Trying to understand why Church allows baptism for children raised by gay couples

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Just because the church wants to look into peoples lives sadly doesn’t mean that the relationship is going to last. And yes it might be there to help the relationship last but it doesn’t seem to be working out that way, society has changed far to much. It’s very rare to see lasting relationships in this day and age. So no I do not feel that it’s right for anyone to investigate other peoples lives.
 
Blessed Cardinal Newman, soon to be a saint, was extremely attached to a male friend of his, with whom he lived, to the point where he insisted on being buried in the same grave and cried daily for years when the man died.

St. Aelred of Rivaulx, an English monk from the 1100s, is believed by most historians to have either been gay or at least struggled with SSA. He was apparently in love with a fellow monk at his abbey and wrote a lot about friendship and love between two people of the same gender, while condemning sexual relations outside of marriage.

St. Paulinus of Nola, a bishop in the 400s who introduced bells to Christian worship, was allegedly bisexual as he had a wife but also a close male friend to whom he wrote erotic verse and love letters.

Those are the three best-supported ones I can think of. I do agree that there are many other articles claiming this or that saint was gay just based on some kind of conjecture on the part of the writer.

I also note that if all these guys were in love or had SSA but never acted on it physically, then the question arises whether one could really call them “gay” without them having actually engaged in gay sex.
 
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I thy it is misleading to imply that about Cardinal Newman. When I read an npr story about this, the one that impugned that he might have been gay was good old Fr. Martin S.J.
How can you besmirch his character like that? Apparently there were 32 volumes of correspondence between Newman and his friend, and there was nothing ambiguous in those letters.

 
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There are many, many, MANY other sources discussing Cardinal Newman’s alleged gayness dating to before Fr. Martin was even on anyone’s radar screen.

There was quite a flap about it in the British press when the sainthood investigation tried to disinter his body from the common grave he shared with his friend. (They were unsuccessful as his body had completely decomposed and there was nothing left but some metal fittings from his casket.)

Anyway, since he was also almost certainly celibate, how is it casting aspersions on him? If he had SSA, he kept it under control. And became a saint. Isn’t that quite admirable? I think so.
 
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As I said above, the sainthood investigation must have concluded he was not committing sexual sins, or he would not be scheduled for canonization.

I see no aspersion in him loving another man in a non-sexual way.
 
There’s no reason to think their relationship was romantic.
 
Depends on how you define “romantic”. They had an attachment to each other that was probably stronger than a lot of married couples.

But no sex. So no problem.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
They had an attachment to each other that was probably stronger than a lot of married couples.
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It probably was a strong friendship and sometimes parents have a better relationship with their kids then with their spouses.
 
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VanitasVanitatum said:
You can still get baptized at that point and you would mostly likely have to go to RCIA anyways so it doesn’t make much of a difference.
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What then, is the point of infant baptism? Denying them baptism because their parents are sinners… kind of defies the point of infant baptism in the first place. Might as well just to the Baptist thing and baptize everyone at the age of reason. No need for confirmation then either… one stop sacrament shopping: baptism, confirmation, first communion.
VanitasVanitatum said:
I’m all for baptizing them if they will be properly catechized.
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I’m all for baptism even if there is the slightest hope they will be properly catechized. An innocent child deserves the best shot at eternal life. My parents lost a child (the brother I never knew as I came after) to cancer at 18 months of age. Death can come at any time.
 
It depends… the Church allows it in danger of death. There are many possible scenarios in your question: parent vs. legal guardian (i.e. unfit parents), one parent vs the other parent, parents vs. grandparents.

As I said somewhere above, each case needs to be evaluated on its merits.
 
OraLabora said:
Denying them baptism because their parents are sinners… kind of defies the point of infant baptism in the first place.
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This is a strawman. If the parents have an intention to raise them as good practicing Catholics then that’s fine. However, it is possible they are only doing this for some other reason and don’t have the intention to raise them up properly and that is what should be sorted out.
 
Don’t some Catholics like the Maronites do infant confirmations as well?
 
We certainly wouldn’t want to waste any holy water on infants who aren’t deserving of baptism, would we? And we certainly wouldn’t want a priest to waste his time with imparting a sacrament on anyone unworthy, would we?

Let’s reserve Catholicism for those among us who truly deserve salvation!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

pathetic. truly, truly pathetic.
 
How does a priest determine what the intention of Catholic parents are since not all Catholic parents practice the religion in its totality? Does the priest ask the parents specific questions to make the decision whether or not to baptize the infant, or does he only ask whether they have the intention to raise their child in the Catholic faith?
 
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