Last Rites Question

[velvetsky]

Hi,
I have a question and hope I’m in the right section. I was given the last rites as a newborn but to the best of my knowlege I’ve never been baptised.Would the last rites have covered baptism too? Thanks.

 

[Elizium23]

“Last Rites” is sort of a colloquialism and as such, it doesn’t typically imply baptism, but rather encompasses Anointing of the Sick (aka Extreme Unction), an Apostolic Pardon, and Viaticum (Holy Communion).

That being said, if you were an infant in danger of death, especially if there was a priest involved, it is very likely that you were baptized at the time. If you were indeed baptized then it is also likely that the priest duly recorded it in the parish’s baptismal register and issued a certificate. So don’t you have any documentation of the facts? The best way for you to proceed would be to track down the parish you lived in, or the parish the priest was called from, and request a certificate to be issued.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

Were the rites administered by a Catholic priest, an Anglican minister, or…?

In the Catholic Church, the term “last rites” usually means Anointing of the sick, Penance, and Eucharist. Assuming you are/were a member of the Latin Church, as an infant you would not have been eligible for any of these sacraments. I’m not even sure an Eastern rite priest would administer Eucharist to an infant in danger of death.

It is likelier that you were baptized, and that someone called this “last rites” because you were in danger of death. If an Anglican minister performed the baptism with the proper form and intention, the Catholic Church would still recognize the baptism as valid.

 

[Memaw]

Hi,
I have a question and hope I’m in the right section. I was given the last rites as a newborn but to the best of my knowlege I’ve never been baptised.Would the last rites have covered baptism too? Thanks.

You should talk to a priest. He can help you with all necessary information on how to find out. This is to important to just guess at. God Bless, Memaw

 

[babochka]

It is likelier that you were baptized, and that someone called this “last rites” because you were in danger of death. If an Anglican minister performed the baptism with the proper form and intention, the Catholic Church would still recognize the baptism as valid.

If you were baptized by a Catholic priest (as opposed to a lay person, which can happen in the case of an emergency), it is quite possible you also received the Sacrament of Confirmation, if you were in danger of death.

 

[pianistclare]

Anointing of the Sick is not Baptism.
But as others have said, maybe you were Baptized but your relatives remember the more “dire” term of Last Rites and that is what suck in their minds.
As Memaw said, there’s no way we can help you. You need to see a priest, and he can help to make some kind of determination or give you a conditional baptism.
Best wishes!

 

[velvetsky]

Thankyou to you all for your answers. I will talk to a priest about it.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Hi,
I have a question and hope I’m in the right section. I was given the last rites as a newborn but to the best of my knowlege I’ve never been baptised.Would the last rites have covered baptism too? Thanks.

The procedures for an infant in danger of death are completely different from the pastoral care of the dying as in when one is ministering to an adult.

An infant, theologically and therefore canonically, is not a candidate for the anointing of the sick. A child must have attained the age of reason to be anointed. Similarly for absolution and viaticum and, of course, the apostolic pardon is of no utility in this instance.

In any event, all sacraments presuppose and require baptism. What should have happened is that you were baptised. You may or may not have also been confirmed. (I am a little confused since you list that you are Catholic. If you were confirmed in childhood, that would mean that a record of the baptism exists somewhere since confirmation can only be administered with proof of baptism and the notice of confirmation must be sent to the parish of record of baptism.)

The record of a baptism or a baptism and confirmation should be in the sacramental register of the territorial parish in whose boundaries the hospital existed. There is a remote possibility that a priest responding from another parish might have recorded it in his own sacramental register but that would be appropriate only in a couple of rather anomalous situations.

My concern is that you may have been baptised in extremis by a physician or nurse and those do not always get recorded, frankly. Also, if you were in a non-Catholic hospital and your family had not specifically requested a Catholic cleric or one was not available, then the rite could have been performed by anyone who was the duty chaplain.

If you choose to begin your search on your own, you should begin with the parish that was the parish of the hospital at the time that the baptism would have taken place (in other words, parish boundaries change and you have to look at the parish as it was constituted when the record would have been made).

If that fails, you should contact the archivist for the diocese where the hospital is located for her advice and assistance…which you may need in any event to find the hospital’s parish. She, hopefully, will be aware of any atypical patterns for the recording of sacraments given in hospitals during the time period when you were an infant and would have been baptised.

If the matter is one of resolving your sacramental status today, your parish priest can help you in that regard. I wish you and he good hunting. Sometimes, it is more challenging than one would wish.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Hi,
I have a question and hope I’m in the right section. I was given the last rites as a newborn but to the best of my knowlege I’ve never been baptised.Would the last rites have covered baptism too? Thanks.

The procedures for an infant in danger of death are completely different from the pastoral care of the dying as in when one is ministering to an adult.

An infant, theologically and therefore canonically, is not a candidate for the anointing of the sick. A child must have attained the age of reason to be anointed. Similarly for absolution and viaticum and, of course, the apostolic pardon is of no utility in this instance.

In any event, all sacraments presuppose and require baptism. What should have happened is that you were baptised. You may or may not have also been confirmed.

The record of a baptism or a baptism and confirmation should be in the sacramental register of the territorial parish in whose boundaries the hospital existed. There is a remote possibility that a priest responding from another parish might have recorded it in his own sacramental register but that would be appropriate only in a couple of rather anomalous situations.

My concern is that you may have been baptised in extremis by a physician or nurse and those do not always get picked up in any record, frankly. Also, depending upon where this happened and if your family had not specifically requested a Catholic cleric or one was not available, then the rite could have been performed by anyone who was the duty chaplain.

If you choose to begin your search on your own, you should begin with the parish that was the parish of the hospital at the time that the baptism would have taken place (in other words, parish boundaries change and you have to look at the parish as it was constituted when the record would have been made).

If that fails, you should contact the archivist for the diocese where the hospital is located for her advice and assistance…which you may need in any event to find the hospital’s parish. She, hopefully, will be aware of any atypical patterns for the recording of sacraments given in hospitals during the time period when you were an infant and would have been baptised.

If the matter is one of resolving your sacramental status today, your parish priest can help you in that regard…as well as sorting out what did or did not happen in the past. I wish you and he good hunting. Sometimes, it is more challenging than one would wish to track down sacramental records in unusual situations.

 

[Elizium23]

Father, you appear to be speaking solely about the Latin Church, correct? The procedure should be different in the Eastern Catholic Churches.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Father, you appear to be speaking solely about the Latin Church, correct? The procedure should be different in the Eastern Catholic Churches.

Yes. I made a presumption based on the fact that the original poster is in Kent.

 

[velvetsky]

Yes. I made a presumption based on the fact that the original poster is in Kent.

Yes, I was born in London.My Dad (a Catholic) told me I was given the last rites. I know we would have fallen under the Southwark diocese. I don’t have a lot of info, I just know I was expected to die but infact made a recovery. The thing is, a year after this I was placed in a children’s home. During my time there my birth parents died. I wasn’t raised in a Catholic home.
I always believed in God mind you, and went to a Baptist church but in 2009 I went to Catholic Church. It was there and only there that I found Lord Jesus. I was going through a heartaching trial and in this dear Chuch I felt such peace and comfort. I learnt to pray the Rosary, in that Church I really felt, i don’t know, like I was home.It just felt so right.
But the trial I was going through was too much to bear and I went in completely the opposite direction. I ended up having a nervous breakdown, I was drinking, suicidal.
I turned up drunk at the Priest’s home I was in such a bad place back then. The Priest forgave me -not in a confessional way as I’m not confirmed. But I just couldn’t forgive myself for having fallen apart like that and embarrassing myself in that way. So I haven’t returned. I’ve tried, but bottle out .
Deep down though I ache to be back in that Church, I long to feel close to Lord Jesus.
I’m not sure why I’ve opened up like this.
I do need to add, I don’t drink anymore.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Yes, I was born in London.My Dad (a Catholic) told me I was given the last rites. I know we would have fallen under the Southwark diocese. I don’t have a lot of info, I just know I was expected to die but infact made a recovery. The thing is, a year after this I was placed in a children’s home. During my time there my birth parents died. I wasn’t raised in a Catholic home.
I always believed in God mind you, and went to a Baptist church but in 2009 I went to Catholic Church. It was there and only there that I found Lord Jesus. I was going through a heartaching trial and in this dear Chuch I felt such peace and comfort. I learnt to pray the Rosary, in that Church I really felt, i don’t know, like I was home.It just felt so right.
But the trial I was going through was too much to bear and I went in completely the opposite direction. I ended up having a nervous breakdown, I was drinking, suicidal.
I turned up drunk at the Priest’s home I was in such a bad place back then. The Priest forgave me -not in a confessional way as I’m not confirmed. But I just couldn’t forgive myself for having fallen apart like that and embarrassing myself in that way. So I haven’t returned. I’ve tried, but bottle out .
Deep down though I ache to be back in that Church, I long to feel close to Lord Jesus.
I’m not sure why I’ve opened up like this.
I do need to add, I don’t drink anymore.

Oh my dear child. Everything is much clearer to me. I am so sorry. You have had quite an ordeal. But the Lord has been with you at every moment…may He be praised and thanked…from birth to the present. He has wondrously guided you.

At the moment you were in such crisis, isn’t it a tremendous thing that God guided you to a place where the priest was there and able to help you? This was God’s Providence. He intervened so that you would not harm yourself. This is not something now to be embarrassed about but rather to be grateful for His provident care for you. You felt you were at home in the Church because you were at home.

If you’re in the Archdiocese of Southwark, use this link to contact the archivist as she may have some thoughts and ideas that will be helpful in terms of any record, when you explain to her your story. rcsouthwark.co.uk/Archives.html

I presume of course you know that on the other side of the Thames from Southwark is the Archdiocese of Westminster and if you had been in the infant’s hospital there, any sacramental record would be in that archive…

In any event…Let us not go into detail here on the website for the sake of your privacy; I can well imagine you may not know your birth name or exactly where you were in hospital, and with very limited information possible.

Yes, please do speak with a priest there where you are. You have some truly wonderful priests in your archdiocese. Even if the past can’t be reconstructed, that is not an impediment to going forward. There are ways ahead. And you must not let that one incident impede you at all.

You have also have a wonderful resource at hand there in Kent. The Carmelite friars at Aylesford, near Maidstone, are tremendous and they have reconstituted the shrine to the Blessed Virgin that they had in the middle ages. It is a most blessed place to visit and to find a spiritual home. It is a splendid and picturesque property. The shrine, the friary, and the other buildings and grounds are tremendous. And they sponsor programmes for those who had issues with drink, etc. thefriars.org.uk/

The Benedictines on Thanet are another very special treasure in Kent to be aware of. minsterabbeynuns.org/

I will remember you when I offer Mass and in my prayers. God bless you.