John the Baptist and the Visitation

[MaggieS]

I need help regarding John the Baptist. Does the Church teach that his original sin was remitted by the Visitation? If not, was he baptised? Where would I go to read more on this?

 

[Todd_Easton]

I don’t know if the Church has made any official pronouncements on this but it is at least the opinion of some that John the Baptist was freed from the stain of Original Sin at the Vistiation. In the article on “St. John the Baptist” in the online Catholic Encyclopedia it says:
Now during the sixth month, the Annunciation had taken place, and, as Mary had heard from the angel the fact of her cousin’s conceiving, she went “with haste” to congratulate her. “And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant” – filled, like the mother, with the Holy Ghost – “leaped for joy in her womb”, as if to acknowledge the presence of his Lord. Then was accomplished the prophetic utterance of the angel that the child should “be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb”. Now as the presence of any sin whatever is incompatible with the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul, it follows that at this moment John was cleansed from the stain of original sin.