Rejected a baptism

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DyGro

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My mother was rejected baptism by a Catholic priest, as a 6 year old girl getting ready to enter open heart surgery, and she is kind of scared by it, she believes that isn’t what Jesus would have wanted and/or have done. What should I tell her that will help her move on?
 
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That was then, when she was 6 years old. This is now. Time to put that past her and move on with her faith. Pray for that priest too.
Has she since been baptized?
 
No, she hasn’t. She was somewhat detoured from the Catholic Church after that.
 
what was the reason the priest rejected her? Tell her to let it go and come home to the Catholic Church.
 
Is it possible her parents were not planning to follow the faith after baptism? I think priests are reluctant to baptize a child in that case, because then there are expectations and duties that may not be fulfilled.
After all, if she was six, presumably someone was seeking that for her. In that case, why wasn’t she baptized as an infant, as is usual in the Catholic Church? Something missing in the details of this story, maybe?

rcspirituality.org

"Ask a Priest: Why Can't Babies of Non-practicing Parents Be Baptized?" - RC Spirituality

Q: My big issue is the right to baptize a baby that is born into a situation where he/she might or...
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Her mother was a non-practicing Catholic. Her father wasn’t Catholic at all.
 
Remind her that JESUS SAID,

" Let the children come to Me and DO NOT forbid them. For such is the kingdom of God"

Jesus still is waiting for her.
 
Tell her to talk to another priest.

A six year old wasn’t ‘rejected baptism’. A six year old according to the Church hasn’t reached the age of reason and could not be given baptism unless the parents requested it. And if her parents’ request for baptism at that particular time by that particular priest was given the answer, "No, not now’. . .

The priest may have been correct to judge that. . .or not.
The priest may have been misunderstood.
The parents may have misunderstood or been misunderstood.
Most certainly the child, working on ‘what was told to her at the age of 6’, may have misunderstood.

That was then.

This is now.

Tell your mother that what happened in the past is past.
There are many, many scenarios that could have explained the ‘why’ then, but if she never comes forward now, she’ll never know.
 
As others explained, your mother was almost certainly not baptized Catholic at age 6 because of something her parents did or said, not because of anything she herself did. In order for a child to be baptized, the parents would have had to agree to the baptism and, unless it’s an emergency where the child is at death’s door, agree to raise the child in the Catholic faith. If the parents refuse either thing, then no baptism will happen.

Regardless of whether the parents were at fault or the priest made a wrong decision back then, that was presumably decades ago since your mother is now old enough to have a child old enough to be posting here.

Please encourage your mother to speak to a priest now about being baptized. She is an adult now and in control of her own destiny, not stuck with the decisions or actions of her parents.
 
I agree with others that it really should not be an issue now, if your mother desires to enter the Church, she should do so. It is a strange situation, if her parents were not Catholic, who requested it, I am guessing her maternal grandparents? At the age of six, before the age of reason and in danger of death, a baptism normally would have been performed, as the canons with respect to infants would have applied. So the expectation of being raised Catholic would not have mattered. Some level of misunderstanding occurred, she should view it as simply that, and not let it deter her from the Church.

FYI Canon 868:

An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents.
 
At age 6, she was not able to request baptism herself. It had to be done by her parents and they were required to make certain promises at that baptism.

I would encourage her to pray, to begin to read about the Church and to open wide her heart to Christ.
 
She hasn’t been deterred from the belief in God, just the Catholic Church, to this extent. She holds a belief on religion that is quite unorthodox.
 
tafan2 said:
FYI Canon 868:

An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents.
Click to expand...
Not sure if they would go against the will of the parents. I have a Baptist in-law who as a baby (about 30 years ago now) was in danger of death at a Catholic hospital and the staff asked his Baptist parents if it was okay to baptize him before they went ahead with it. The parents said sure, go ahead, so he was baptized Catholic though he ended up being raised Baptist (obviously he survived the medical emergency).
 
Yes, you are probably right, my point was it is certainly allowed, so we just do not know why she was refused. But that its not worth blaming the Church over and holding a grudge, that it was some sort of misunderstanding or just a decision of the individual priest, not the Church as a whole.
I have known of babies who have been baptized in danger of death solely at the request of a grandparent (which is still my guess as to how this request was made).
 
DyGro said:
She hasn’t been deterred from the belief in God, just the Catholic Church, to this extent. She holds a belief on religion that is quite unorthodox.
Click to expand...
They why did she not get baptized in some other Christian church?
 
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