Why is Infant Baptism Practised

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Anonymous9 said:
What is the reason for infant baptism?
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Catechism of the Catholic Church
1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called.50 The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.51

50 Cf. Council of Trent (1546): DS 1514; cf. Col 1:12-14.
51 Cf. CIC, can. 867; CCEO, cann. 681; 686,1.

1252 The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole “households” received baptism, infants may also have been baptized.53

53 Cf. Acts 16:15,33; 18:8; 1 Cor 1:16; CDF, instruction, Pastoralis actio : AAS 72 (1980) 1137-1156.
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  1. It is the first physical step in becoming Christian, as it has a supernatural and indelible effect on the soul.
  2. It has always been a Christian practice, since “entire households” were baptized and the promise of baptism is “for you and for your children.” (Acts 2,Acts 16, Acts 18, 1 Corinthians 1)
  3. How in heaven can it hurt?
 
Because while there is never a Divine command to baptize infants in the Bible, it’s heavily implied that it is practiced, or at least on children https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+16:15&version=RSVCE, not to mention, if baptism is the new circumcision, as it is described in Colossians chapter 2 verses 11 through 14, then baptizing infants makes a lot of sense, as it was the male child that was circumcised on the eighth day. I don’t really understand the objections to infant baptism.
 
To what others have said on this thread, I would add that the Church Fathers believed that the practice came from the apostles. This from Origen:
“The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit” ( Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 248]).

There are other quotes as well. These can be found on the Catholic Answers website:


Pax
 
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