Is this baptism valid?

[AKDee]

My fiance is an agnostic who was baptized as a kid. He attended Church with friends and while he was there he was baptized. His parents did not give permission for him to be baptized, and they were angry when they found out he had been baptized behind their backs.

Is his baptism valid?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

It depends. Valid baptism does not require the consent of the parents. It would be highly illicit but it is not required for validity.

Assuming that water and the Trinitarian formula was used then there are two possible answers to your question:

1. If your friend was under the age of 7 and did not realistically have use of reason, then the baptism would be valid since there would be no act of the will to refuse the grace of the sacrament.
2. If he was 7 or older he is presumed to have use of reason and then it would depend upon whether he actually wanted to be baptized:

• If he had no idea what was happening and was basically forced into it then it would be invalid since once someone reaches the age of reason they need to consent for the sacrament to be valid.
• If he had an age appropriate understanding of baptism and wanted to receive it then it would indeed be a valid baptism. Obviously it would be inappropriate to do such a thing behind his parents’ backs but it would be valid.

Sacraments operate under pretty simple rules. The reason for that is if we had to parse every little detail of every particular situation to determine validity then no one would have any idea if their sacrament was valid or invalid.