Should Catholic baptisms of infants be discouraged?

Baptism is not just for Catholics.

I don’t think it should be discouraged. Parents give their children guidance as they feel is appropriate with their children and then when the child is old enough, they are free to change religions if they want to.

Better infant baptism than a bris.

At least the christening leaves no lasting marks and the child won’t remember it.

No. If the parents want their child baptized then I’m fine with it. The child is going to grow up in that religion anyway. Or, the parents might not be very religious, but are doing it out of tradition and a reason hit the family to get together.

As long as it’s not a relative baptizing the baby without the parents permission, I think it’s fine.

The religions that do infant baptism do it for a reason.

Whenever this subject comes up, I’m reminded of the case of Edgardo Mortara, a 19thcentury middle class Jewish kid growing up in Rome. When he’s still an infant he gets dangerously sick. It looks like he’s going to die. His Catholic nanny panics one night and performs an emergency baptism to ensure her charge will go to heaven. The kid doesn’t die. He lives on, goes to school, all is well. Until one day Vatican agents showed up at the door and took him away. He was Catholic and not to be raised in a Jewish household by his Jewish parents. It’s and interesting story and there is a lot more to it.

During the run-up to my Confirmation, it was stressed that Catholicism is a willful act, not a passive one. Someone must choose to be a Catholic. I remember having the fleeting thought that this wasn’t the case with baptisms. Infants only days old don’t make decisions like that. Baptisms are involuntary. And if you thought about the consequences of me refusing Confirmation, that was involuntary too. But you pick your battles in life. And like most of my Catechism, those thoughts drifted off and were replaced by more important things like baseball and girls.

No. it does not physically alter or damage the child. All of parenting is, in a way indoctrination. We make loads of decisions that affect a child way more than baptism.
The child can opt out later. I was raised in a very conservative household, and I chose a different path. That’s just one example.

If you feel this way then don’t join a Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal or any other denomination that baptizes infants.
Others have felt this way, that’s why there’s Baptists, Pentacostals, Seventh Day Advntists, Assembly of God and a whole host of other Christian denominations.
If a child grows up and becomes a non believer then he will consider his baptism some silly little ritual like the Easter bunny. If he doesn’t acknowledge the validity of his Baptisim he can join a church who will baptize as an adult.
Or he will follow the faith of his family and cherish his Baptisim.
I lean really left and believe in freedom of religion and freedom to raise kids in whatever tradition the parents choose as long as they’re not harming the children.

As someone who used to do child protective work, this question also makes me wonder who, specifically, is supposed to do the “discouraging?” Is the government supposed to do it? I can assure you it’s hard enough to police and deal with, through the legal system, physical abuse of children. It’s equally difficult to deal with neglect, with children who don’t have adequate food, housing, education, medical care. Who is supposed to deal with policing how children are raised by religion, and who thinks that it’s someone else’s issue to deal with? As @Judi said, it’s up to the parents to choose, as long as there’s no harm, i.e. pedophilia, whipping i.e. “spare the rod,” etc.

By that logic, parents would not enroll their kids in school until the child was old enough to decide where they wanted to go.

@Judi mentions some other denominations that traditionally baptize infants. In these churches, baptism is considered a sacrament, performed …in the Name of (by the authority of) the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit necessary for the remission of Original Sin.

Other denominations consider baptism to be a necessary act for Salvation, so it is incumbent upon a believer to be baptized (in this link, by immersion) when the believer professes salvation by Jesus Christ.

It’s a meaningless ritual.

@Judi I find it interesting you say you lean left in letting the parents choose how to raise their child religiously. I always think of myself as fairly “conservative” in that I would be fairly protective of my kids religiously, and fervently respect how a parent wants to raise their child religiously. I think of religiously liberal people as saying things like, “they can choose what they want when their older,” and, “it’s fine for them to go to church with their friends and explore.” I’m not so open if I had young children. I am completely open to them being friends with people from every religion, even celebrating holidays, and being told the stories and meanings of the holidays, but not ok if it borders, or is blatant prostelytizing.

@Judi I’m an ex-Catholic turned deist, so I pretty much have no connection with any religious institution

Like @jca, my first thought upon reading this Q was: and who are you expecting will be the “discouragers”? And exactly what methods will be used?

But, regardless, no amount of discouragement will have any significant effect upon religious Catholics because they actually do sincerely believe that if the child is not baptized as an infant and then dies before They’re of accountable age, they’ll end up in hell (like the historical example given about the Jewish child with the devout Nanny.)

But, even so, your premise is flawed because you’re making the assumption that baptism means that the child is officially enrolled as a member of an organized religion and that is simply not the case.

The primary purpose of the ceremony, in addition to providing protection from the flames of hell, (for the RCC not Protestants) is for the parents to promise to God and the church that they will do their best to raise this child “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” so that he may renounce sin and be a follower of Christ. The child is basically a passive entity. It is the parents who are doing the promising (in addition to the Godparents if the parents should die) Therefore, nothing official is happening to nor being conferred upon the child as your premise suggests. The conferring and sin renouncing, etc is saved for the confirmation ceremony when, supposedly, the child is of an accoubtable age to do so for themselves. (Since you’ve grown up in such a heavily influenced RCC atmosphere in your country I’m a little surprised you didn’t know that :)

BTW prior to the third century when Christianity became entwined with the Roman empire, there was adult baptism. Since Christianity was not as yet being marketed as a “hell-insurance policy” there wasn’t all the trumped up urgency of saving infants who died from ending up in hell. There was also no conversion by sword point. Christ never taught that at all. it says that “they went everywhere teaching and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ” Threatening was not in the original plan.

All that crap didn’t start until after Constantine followed by the dark ages, RCC official teaching and scaring people into the faith.

Baptism was for adult believers as an outward sign of an inner change (renouncing sin and following Christ) in obedience to the scriptural command to do so. And thats it.

All the rest came afterward. Obviously the plagues and high death tolls of that period prompted the urgency of baptizing infants. But if that had not been preceded by the threat of eternal roasting, there would have been no need.

So, the biggest problem isn’t with Baptism. The problem is the distortion of Christs teachings by adding in the whole “literal never-ending roasting in the flames of hell” nonsense.

That entire doctrine did not exist until AFTER the 3rd. century. Its totally based upon mistranslating the different Greek terms into the one word “hell” as well as mistranslating its various modifiers into the single word “eternal” (or everlasting).

Had not the RCC veered off, there would be no infant baptism by any church. It would be for adult believers, as it was originally intended. So the fact that it is so prevalent today is symptomatic of a far larger problem and therefore a moot point as to whether it should be discouraged for infants.

Tackling the prevalence of the whole “eternal flames of hell” nonsense (and subsequent selling of the gospel as merely a hell-insurance policy) is the larger issue because it is such a distortion of the nature and character of God.

All religion should be discouraged.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to require believers to abandon what they consider the salvation of their child’s immortal soul. Parents are expected to indoctrinate their children in a variety of disciplines including the faith of the child, and from the perspective of the society this is a beneficial thing. Besides, there are babies baptized Catholic that live lifetimes rarely seeing the interior of a church again. In the end, whether the indoctrination involves Catholicism or shoplifting, the matter of whether it will stick is determined by the makeup and judgement of the kid. There are certainly enough “fallen” Catholics out there to validate this opinion.

My understanding of infant baptism is that it is not for the purpose of saving the child’s soul, but a bond between parents and Church that they will raise the child according to God’s plan.
I am not Catholic, so I am going with what I had believed. Am I wrong?

No, youre not wrong regarding churches OTHER THAN the RCC. They may have modified things somewhat but for centuries, the RCC very much did believe and taught that unbaptized infants did not have a rosy future should they die suddenly.

Thats why I specificied that that viewpoint only applied to the RCC (since the Q specified Catholic practices)

And, yes, the second part of the purpose of the baptismal ceremony is as you stated (and I did previously) that the service is for the parents to promise the church to raise the child in a godly way. So, its not enrolling the child in the church. So, discouraging it is a moot point.

Somethings fall in the realm of it’s the parent’s prerogative. This is one of them.

@Here2_4 It’s my understanding that Catholics think that if the infant isn’t baptized and he or she dies, the poor thing will go to hell. Jesus I hate religion sometimes. What a sick concept.

However, I had my kids “dedicated” at about the age of 8. It’s the same process, but my reasons were the reasons you gave @Here2_4.

It’s my understanding that the Ecumenical Council has most recently decided that unbaptized babies go to purgatory and eventually heaven.

Granted, that information comes from the satirical play, “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You.”

Actually, the Church teaches that the souls of the “unbaptized just” (meaning anyone who has not been baptized, but has not committed a serious sin) enter into a state (not a place) of limbo, where they will remain until their “Original Sin” (inherited by all humans) will be expunged at the Second Coming.

At one point they did away with limbo. I don’t know if they brought it back.

Wasn’t that purgatory?

Isn’t it a bitch that Original Sin, which is the only reason any of us were born, gets inherited?

I was looking for the script of Sister Mary online – I gave my copy of the script to a friend who grew up in Catholic school and would appreciate it – and instead found this essay about the play, which has more accurate information.

“The Ecumenical Council started on Oct. 11, 1962 . . . . Pope John 23rd died in 1963
before it was finished.
The purpose of the Ecumenical Council was to re-look at church
teachings, and to make the church come into the present century. It was
a very liberalizing event . . . and for Church development at least (and
for Church liberals), it’s a real shame that particular Pope died so
early.
Among the changes that happened were: the Mass in Latin was changed
to in English (or vernacular of whatever country). The priest now
looked out at the people, rather than having his back to the audience
(which had been more mysterious). Teachings like St. Christopher were
discarded as myth, since there was no historical background. I believe
that it was the Council that stopped the teaching of Limbo for
unbaptized babies and stopped teaching that eating meat on Friday was
a sin.”

Link – pdf warning

I just came across this survey (~) for anyone interested in what those who are affected the most might be thinking about the topic :)
.
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http://babylonbee.com/news/newborns-undecided-paedobaptism-survey-finds/

By WHO? Should you take care of someone else’s child NO!!!

Yay for thread necromancy!