Not baptizing is not walking on eggshells.
When we know better, we do better. Tell your pastor, then do what he tells you to do. He will be able to interview you about what you did, answer all your questions about your specific situation, and advise you personally about how you need to proceed including whether or not you are duty-bound to tell your son. It is not a good idea to hash it out here; he is the one to talk to.
I think I can speak for other parents when I say that the idea is not that my parents have to read my mind and never do what I would not do with our children. They don’t have to always understand what I meant perfectly, either. Mistakes will be made. What I have to insist on is for them to always make a good-faith effort to learn what I want when it is possible to ask before making a decision, that they make a good faith effort to do what I ask and to not do what I ask them not to do, and when they cross a boundary (knowingly or by accident) to “confess and repent.”
I think coptsoldier has a point. You cant baptize someone against their will. If you went out and decided to baptize people against their will it would be invalid even if you use water and the proper formula. The fact that this is against the parents wishes seems to change the situation.
That was my point, if the grands baptized the kids when they were infants the parents would not have known. I just wonder if the OP’s Parents, being Catholic, didn’t also baptize the kids when they were infants.Deltadelinquent…A lone voice of compassion, forgiveness, love and perspective.
The main reason for all this, is only because the GP baptized the kids at a stage in their lives, when such information could get back to the actual parents. In this day and age, I would not be surprised if many GP were not already performing secret baptisms, as their own children fall away from Christ.
And here’s the kicker…if done as a baby…you will never know!
EasterJoy and 1ke and I have patiently explained how the baptism is valid but illicit. I am a canon lawyer. Here is **another **canon lawyer’s perspective on this subject. And please note that in questions like these, priests will usually consult a canon lawyer who is trained to assess these actions for validity: canonlawmadeeasy.com/2013/02/14/can-a-baby-be-baptized-against-the-parents-wishes/
Agreed, and I would add that, at this point, this thread is doing little but giving oneofmany a soap box.
Read the relevant threads on CAF and you judge whether the topic of birth control gets a free ride!
You will find on this forum that Catholics who come here and say, “I am a devout Catholic and I use birth control, so sue me” do not by any means get off the hook. To say that the replies in correction of such sentiments are unequivocal would be an understatement.
It can be like watching them be malnourished, denied an education, or kept from any truly good and necessary thing. This is particularly true if the situation goes on, and the grandchildren grow up with no binding morality and no faith to sustain them, if they go about the world rudderless and lost in self-centered pursuits. Parents who leave their childhood faith often find that their children also reject the spiritual understanding the parents have to pass on, too. Because many Catholics exchange their faith for no particular bounded belief system at all, let alone something they practice with their children in a regular way, but rather favor a generalized humanistic optimism that gives homage to no greater power than themselves, the wisdom they do have to offer is often ethereal, emotion-based, and therefore easy for their children to ignore. They can find themselves suffering feelings very similar to those that their parents went through! (I don’t say this as a scare tactic, but as a sad observation–there are worse things in the spiritual world than to be generous-hearted agnostics or atheists with a firm grasp on natural law.)
This is a Catholic forum, these are Catholics posting here, and the OP asked for Catholic Answers to his question. So why is it surprising that some are proselytizing to him? If he wanted reassurance that the grandparents were pure evil and he was doing the right thing by apostasizing and keeping his children away from the sacraments, he came to the wrong forum. We don’t have to like what the grandparents did but we have to recognize their supreme conflict in having children who deny the True Faith and seeing their own beliefs extinguished from the family tree in their own lifetime. It is truly a depressing proposition when you think about it.
Neither he nor anyone else said his in-laws were evil at all, let alone “pure evil.” He never said he never wanted them proselytizing him or his family, for that matter. What was said was that when they baptized their grandchildren with no parental consent they were clearly in the wrong. The temptation was understandable, but an excuse for the act is not to be found in Catholic teaching. The act is forbidden by canon law. That was his question–are they right to excuse themselves, or is he right to expect them to admit wrong-doing? He does not think his in-laws are evil, but his interpretation of his rights as a parent are correct.
Oh, goodness…heaven forbid we get on a forum like that! Yes, there is some anti-Catholic rhetoric like that out there. My point is that the OP is not guilty of it.
The fallen nature of human beings makes it understandable, but those who wish to constructively engage with fallen away Catholics ought to brush up on the art of “admonishing the sinner” and exercise the virtue of prudence in determining what is appropriate for the situation. There are situations where it is worse to admonish than not, particularly if it entrenches the person more in his/her errors. ONLY if it is LIKELY that a possible improvement will be made or that there is a decent chance should such efforts be made and the OP made it clear that he wasn’t interested in being argued back into the fold. The most perfect arguments do not convince people to enter into the fullness of Church practice. Satan knows the tenants of the Faith more perfectly than any of us here on earth and look where he’s at. We can extend respect to the person who has a question about our belief system and truthfully acknowledge that the Church does not condone illicit baptisms.
