I just found out that I've already been baptized, and I'm angry.

[eatpraylove11]

I was baptized as a kid in a nondenominational church and did not have a certificate of proof either. In fact, the church had ZERO records of baptisms when I went back to ask for it.

You can be received into the church, which is special in its own way. At confirmation during Easter Vigil, I got to go to the front and say a few things different from everyone else…it was actually a very important and special moment.

I do think your father had the best of intentions…though when we are young we might see it that way. It doesn’t really matter what day you were baptized, or who baptized you…what matters is you are walking in the ways of the holy Catholic church now.

Side note: it surprises me that some people are saying baptists don’t believe in baptism (ironic, because baptist and baptism are of the same root word!). I think it may depend on the baptist church.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’ve never heard that a non-Catholic performing baptism incurs the guilt of sacrilege. Do you have anything to back this claim up?

Sacrilege, in a general sense, is an offense against the virtue of religion, particularly the abuse of what is sacred. The Mass and sacraments belong by right to the one true Church, therefore their administration outside of her is a form of spiritual theft, and an abuse of what is holy.

I don’t want this to turn into yet another EENS thread, but St. Augustine (On Baptism, against the Donatists, I, 12, 18) writes:

men may be baptized in communions severed from the Church, in which Christ’s baptism is given and received in the said celebration of the sacrament, but … it will only then be of avail for the remission of sins when the recipient, being reconciled to the unity of the Church, is purged from the sacrilege of deceit by which his sins were retained and their remission prevented…

Concerning the Mass, St. Jerome writes (Letter XV, 2):

I who follow no guide save Christ am in communion with Your Holiness, that is with the chair of Peter. I know that on this rock the Church is built. Whosoever partakes of the Lamb outside this house commits a sacrilege.

Like yourself, however, I am open to correction on this point.

 

[Retread_Mick]

I who follow no guide save Christ am in communion with Your Holiness, that is with the chair of Peter. I know that on this rock the Church is built. Whosoever partakes of the Lamb outside this house commits a sacrilege.[/INDENT]

Question??? Where then does that leave the shut ins that receive the Eucharist in their homes or hospital rooms???

 

[Bonnie]

He was referring to the Church as the house, not a particular building.

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

Sacrilege, in a general sense, is an offense against the virtue of religion, particularly the abuse of what is sacred. The Mass and sacraments belong by right to the one true Church, therefore their administration outside of her is a form of spiritual theft, and an abuse of what is holy.

I don’t want this to turn into yet another EENS thread, but St. Augustine (On Baptism, against the Donatists, I, 12, 18) writes:

men may be baptized in communions severed from the Church, in which Christ’s baptism is given and received in the said celebration of the sacrament, but … it will only then be of avail for the remission of sins when the recipient, being reconciled to the unity of the Church, is purged from the sacrilege of deceit by which his sins were retained and their remission prevented…

Concerning the Mass, St. Jerome writes (Letter XV, 2):

I who follow no guide save Christ am in communion with Your Holiness, that is with the chair of Peter. I know that on this rock the Church is built. Whosoever partakes of the Lamb outside this house commits a sacrilege.

Like yourself, however, I am open to correction on this point.

In such cases, you may say that the celebration of the sacraments is a sacrilege, but that does not mean that those who do so are neccessarily guilty of sacrilege. Ignorance covers a multitude of sins.

Consider also what Augustine says about heretics in this letter.

1. The Apostle Paul has said: A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sins, being condemned of himself. Titus 3:10-11 But though the doctrine which men hold be false and perverse, if they do not maintain it with passionate obstinacy, especially when they have not devised it by the rashness of their own presumption, but have accepted it from parents who had been misguided and had fallen into error, and if they are with anxiety seeking the truth, and are prepared to be set right when they have found it, such men are not to be counted heretics. Were it not that I believe you to be such, perhaps I would not write to you. And yet even in the case of a heretic, however puffed up with odious conceit, and insane through the obstinacy of his wicked resistance to truth, although we warn others to avoid him, so that he may not deceive the weak and inexperienced, we do not refuse to strive by every means in our power for his correction. On this ground I wrote even to some of the chief of the Donatists, not indeed letters of communion, which on account of their perversity they have long ceased to receive from the undivided Catholic Church which is spread throughout the world, but letters of a private kind, such as we may send even to pagans. These letters, however, though they have sometimes read them, they have not been willing, or perhaps it is more probable, have not been able, to answer. In these cases, it seems to me that I have discharged the obligation laid on me by that love which the Holy Spirit teaches us to render, not only to our own, but to all, saying by the apostle: The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 In another place we are warned that those who are of a different opinion from us must be corrected with meekness, if God perhaps will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. 2 Timothy 2:25-26

newadvent.org/fathers/1102043.htm

 

[Ad_Orientem]

In such cases, you may say that the celebration of the sacraments is a sacrilege, but that does not mean that those who do so are neccessarily guilty of sacrilege. Ignorance covers a multitude of sins. …]

Agreed as to the varying degrees of personal guilt. There is still, however, an offense against the objective moral order – or to borrow from the Byzantine tradition, an “involuntary sin” – which sacrifice must repair.