Should all men presenting for ordination be conditionally baptised?

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StudentMI said:
Exactly. I have a friend who is a very traditional Catholic. Very nice guy, just very uncompromising in his faith. He’s treated like a pariah for his views among fellow Catholics . Meanwhile I’ve seen those with differing views on sexuality and other things coddled by priests and parish communities.
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I wonder if there’s a perspective that the “rigid” people have an interior foundation of faith that those who interpret teachings loosely lack? And that’s why it’s perceived as ‘safe’ to ignore, mock, or otherwise undermine the “rigid”, in the course of trying to help others? People don’t think the “rigid” are vulnerable? Don’t think they can actually harm them or lead to them falling away? Or maybe they really do also think it’s better if the “rigid” fall away, because they honestly think the “rigid” don’t follow the same religion, and are misleading others, and they honestly want them out.

I don’t know.
 
MNathaniel said:
My baptism in particular belongs to the population of baptisms about which there is reasonable doubt.
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No – not “reasonable doubt”; merely, “an unasserted possibility.”
MNathaniel said:
If you really think my diocese is acting reasonably, when – by the way – persons within it know that I am falling away from Catholicism over it… sweet mercy.
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I think that, short of any evidence that your particular baptism might be invalid (which, I’d hope you’d agree, you do not possess), the place to resolve the question isn’t in the diocesan canon law office, but in helping you reach a point at which you can trust that you’re already validly baptized. In other words, if the anxiety is in your mind, as such, then this is the place to work to find a way to eliminate the anxiety.
MNathaniel said:
Those who try to follow a teaching as-written are “rigid” and can go straight to hell (or at least be abandoned and mocked in this life).
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“Rigid” seems a moniker that isn’t an objective evaluation, but rather, a subjective one that implies “following rules which are unimportant.”

Would we call lawmakers who require murder laws to be followed to the letter of the law “rigid”? Of course not. This is a means of tarring-and-feathering those with whom one does not agree.

Not cool.
 
Gorgias said:
“Rigid” seems a moniker that isn’t an objective evaluation, but rather, a subjective one that implies “following rules which are unimportant.”

Would we call lawmakers who require murder laws to be followed to the letter of the law “rigid”? Of course not. This is a means of tarring-and-feathering those with whom one does not agree.

Not cool.
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Wait someone up above said they were doubting the Church because of rigidity. So I thought rigidity meant something. Plus the Pope has used it!
 
FiveLinden said:
However, in watching it I realised that all this could have been avoided if those being ordained were routinely conditionally baptised.
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First, I would say his baptism was not invalid. I think that the position taken in this case is kind of ridiculous. However, I would say no, men being presented for ordination should not be re-baptized unless there is a reason to believe they were either not baptized, or not validly baptized. I think doing so would teach through action something that the Bible doesn’t teach, that there are different baptisms, or that initial baptism is not sufficient, etc. There is one baptism for remission of sins. One. God is capable of making it efficacious. Let us place our faith and confidence in God’s ability to save.
 
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StudentMI said:
Wait someone up above said they were doubting the Church because of rigidity. So I thought rigidity meant something. Plus the Pope has used it!
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It is precisely because of rigidity on minor points that I am having issues. This is one of them.

We call it, in Québec, “s’enfarger dans les fleurs du tapis”, translates to “tripping over the flowers in the carpet”. It’s like giving someone a speeding ticket for being 1 km/h over the limit. Technically an infraction, yes but…
 
Hodos said:
First, I would say his baptism was not invalid. I think that the position taken in this case is kind of ridiculous. However, I would say no, men being presented for ordination should not be re-baptized unless there is a reason to believe they were either not baptized, or not validly baptized. I think doing so would teach through action something that the Bible doesn’t teach, that there are different baptisms, or that initial baptism is not sufficient, etc. There is one baptism for remission of sins. One. God is capable of making it efficacious. Let us place our faith and confidence in God’s ability to save.
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Well, speaking as an unbeliever, it seems to me that there is only one criteria of validity for a Catholic baptism as far as Catholics are concerned, and that is that the Church considers it valid. In this case the Church considers it invalid. That being so it seems logical to me that the Church should guard against the consequences of such invalidity by conditionally baptising those being ordained.
 
StudentMI said:
I personally think people should be conditionally baptized upon entering the Church. Why not? Some false sense of ecumenism?
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Margaret_Ann said:
Pre-VII, most non-Catholics entering the Church (except maybe the Orthodox) were conditionally baptized iirc.
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I, for one, would rest more easily if that practice were restored. I saw a baptism on television the other day where the minister held the person up by the back, said “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (omitting the words “and of”, which Protestants commonly do, in spite of the fact that Matthew 28:19 in the KJV clearly uses these words), then immersing them one time, and one time only, in the water. Is this valid? Without going to my favorite sources of Ott, Jone, and Woywod/Smith, I cannot say.

I know we try to cater to Protestants and their sensibilities any way we can, but when it comes to something as important as the validity of a baptism, I’d say it should be a case of “when in doubt, whip it out”.
 
FiveLinden said:
In this case the Church considers it invalid.
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Actually, there are many within the Church that would argue with that conclusion. That decision was made by a single bishop, not the entire Church, and if you have read other articles about it, there is plenty of disagreement on whether the sacrament was invalid. That being said, the Church has always held that a administered baptism administered in the name of the Triune God be recognized regardless of who administered it. Even during the Donatist and Novatianist controversies, baptisms were recognized as valid. And during the controversy of the lapsed, the sacraments administered by even lapsed priests were accepted as valid because it is not the priest doing the work, but God. And again, my point was that conditionally baptizing people actually teaches something that is against Church teaching, namely that one’s original baptism is somehow inefficacious due to error by man, when it is God who carries it out.
 
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The decision was made not by a single bishop, but by the Church’s highest authority, in the name of the Roman Pontiff, duly issued by the Holy See, and therefore the ruling on invalidity of “We baptize …” is binding on the whole Church. There is no more debate about the question of validity anymore because it has been definitively answered.
 
That’s probably a piece of sarcasm by EOT.

IIRC, in 1936 they didn’t have video cameras or if they existed only the movie companies had them. PF is 83 years old and his family probably didn’t have that luxury.
 
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Margaret_Ann said:
That’s probably a piece of sarcasm by EOT.

IIRC, in 1936 they didn’t have video cameras or if they existed only the movie companies had them. PF is 83 years old and his family probably didn’t have that luxury.
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I think we all know (as does the priest who posted it) that the article is a satirical joke and that Pope Francis’ baptism probably wouldn’t have been filmed on a newsreel by John Ford or any of that.

“Eye of the Tiber” is the Catholic equivalent of “Babylon Bee” or “The Onion” - all of its articles are satire.

I hope you didn’t take the article seriously.
 
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There is absolutely nothing to preclude surviving film of a baptism in 1936, other than the fact that personal Super-8 didn’t come on the scene until the 1960s. I don’t know the state of the film industry in Argentina in the 1930s, but in these USA it was alive and kicking, and was very likely to be filming baptisms for whatever reason. Although I doubt an obscure Italian couple in Argentina would have been likely subjects for a documentary film.
 
Isn’t it equally true that a lot of priests, then and now - or at least, until relatively recently in many areas - would have forbidden filming and picture-taking during the ceremony itself, as inappropriate and taking away from the solemnity of the Sacrament?
 
Pitcairn17 said:
Isn’t it equally true that a lot of priests, then and now - or at least, until relatively recently in many areas - would have forbidden filming and picture-taking during the ceremony itself, as inappropriate and taking away from the solemnity of the Sacrament?
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Doubt it. Almost all priests allow filming of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony since way back when (1930s, maybe even earlier), why would the Sacrament of Baptism be any different?
 
It’s true though. Filming of weddings and Confirmations are not permitted in my parish, mainly because the videographers can be quite disruptive.
 
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