Yes I am speaking to you in my former post…you are quoting Canon Law and I am wondering if you are a former Mormon…
No. I have never been a member of any religion.
Going back, remember, first of all Christianity is 2,000 years old and our practices are our traditions of understanding faith through the Apostles. Mormonism has been around at the expense of Christianity, claiming all our doctrines are corrupt, an abomination. Their beliefs do not focus on God but rather on exaltation of man drawing on some form of God.
Pardon my thickness, but I fail to see the relevance of this.
You are implying the Church is hypocritical.
No, that is not my implication at all. I’m not aware of the
Catholic Church claiming that LDS posthumous baptism is
unethical. While I’m aware of the Vatican refusing to facilitate LDS genealogical endeavors through providing sacramental records, that is their prerogative, and they can do so (and it seems have done so) without any indictment on the ethics involved.
I posed my questions to the individual
Catholics who have expressed offense at the LDS practices and have cited the lack of consent as the impetus for such. I did so because the Catholic Church allows for baptism without the consent of parents, and I assume that most Catholics disagree with the conclusion that the Catholic Church allows for an unethical practice. This leads to an obvious contradiction in logic, which is why I posed the questions. I foresee three possible responses:
The Catholic Church, too, is acting unethically by allowing for baptism against the will of the parents of the child just as the LDS Church is acting unethically by allowing for baptism against the will of the deceased family members.
The Catholic Church is not acting unethically by allowing for baptism against the will of the parents of the child because lack of consent isn’t what makes the LDS practice of posthumous baptism offensive (in which case we’d need a new standard by which to deem the LDS practice unethical).
The Catholic Church is not acting unethically by allowing for baptism against the will of the parents of the child because the consent the Catholic Church circumvents is substantively different from the consent the LDS Church circumvents (which, quite frankly wreaks of special pleading).
Considering the position of Mormonism and its inimical position against the ‘Roman Church’ and Christianity in general, along with all its claims and ever changing beliefs…you simply cannot compare the two religions of thought and practice, history and orthodoxy of faiths.
Again, I fail to see the relevance. I have no dog in this race, so to be perfectly frank, I don’t care where yours or the LDS religions get their commission to do what they do, or the historical relationship between the two religions, neither are they germane to the issue of consent.
In Catholicism/Orthodoxy it is all about context.
What you need to include in your reflection on Canon Law reflects my earlier statements…here is the context:
Can. 868: For the licit baptism of an infant it is necessary upon two conditions:
- The parents or atleast one of them or the person who is lawfully takes their place gives consent.
- There is founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such a hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be put off according to the participation of particular law and parents are to be informed of the reason.
You bring up the next …The infant of Catholic parents, in fact non-Catholic parents also, who are in danger of death are licitly baptized even against the will of the parents. Here is requiring pastoral decision…and this can happen if the infant suddenly turns towards death and parents not available at the time…non-Catholic parents also not informed…again…what is the context of the life situation.
I think you’re taking great liberty in inferring what’s not explicitly in the text, and in fact, it seems to me that your inference is not consistent with what is actually stated. Had paragraph 2 of this canon said “[those in danger of death] are licitly baptized even
without the will of the parents” I could see how you might infer that this refers to the parents not being available to give consent, but paragraph 2 actually says “those in danger of death are licitly baptized even
against the will of the parents.” This implies that the person doing the baptism has certain knowledge of the parents opposition to a Catholic baptism, but goes along with the baptism anyway.
If the parents are non-Catholic, but Christian, they are already performing Catholic rite of baptism. If they are non-Christian…you have to find exact and immediate situation where this has occurred…one cannot ignore the parents…but what is the context here.
This is irrelevant. That the Catholic Church views their baptism as analogous to the baptism of other Christian denominations doesn’t change the fact that, say, an Orthodox couple would disagree. There exists no objective standard by which to judge your statement here, and just as you’re approaching the circumstances with Catholic-colored spectacles, I would assume a Mormon would similarly view what she is doing for the dead with her own theological assumptions.
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