No baptism during Lent - a question

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When parents have kids in their parish school, it’s not so easy to just find a new parish when the pastor makes strange rules. Maybe that’s the case for you?
 
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In my current cultural zone, the practice is often for families to wait several months to baptize, in order to turn the event into a massive family gathering, irrespective of church season.

Apart from the issue of infant mortality (which may be overblown,) this practice seems to me to negate the purpose of baptism.

If possible, find a priest outside of the parish who will do the baptism.

BTW, sand in the Holy Water fonts is not canonical law either.

ICXC NIKA
 
Loud-living-dogma said:
When parents have kids in their parish school, it’s not so easy to just find a new parish when the pastor makes strange rules. Maybe that’s the case for you?
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It is a very similar situation to this. I think I’m just going to meet with pastor and ask for special permission for a Lenten baptism. The worst that can happen is he’s annoyed I wasted his time, since his secretary has already told me “no.” And then if he says “yes” the office personelle (whom I all know personally) will all be annoyed because I will have gone around them after they said no. Ugh. I hate conflict. But this seems worth some conflict to me…
 
Jen7 said:
My baby is due on Ash Wednesday.
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Ash Wednesday is more than three months away. Fifteen weeks, to be precise. No doctor can foresee the exact day of birth so far ahead. He is giving you an approximate date only.
 
BartholomewB said:
Ash Wednesday is more than three months away. Fifteen weeks, to be precise. No doctor can foresee the exact day of birth so far ahead. He is giving you an approximate date only.
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Oh, I know. But my babies don’t tend to come early… so Ash Wednesday is actually a pretty reasonable guess.
 
Cor_ad_Cor said:
In many parishes, baptismal prep is required of parents (and sometimes, godparents) before the baptism can occur. Scheduling and completing this step alone could take 40+ days.
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That is different than having a blanket policy that no baptisms can take place during a 40-day period of time. Usually, baptismal preparation can be taken care of before birth.

I don’t have a problem with waiting 40 days. We usually have our babies baptized on the fortieth day, or as close to it as possible, which is within the Eastern tradition. I do have a problem with a priest placing such an arbitrary rule without some basis in Canon law or tradition.
 
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Honestly, at that point I would go to the Diocese. It is not fitting to withhold this Sacrament from your child. You are doing what the Church tells us to do.
 
Loud-living-dogma said:
In my parish, baptisms are usually on Sunday, after the last Mass. Sundays are technically outside Lent, right? So why not baptize on Sundays during Lent?
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No, Sundays are not technically outside of Lent. We have first Sunday of Lent, the second Sunday of Lent, Etc. The priest wears purple. Sundays are not days of fast and abstinence, but they are definitely part of Lent.

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/questions-and-answers-about-lent.cfm
Q. Why do we say that there are forty days of Lent? When you count all the days from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, there are 46.
A. It might be more accurate to say that there is the “forty day fast within Lent.” Historically, Lent has varied from a week to three weeks to the present configuration of 46 days. The forty day fast, however, has been more stable. The Sundays of Lent are certainly part of the Time of Lent, but they are not prescribed days of fast and abstinence.
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There is no rule or teaching of the Church that forbids baptism during Lent.

Some dioceses and parishes have policies against it; but they are not grounded in any particular teaching or canon.

When baptisms (and weddings) do occur during Lent, care should be taken to observe the penitential character of Lent, and not make the celebration (and associated parties) over the top.

Deacon Christopher
 
Well, don’t you think that weddings and baptisms are completely different? Engaged couples can choose from plenty of dates for a wedding, but babies don’t really have control over their birthdays the same way.
 
There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man. [3] And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: Avenge me of my adversary. [4] And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: Although I fear not God, nor regard man, [5] Yet because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me.

You know what to do. 😉
 
BartholomewB said:
Ash Wednesday is more than three months away. Fifteen weeks, to be precise. No doctor can foresee the exact day of birth so far ahead. He is giving you an approximate date only.
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I’d call that about 10 weeks available to get everything in place so that a baptism can be done as soon as possible after the birth. Doing things differently takes longer to arrange than just going according to the usual protocol. It can usually be done, given enough time, but it takes legwork, especially if the OP is also trying to keep her relationship with her pastor on the best terms (which I think we all want).
 
In the Notre Dame archives there is an entry where Bishop Penlaver tells his priests that when they visit the different families they are to admonish them on the importance of bringing their babies to the church to be baptized within the week of the babies birth.
 
Jen7 said:
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Vico:
Can. 867 §1. Parents are obliged to take care that infants are baptized in the first few weeks;
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But what when my church isn’t permitting this due to Lent?
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Baptism is especially entrusted to the pastor. The proper pastor is determined by the territory you live in or personal parish.
 
poche said:
In the Notre Dame archives there is an entry where Bishop Penlaver tells his priests that when they visit the different families they are to admonish them on the importance of bringing their babies to the church to be baptized within the week of the babies birth.
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It’s interesting to look at old records and see how early babies were baptized in the early 20th century. When I look at the published records for my baptismal parish I see babies having been baptized at a day or two old quite frequently. Once the hospital became the place where births took place the timing became a bit longer but you can generally deduce that they took place on the first Sunday after mom & babe came home from the hospital. They didn’t have to do preparation back then, the assumption being that if they were asking for Baptism they knew what it was about.

I remember, in 1984, being gobsmacked at being asked by my Pastor, who was relatively new to the parish, why I wanted our 3rd child baptized. I was an EMHC and a reader, at Mass every Sunday with my other 2 who were 5 & 2 1/2 and he wanted to know why I wanted my child baptized?!? Now I’m the one asking the same question when I do baptismal preparation. The difference is that a good number of parents requesting Baptism these days are people who rarely if ever set foot in Church, telling us they are doing it to please the grandparents who likewise are C&E Catholics. I even had one couple laugh with the sponsors when we went over the baptismal promises. When it came to “Do you reject sin…” they thought it was quite funny that both couples were cohabiting.
 
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The tradition was that on your way home you would stop at the church to have your child baptized. Then sometime in the '60s all that changed.
 
poche said:
The tradition was that on your way home you would stop at the church to have your child baptized. Then sometime in the '60s all that changed.
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On your way home from where? Weren’t most babies born at home back then?
 
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