Hi all,
I’ve been attending Latin Rite churches, but have a question regarding my status. I was baptized Roman Catholic when I was a child, but, in high school, was rebaptized, confirmed, and received my first communion as Coptic Orthodox. Then, I was received into the Catholic Church in college. I thought I was Latin Rite, but am I technically Coptic Catholic?
Help!
You do not provide enough information, unfortunately.
What matters as an infant is not who baptises you or where your baptism took place. When you were baptised as an infant you would have become a member of the same canonical church as your parents. It may be inferred that your parents had you baptised in the Latin Catholic Church because they are Latin Catholics. However, they may not be and without knowing their church
sui iuris (i.e. canonical church) it is not possible to give you a definitive answer.
You should not have been ‘re-baptised’ by the Coptic Orthodox Church. However, sadly, some Orthodox churches do not recognise Catholic sacraments as valid and so would insist you be baptised and chrismated by them.
From a Catholic POV there is a true saying, ‘Once a catholic always a Catholic’; therefore, from the perspective of the Catholic Church you remained a Catholic when you started to participate in the life of the Coptic Orthodox Church and your ‘re-baptism’ had no effect because you were already baptised and can
only be baptised once.
When you reverted back to the Catholic Church, and, BTW, welcome home, you would have canonically become whatever Catholic you were before. Therefore, if you were a Latin (aka Roman) Catholic you are a Latin Catholic. if you were, just as a random example, a Melkite Catholic you are still a Melkite Catholic.
Irrespective of your canonical church you can attend any Eastern or Latin Catholic church, fulfil your Sunday and holy day obligations in any Eastern or Latin Catholic church, receive Holy Communion at any Eastern or Latin Catholic church, and go to confession at any Eastern or Latin Catholic church.
To know which Catholic church
sui iuris you canonically belong you will need to know the canonical church of your parents. (Hopefully they are members of the same one because if not it complicates matters a little.)
As an aside, and I do not know the answer to this, others will do I am sure. I do not know if the current rules (Code of Canon Law [1983]) are retrospective. If you were, like me, baptised some time prior to the current Code coming into force the former Code (1917) may apply. (I suspect the rules would be similar but cannot say with certainty and confess to being too lazy to go and find my copy of the 1917 Code and look it up.)
