Overreactions to the whole "I" and "We' Baptize you clarification?

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I am happy to concede on this if I am offbeam- of course. I just cannot yet see that such an epidemic/multiplier effect of invalidity is what the CDF had discerned might flow forth from this clarification (which, if your/Archbishop Vigneron’s assessment is correct) is what is very likely to be the case.

If this clarification has the connotations A.Vigneron has discerned, and indeed the commentators I mention in the OP, then this clarification has seismic permutations. And I still cannot see that this was the aim of the clarification. Re-baptise? Sure. Re-ordain- of course, for propriety. But to conclude that priests have been invalidly ministering (confessions, mass etc.) just seems legalistic to me but I will pray about it…

Perhaps the CDF might clarify that an “implicit” dispensation would have been in effect, by grace of Christ/Holy Mother Church, thus rending the invalidity of the ministry nominal only- the substance still in tact.
 
Cheers brother, it’s certainly a seismic situation for many of us.

(Again, I’m one of those who had an infant baptism in a Protestant denomination that permits “we” baptisms. So I’m sort of smack dab in the middle of dealing with this, in conjunction with priests and my bishop and with canon lawyers on my radar.)

I’m certainly open to the CDF issuing any clarification they deem fit – and a dispensation sounds awesome to me in theory if they somehow have that authority. (I’m not sure they actually do have that authority – that is, I’m not sure it’s categorically the case that the Church can ‘dispense’ an invalid sacrament into a valid one; I rather think dispensations are usually about freeing people from culpability about something, not imparting sacrament-specific graces. But in theory if the CDF could wave a magic wand and make this okay, I’d be fine with that.)

But I’ve been told by one of the priests working with me, to not expect any further clarification from the CDF. Apparently such clarifications are beyond what the CDF typically considers its role to be, and for now the rest of us need to operate on the assumption that the CDF has said all it plans to say, and we need to work the rest out from here.
 
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I really wish the Church would perform conditional Baptisms on all converts from Protestant traditions. I had serious doubts about the validity of my Baptism and requested conditional Baptism. I had one man in RCIA who thought he was baptized but it ended up just being a blessing of the new babies.

Furthermore, the archdiocese of Detroit made the decision that all the baptism that this deacon performed were valid after they told him to stop. That’s crazy. While I am not a “let’s return to Latin for everything”, I am inclined to think all Baptisms should be done in Latin.
 
I’ll just add one last thing:

Given the reality that the CDF may not be able, or inclined, to wave a magic wand to resolve the issues illuminated by this clarification… at least every local bishop can authorize his local priests to wave the necessary magic wand.

That is, there is almost no problem in the world as easy to solve as this. It’s a few drops of water and a few conditional words. A few drops of oil and a few conditional words.

That’s a magical, shiny red button of an easy and perfect solution to a problem; such magical buttons that instantly solve sticky problems are rare, let’s not waste the opportunity to delight in using this one.

Again, it is so rare that something so easy can effectively solve a real problem. Most problems in society require complicated solutions. This one doesn’t. There’s a magic button that instantly solves this problem once and for all for any individual affected, and its shape is called: “Conditional baptism.”

Therefore my firmness against arguments that priests and bishops should just chill out and not bother pressing the shiny red “Solve the problem completely” button of performing conditional baptisms. That’s the reaction that comes across as wild to me, not those who want the button pressed. There are so many other issues in the world to spend tons of time agonizing over complex solutions for. This one doesn’t require another moment’s thought. Just baptize the unbaptized, conditionally baptize the concerned, and move on.

🔴
 
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MNathaniel said:
It’s a few drops of water and a few conditional words.
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Amen! I do think that blanket conditional baptism is not going to happen. The Church wants to be ecumenical and doing this for all converts probably would be viewed that ALL Protestant baptisms are invalid. No matter what the truth is, optics will win out here. We’d rather deal with these issues from time to time rather than fix the problem.
 
MarkRome said:
Furthermore, the archdiocese of Detroit made the decision that all the baptism that this deacon performed were valid after they told him to stop. That’s crazy. While I am not a “let’s return to Latin for everything”, I am inclined to think all Baptisms should be done in Latin.
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It’s horrible that he continued to do so after being told to stop. But, as much as I’d be okay with having baptisms be in Latin, if he didn’t listen when he was told to stop, I can’t see how Latin would have helped.
 
MarkRome said:
I really wish the Church would perform conditional Baptisms on all converts from Protestant traditions. I had serious doubts about the validity of my Baptism and requested conditional Baptism. I had one man in RCIA who thought he was baptized but it ended up just being a blessing of the new babies.
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Yeah, I hear that.

When I was in RCIA, I had serious doubts about the validity of my Baptism and requested conditional Baptism too. But my request was refused and although my heart ached about it, at the time I decided to humble myself to the local representative of the Catholic Church I was choosing to put my faith in.

Few years later though this new CDF declaration of the invalidity of “we” baptisms comes up, and my childhood denomination did those on top of the other reasons I was already suspicious in the first place? Naw friend, I’ve served my time, I did the humble obedience thing, I’ve proven I’m willing to submit my private judgment to the Church. This is new evidence, this is concrete in writing on several fronts, I will not respond well to anyone who tries to suggest to me at this point that I’m just not willing to submit my private judgment to the Church. I submitted my private judgment to the Church when I submitted to receiving Confirmation without Conditional Baptism the first time. I’m trying to submit to the Church again now by attempting to live consistent with this new CDF ruling.

However complicated it is that currently different Church ministers are disagreeing about how best to follow up the CDF ruling. I know that I’m not defying the Church by seeking conditional baptism and conditional confirmation. If I lived in another diocese, I’d have already been granted these.

And I will definitely be sidebar chatting with any Protestant converts I meet from here on out who are still in the RCIA process. Because if a serious doubt exists, the time to be conditionally baptized is before confirmation. Trying to get conditional baptism and conditional confirmation both, I’m finding, is for some reason a nightmare. I had one priest tell me he thought conditional baptism might be fine but when I said I’d like to receive conditional confirmation too he backed out of the whole thing and told me to go to the bishop.
 
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It is a dogma of the faith that anyone who is not baptized will not go to heaven, so yes.

Fortunately, God worked through His Church and made this known so people have time to get it fixed. God has allowed them to rectify the situation.
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Baptism of desire could certainly apply to everyone acting in good faith.

The point is we rectify what we can.
 
MarkRome said:
Maybe he wouldn’t know enough Latin to be able to change anything.
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He’d have to know enough to understand the very basics though, yes? That shouldn’t be a difficult thing to change. Even I can likely do it and I’m not fluent in Latin. I’ve just read enough Latin and also know some Spanish.
 
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MarkRome said:
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Fauken:
if he didn’t listen when he was told to stop, I can’t see how Latin would have helped.
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Maybe he wouldn’t know enough Latin to be able to change anything.
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Haha that’d be a funny argument for traditionalists to start using.

“No, we should avoid the vernacular for the purpose of preventing people knowing what they’re saying! If they don’t understand the language, they can’t meaningfully mess up the language.”
 
MNathaniel said:
Haha that’d be a funny argument for traditionalists to start using.

“No, we should avoid the vernacular for the purpose of preventing people knowing what they’re saying! If they don’t understand the language, they can’t meaningfully mess up the language.”
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I don’t think we’ll be adopting that any time soon. 😜

I will say though as a benefit to the Latin formula, there are two parts which would have to be changed: “Ego” to “Nos” and “Baptizo” to “Baptizmus”. In English, at least, the conjugation for the verb “to baptize” remains the same.
 
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I can’t imagine though that a Deacon or priest couldn’t memorize it. It’s not long and hard. And in that case, they certainly could change it.
 
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Haha maybe, but I’m not sure how many cases that’d account for (minister’s reason being a sudden impulse).

For one thing, I reckon most people formally entrusted with the ministry of baptism sit down and thinks about the words at least a bit.

And for those who consciously decide to innovate and use “we” language, I’m suspicious they may often have an internal ‘reason’ (like misguided desire to use what they perceive to be ‘inclusive’ language) that would motivate them to pre-plan how to effect this innovation in Latin, too.

Also, if onlookers don’t understand Latin either, something wrongly spoken might not be ‘caught’ in the moment and corrected immediately by others.

And then there’s the can of worms about whether on top of just not eliminating issues, rescinding the right to baptize in the vernacular might cause a prudential pastoral headache on other fronts, potentially (arguably) posing a stumbling block to certain converts…

Basically I think it’s an amusing argument, and I’m genuinely happy to see it on the table — I just happen to think the counter-argument is more persuasive.

I’d be totally down for being conditionally baptized in Latin myself at this point, of course. Frankly if I could have my druthers, at this point I’d like to have the traditional old fashioned style ritual with exorcisms included.

But I’m not pushing my luck. If I can get the most bare-bones valid English language conditional baptism, I’ll thank God for that.
 
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Yes, but the actual baptism is not. “Ego baptizo te in nomine Patri et Filii et Spiritui Sancti” is not long. My grammar may be a bit wrong, but I just wrote that from memory. If I can do that and know that’s the actual part where the baptism occurs, so can a priest/deacon who does this frequently.
 
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MNathaniel said:
If I can get the most bare-bones valid English language conditional baptism, I’ll thank God for that.
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Sorry to break it to you, if you were baptize with the formula “we baptize you” then you don’t need conditional baptism, you just need baptism. No need to add the words “if you haven’t been baptized already” to your baptism.
 
MarkRome said:
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MNathaniel:
I’d be totally down for being conditionally baptized in Latin myself at this point, of course.
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You know you can be. Anyone can baptize you. It would be valid but not licit.
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Cheers Mark, appreciate the affirmation. 🙂

At the moment I’m trying to work with and through the priests who are trying to guide me. I’d like to exhaust all official resources (including recourse to canon lawyers) before going beyond the official authorities within the Church.

Among other things I’d like to avoid accidentally simulating a sacrament or causing some other new headache.

And frankly I think maybe God’s using me as, if not a canary in the coal mine here… what analogy might work for some proxy or catalyst that bounces through a system identifying issues?

Maybe my local authorities need to get more familiar with the ins and outs of sacramental validity, and the consequences of potential errors. And maybe God is using me as the bowling ball crashing through the pins, showing which ones aren’t steady and upright.

… or I mean, a much better analogy than that. Someone please help me.
 
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