magical thinking”. They believe that if they say something, that will somehow make it true. They aren’t lying at all. They don’t know what truth & lies are. They just say what they would like to be true, believing that somehow that will=it becoming true.
Until they reach that stage, they can’t lie. They wouldn’t even know what is meant by the concept, if you tried to explian it to them.
This, of course, another reason why it is true that babies do not, cannot sin.:hug1:

 

[Zooey]

In the Catechism? The Catholic Catechism? Are you asking a Methodist to support her position with the Catholic Catechism?.. Now I have heard everything

God bless you

 

[Janet1983]

If anyone cause these little ones to offend, it were better that a millstone were round their neck, & they were cast into the depths of the sea.
It’s in the Gospel. It’s the word of the Word Made Flesh.
I believe you can find it, without a catechism.

Matthew 18:6
but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Mark 9:42
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.

Luke 17:2
It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Where would that say anything about the baptism of infants? These passages are talking about those who cause the little ones to stumble. To entice, trap or lead a believer into sin is a very serious matter.
As believers we are all God’s children.

When I asked you fro a Catechism quote I failed to look at your religion. Please forgive me for my inattention.

 

[Janet1983]

In the Catechism? The Catholic Catechism? Are you asking a Methodist to support her position with the Catholic Catechism?.. Now I have heard everything

God bless you

Well I guess I didn’t really look closely enough. I did not realize I was asking a Methodist for that… We are on a Catholic board after all and in that context I wanted to point out that I have never heard anything like that coming from a Catholic, nor have I read anything like that in the Catechism.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Here’s my suggestion to you: stop trying to reason with me because I’m unreasonable, thus you will not be able to reason with me so I’ll understand. I’m truly a lost cause. Nice try but your reasoning have fallen on ‘deaf’ ears.​

BTW, don’t worry about my children; they are grown up and have been baptized at the time they decided to be baptized. They’re okay in spite of how bad a parent I was.

I’m going to try to explain a bit more. I ran out of time on my previous post.

I believe that part of the Sacrament of Baptism is that the parents (and godparents) are agreeing to raise the child as a Catholic, which means they are taking responsibility for the religious education and other aspects of Catholicism until the child can take responsibility for them herself.

When a child goes through the Sacrament of Confirmation, she is now agreeing to accept that role for herself. She is agreeing to be a member of the Catholic Church.

Baptism and Confirmation are two Sacraments which kind of go hand-in-hand. At least that is my understanding of Church teaching and if I’m wrong I apologize and hope that someone tells me.

I’m not very clear on the Sacraments because I left the Church for a couple of decades and then came back. My knowledge regarding the Church is, unfortunately, poor at this point and I have some brain damage with related difficulties in comprehension, memory, and language. But I’m studying and reading threads and trying my best to understand what the Church teaches and why she teaches what she does.

So if what I write doesn’t make sense please accept my apology. I’ll do my best to represent the Church - I’m just not very good at it.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Hey Zooey,

I have a Methodist source that helps support infant baptism. Being you’re a Methodist, you may already know about it, but just in case here’s something from Rev. Gregory S. Neal.

archeological discoveries in the Roman catacombs have long-ago proven that infant baptism was common in the primitive Roman Churches. Two clear examples, among dozens of similar inscriptions, are all that we really need to support this claim. A man with the resounding Roman/Latin name of Murtius Verinus placed on the tomb of his children the inscription: “Verina received Baptism at the age of ten months, Florina at the age of twelve months.” The date of this tomb has been firmly established by radio-carbon dating of the children’s bones as being 105 AD +/- 4 years. Another tomb, not far away from this one, has the inscription: “Here rests Achillia, a newly-baptized infant; she was one year and five months old, died February 23rd…” and then follows the year of the reigning emperor, which dates her death to 91 AD. [see W. Wall, “History of Infant Baptism”, 2 Vols., London, 1900. and other related articles in various archeological journals from early last century.]

 

[Zooey]

Matthew 18:6
but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Mark 9:42
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.

Luke 17:2
It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Where would that say anything about the baptism of infants? These passages are talking about those who cause the little ones to stumble. To entice, trap or lead a believer into sin is a very serious matter.
As believers we are all God’s children.

Yes, it is a VERY serious matter.
That is why we should do all within our means to see that children are properly baptized at the first possible occasion, lest they should stumble for lack of the prevenient grace of God, which is received through the waters of baptism.
Thus bringing them into the family of God whilst they are still too young to stumble.
It’s kind of like a picture of the Blessed Mother Mary being miraculously saved from sin at the moment of Her Immaculate Conception.
Oh, wait. That’s right. You don’t believe that, either.
Amazing how one thing compounds on another thing, & so on, & so on, ad infinitum…

 

[LittleSoldier]

Little children still practice “magical thinking”. They believe that if they say something, that will somehow make it true. They aren’t lying at all. They don’t know what truth & lies are. They just say what they would like to be true, believing that somehow that will=it becoming true.
Until they reach that stage, they can’t lie. They wouldn’t even know what is meant by the concept, if you tried to explian it to them.
This, of course, another reason why it is true that babies do not, cannot sin.:hug1:

You’re right. Your explanation is much better than mine.

Thank you.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[Zooey]

Hey Zooey,

I have a Methodist source that helps support infant baptism. Being you’re a Methodist, you may already know about it, but just in case here’s something from Rev. Gregory S. Neal.

Cool!!!

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Well I guess I didn’t really look closely enough. I did not realize I was asking a Methodist for that… We are on a Catholic board after all and in that context I wanted to point out that I have never heard anything like that coming from a Catholic, nor have I read anything like that in the Catechism.

Oh you don’t have to explain anything to me. It gave me a good laugh, which I always need.

The question made me wonder if there could be Sola Catechism Protestants out there

God bless you Janet

 

[LittleSoldier]

Hey Zooey,

I have a Methodist source that helps support infant baptism. Being you’re a Methodist, you may already know about it, but just in case here’s something from Rev. Gregory S. Neal.

That is a -]cool/-] kewl reference!

Thanks!

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[Janet1983]

That is why we should do all within our means to see that children are properly baptized at the first possible occasion, lest they should stumble for lack of the prevenient grace of God, which is received through the waters of baptism.

I don’t believe that the grace of God is dependent upon baptism. I know that none of my friends have their children baptized and they train up their children in the way they should go so that they will not depart from it when they are older.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Dokimas and I have discussed infant baptism before. If I understand Dokimas’ view properly, it’s that infants are too young to ‘repent’, or to understand repentance.

I used a couple of examples to try and show that Christ performed miracles on others, than those who requested the healing. One was the centurion (Matthew 8) who asked that his servant be healed. Christ offered to go to his house and the centurion stated he was unworthy that the Lord should go to his house and only say the word and it will be done. Christ marvelled at his faith and told him He had not seen a faith so great in all of Israel. Christ said the servant was healed. When the centurion went home, the servant was healed.

Another story was the woman from Caanan (Matthew 15), who wanted the devil driven from her daughter. Christ said her faith was great and that her daughter would be healed. When the woman returned home, she found her daughter laying in the bed, healed.

In both instances, it was not the sick person’s faith that caused the Lord to heal the sick. In fact, the scriptures do not even tell us the sick knew that someone approached the Lord on their behalf. If Christ could perform a miracle for a person without their knowledge, why couldn’t a parent speak for a child to be baptized?

Hippolytus

“Baptize first the children, and if they can speak for themselves let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them” (The Apostolic Tradition 21:16 [A.D. 215]).

 

[Dokimas]

I wrote this post before I read your reply to my other post, so I need to apologize. I was becoming very frustrated and thought that you were really trying to goad me.

I’m sorry. I was uncharitable and I have no good excuse for it, except that uh, I’m human and make mistakes.

Sorry. Really. And I’m happy that you weren’t trying to goad me. (It’s happened to me before from someone who appeared to be very nice, even PMd me with some very nice comments and suddenly smacked me hard across the face. Ever since then I’ve had a problem with reading people on the forum. I’m getting better - honest!)

Maybe part of the problem here is how we define one very simple word: “baby.” Some people think a child is a baby until they’re four years old and some think a baby is a child just up to one year old. I’m not sure what my definition would be, but I’m speaking of very young children who have no concept of self-identity. I’m not sure what the “age of reason” is according to the Church but I believe that a child younger than whatever that age is cannot sin, as she does not know the difference between right and wrong.

That probably doesn’t make it easier for the parent dealing with a two year old or a child before the age of reason who is obviously lying. But I guess we have to look at it from the child’s POV - does she know it’s wrong to lie? I’m sure a three year old child doesn’t. She may be lying simply because she’s frightened or because she wants something and has learned from past experience that she can obtain what she wants by lying. She doesn’t have a clear conscious notion of what “lying” is - not yet. That develops later and at that point, of course the child is sinning. And that is why we, as parents, need to help our children develop a good conscience.

I believe that part of the Sacrament of Baptism is that the parents need to agree to raise their child as a Catholic.

Again, I’m really sorry.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

NO apology needed. I have a real problem at times expressing myself in forums when writing is the way of communication. I’m not real good at it. I know I get misunderstood, sometimes my fault and sometimes not. You DO NOT owe may anything.​

I have no problem with parents commiting themselves to bring their children up in the admonition of the Lord, understanding Who He is and what He did.​

God bless you.

 

[Dokimas]

**

Thank God.
But you were simply lucky. If they had thrown away Christianity altogether, then, yes, you might well have to suffer, perhaps temporally, perhaps forever, for denying them the graces that would have drawn them to Him. God knows…
And yes, I am** worried. Very worried. I hear so much talk about “young people falling away” or “jumping ship”, and so many of those parents…waited. And waited some more.
Many are still waiting…

If anyone cause these little ones to offend, it were better that a millstone were round their neck, & they were cast into the depths of the sea.
It’s in the Gospel. It’s the word of the Word Made Flesh.
I believe you can find it, without a catechism.​

I respectfully think you are really misunderstanding scriptures on this issue. Could you show from the Bible any time Jesus speaks directly (I see you’ve read into some Scriptures Jesus meant baptism) of infant baptism?

 

[Dokimas]

I’m going to try to explain a bit more. I ran out of time on my previous post.

I believe that part of the Sacrament of Baptism is that the parents (and godparents) are agreeing to raise the child as a Catholic, which means they are taking responsibility for the religious education and other aspects of Catholicism until the child can take responsibility for them herself.

When a child goes through the Sacrament of Confirmation, she is now agreeing to accept that role for herself. She is agreeing to be a member of the Catholic Church.

Baptism and Confirmation are two Sacraments which kind of go hand-in-hand. At least that is my understanding of Church teaching and if I’m wrong I apologize and hope that someone tells me.

I’m not very clear on the Sacraments because I left the Church for a couple of decades and then came back. My knowledge regarding the Church is, unfortunately, poor at this point and I have some brain damage with related difficulties in comprehension, memory, and language. But I’m studying and reading threads and trying my best to understand what the Church teaches and why she teaches what she does.

So if what I write doesn’t make sense please accept my apology. I’ll do my best to represent the Church - I’m just not very good at it.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

No apology necessary.