Sacramental Record Question

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FastLearner

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Hello,

I seem to have a problem with my Sacramental Records and hope you guys can help (the rectories at the respective churches aren’t being clear).

I was Baptized in one church (let’s call it Church A) and received the Sacraments of Confirmation and First Communion in a second church (let’s call it Church B). Apparently, Church B never sent records to Church A, so Church A will not issue a baptismal certificate with notations for Confirmation and First Communion. In addition, it seems like Church B will not resend the records to Church A (for unknown reasons).

If I request a certificate of Confirmation and First Communion from Church B, then forward it myself to Church A, will that be sufficient to get the record updated, or do the records have to come directly from Church B?

On one hand, I understand that a sealed document is a sealed document and should be acceptable. But, on the other hand, I know of many (non-Church related) cases where official documents have to be directly transmitted to prevent forgery.

Any info on whether I can just do this document forwarding would be appreciated. If I can’t get away with it, I guess I could go over the head of the woman working the rectory at Church B, but I don’t want to get into that fight if I don’t have to.

Thank you.

p.s. I know that I can use the certificates for individual Sacraments in place of a baptismal certificate with notations - I want to correct the records for posterity and to prevent any problems in the future.
 
It’s very odd that Church B will not re-send the records. In the parish where I worked, that happened several times and we just passed the appropriate records along. I would ask the secretary the reason, and if you don’t get a satisfactory response, you may want to ask the pastor. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

As someone who acted as a procurator-advocate for a lot of annulments, I would love to see a centralized record-keeping system!
 
Hopefully this isn’t for a future annulment!

I asked the person in Church B, and I got a reason that didn’t make sense (it was already sent many years ago). I could go over her head, but I don’t want to if I don’t have to.

I guess I could just be patient, send the records with a letter, and see what happens (this isn’t a pressing issue). I just thought that if someone knows for a fact “No, it must be directly send from one church to another” (or the opposite), that would save me some effort.

Thanks.
 
For the baptismal record to be updated, it needs to come from Church B. And you’re right, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s pretty easy to send.
 
FastLearner said:
Hopefully this isn’t for a future annulment!

I asked the person in Church B, and I got a reason that didn’t make sense (it was already sent many years ago). I could go over her head, but I don’t want to if I don’t have to.
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Just keep insisting until she does it. I don’t know if it’s something in the printer ink, but my experience of Church secretaries is that they tend to be ever so slightly mad - sometimes you just have to keep repeating yourself until they say, “OH, why didn’t you say so? I’ll get right on that.” :rolleyes: 🤷
 
FastLearner said:
Any info on whether I can just do this document forwarding would be appreciated. If I can’t get away with it, I guess I could go over the head of the woman working the rectory at Church B, but I don’t want to get into that fight if I don’t have to.

.
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call the chancery, but first speak with the pastor (not secretary, not janitor, not DRE, not anyone else) at Parish B and find out why in violation of canon law the notifications were not sent to your baptismal parish. raise a stink it is your right. the notification should go from pastor to pastor, not parishioner to pastor. It is the pastor’s responsibility to maintain sacramental records properly, he can delegate, but he is still responsible. If he does not help you, then go to the chancery (usually vicar general of the diocese or whoever handles complaints of this nature).

from past experience in rectifying situations such as yours I can tell that quite often the reason the notices were not sent is that something was missing–proper spelling of a name, sponsor’s name, birth certificate etc. --the parents or candidate never responded to requests for proper information, so the problem was forgotten and no notice was sent. nobody’s fault now, but there usually is a reason, but it is still the pastor’s responsibility if his staff members drop the ball.
 
FastLearner said:
Hello,

I seem to have a problem with my Sacramental Records and hope you guys can help (the rectories at the respective churches aren’t being clear).

I was Baptized in one church (let’s call it Church A) and received the Sacraments of Confirmation and First Communion in a second church (let’s call it Church B). Apparently, Church B never sent records to Church A, so Church A will not issue a baptismal certificate with notations for Confirmation and First Communion. In addition, it seems like Church B will not resend the records to Church A (for unknown reasons).

If I request a certificate of Confirmation and First Communion from Church B, then forward it myself to Church A, will that be sufficient to get the record updated, or do the records have to come directly from Church B?

On one hand, I understand that a sealed document is a sealed document and should be acceptable. But, on the other hand, I know of many (non-Church related) cases where official documents have to be directly transmitted to prevent forgery.

Any info on whether I can just do this document forwarding would be appreciated. If I can’t get away with it, I guess I could go over the head of the woman working the rectory at Church B, but I don’t want to get into that fight if I don’t have to.

Thank you.

p.s. I know that I can use the certificates for individual Sacraments in place of a baptismal certificate with notations - I want to correct the records for posterity and to prevent any problems in the future.
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Individual Sacramental certificates are not official Church documents. Generally you cannot obtain the records from one and forward them to the other. Because today there is too much possibility that they could be tampered with even with seals.

The Catholic Church that you were Baptized in and the Catholic Church you received your First Holy Communion and Confirmation in are both in the same diocese? If so contact the diocese and let them deal with it. If not contact the diocese where you received your First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Marriage(?) and allow them to instruct church “B” to forward the information to church “A” of the other diocese.
 
Thank you for the replies. The parishes are in different diocese, and I live too far away to visit.

So I’ll try the rectory one more time at Church B and tell the secretary that I can’t forward the documents myself. If she gives me any trouble, I’ll ask to speak to the pastor. If I have a problem there, I’ll go to the diocese.

If I have to go to the diocese, who should I contact? It’s the Diocese of Trenton (http://www.dioceseoftrenton.org/). If I search for “Chancery”, I get a bunch of people. Should I contact the “Chancellor” (a Msgr) or the Administrative Assistant? Or should I just call the general number and ask for Chancery / Archives? Maybe I should just write a letter to the Monsignor?

Thanks again!
 
FastLearner said:
Thank you for the replies. The parishes are in different diocese, and I live too far away to visit.

So I’ll try the rectory one more time at Church B and tell the secretary that I can’t forward the documents myself. If she gives me any trouble, I’ll ask to speak to the pastor. If I have a problem there, I’ll go to the diocese.

If I have to go to the diocese, who should I contact? It’s the Diocese of Trenton (http://www.dioceseoftrenton.org/). If I search for “Chancery”, I get a bunch of people. Should I contact the “Chancellor” (a Msgr) or the Administrative Assistant? Or should I just call the general number and ask for Chancery / Archives? Maybe I should just write a letter to the Monsignor?

Thanks again!
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Archives would work.
 
No one else has mentioned this so may I add as another option - perhaps if Church B’s office were to write to Church A and request the records? Possibly the secretary in A would be less-inclined to brush off the secretary of the other parish.
 
NHInsider said:
No one else has mentioned this so may I add as another option - perhaps if Church B’s office were to write to Church A and request the records? Possibly the secretary in A would be less-inclined to brush off the secretary of the other parish.
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this is the usual way to proceed, and usually the most efficient.
 
jmcrae said:
Just keep insisting until she does it. I don’t know if it’s something in the printer ink, but my experience of Church secretaries is that they tend to be ever so slightly mad - sometimes you just have to keep repeating yourself until they say, “OH, why didn’t you say so? I’ll get right on that.” :rolleyes: 🤷
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On behalf of church secretaries everywhere – please consider we take our orders from the pastor and sometimes even we may wonder about the rationale for those orders.
 
For the record (sorry for not following up earlier), I was forwarded to a very helpful person at Church A. They accepted faxed photocopies of the documents sent to me from Church B.

I guess they weren’t too concerned about forgery. But then again, why would someone forge documents like that?
 
I am glad you got everything straightened out. I AM a church secretary…& I am not mean! 😃

The main reason for checking on baptismal certificates is because of marriage–& I can tell you–many priests are notoriously BAD at keeping sacramental records. The priest I work for now is meticulous & records everything within hours…but the last priest had drinking problems & things were neglected, and the priest before him was a long distance runner who had no time or patience for record keeping (once, he added a confirmation class months later–with many kids missing from the list, and ALL listed as having been baptized at the same church–ours!)

Anyway, it’s too bad you didn’t call my church–we’d gladly have sent the records along to the appropriate church, and have done so many times.

On a side note–I have had people call asking for genealogical info. from old sacramental records. Most of the old stuff is all in Latin! :rolleyes:
 
churchsecretary said:
On a side note–I have had people call asking for genealogical info. from old sacramental records. Most of the old stuff is all in Latin! :rolleyes:
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Granted my parish’s old records only go back 50 years (we are a young town) but the only thing in Latin are notations such as ‘parents not married’ in the baptismal register. In the registers for the other parishes (dating back to the 1920s), there’s very little Latin and one register is just a huge book with entries written in long form "I, the undersigned have on this day, July 1, 1948, baptized Julie Anne, legitimate daughter of John Doe and Jane White, born in Smallville on June 24 of this same year. Godparents are Jim Brown & Janet Green.

I love reading the old registers. I even found an entry that was mistranslated and from that day on the family name changed. It was originally in French but when they translated the father’s given name became the family name and the family name was dropped from that branch of the family tree. So John, son of Jack Grey became John Jack instead of John Grey.
 
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