Vatican: Baptisms Administered ‘In Name of the Community’ Are Invalid

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The fact the Vatican felt the need to make the clarification is troubling…makes me think it was not a “one-off” situation.
 
Maximian said:
It’s a misleading heading.

The issue is whether the baptiser says “I” or “We”.
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No, the first article states that it went way beyond that:
The Vatican said it was responding to questions on baptismal validity after recent celebrations of the sacrament of baptism used the words “In the name of the father and of the mother, of the godfather and of the godmother, of the grandparents, of the family members, of the friends, in the name of the community we baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
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Which is pretty mindboggling. Who in heaven’s name uses “In the name of the father…” to mean someone’s human father as opposed to God the Father?
 
There have been stories from time to time of some progressive-leaning Catholic “Communities” doing weird stuff like this. Usually it’s done with the motive of reducing the prominence of the priest (or deacon) performing the baptism, trying to emphasize the sacrament as a “community” event rather than the important sacred event that it is.

Father Z wrote about this over a decade ago here:


He actually speculated that it could be valid, but urged people to write to the CDF if they witness something like this happening. It looks like someone finally took him up on that advice.
 
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Off topic, but the first comment on that Fr Z article about a priest baptizing babies by immersing their rear ends in the font of water is also just plain weird.
 
Very troubling indeed. I have no idea what would motivate a priest to change the valid words of a sacrament to invalid phrases which seem to better suit his preferences to the jeopardy of souls in his care.
 
Messing with the sacraments is always a bad idea, even if there was something important that these people wanted to say.

WE, the church, celebrate the baptism of every one who is joined to Christ and His Church in this sacrament.
WE, the parents and sponsors(godparents) promise to raise this child in the faith and provide a good example.

In the sacrament of baptism, I, whoever is presiding, acts in the place of Christ to share the very life of God with a new member of the Church. Jesus is one person who instituted all the sacraments to convey grace to the recipients of those sacraments. It is the same at the Eucharist when the priest acts in the place of Christ to say, “This is my body.” If that was changed to “this is our Body,” just about everybody would recognize that as invalid. If the priest said. “We absolve you” I would want to know who was in the confessional box with him.
 
There was another ruling from the CDF a few years ago because some non-Catholics had changed the baptismal formula to baptize, “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier.” That quote is from memory and might be slightly different. The CDF was very clear that the revised formula was invalid and a conditional baptism should not be used to correct the error. That person would need to be treated as someone who had never been baptized.

Sacraments are very sturdy and can withstand lots of mistakes. Even an unbaptized atheist can perform a valid baptism if he or she uses the proper formula and intends to do what the Church asks. I don’t know how often that happens, but it could happen if a nurse or doctor is asked by a mother to baptize a newborn baby who is in imminent danger of death.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
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Maximian:
It’s a misleading heading.

The issue is whether the baptiser says “I” or “We”.
Click to expand...
No, the first article states that it went way beyond that:
The Vatican said it was responding to questions on baptismal validity after recent celebrations of the sacrament of baptism used the words “In the name of the father and of the mother, of the godfather and of the godmother, of the grandparents, of the family members, of the friends, in the name of the community we baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Click to expand...
Which is pretty mindboggling. Who in heaven’s name uses “In the name of the father…” to mean someone’s human father as opposed to God the Father?
Click to expand...
No, this is just given as an example. The issue is indeed whether the baptiser says “I” or “We”.
 
Anesti33 said:
No, this is just given as an example. The issue is indeed whether the baptiser says “I” or “We”.
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You responded to a two-day-old post. My comment was posted before the full Vatican response was available to read. The articles about it confused several of us as shown by my and other people’s comments yesterday. The discussion on three different threads has progressed since then.
 
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