Infant Baptism
Ave Maria series
197 Why does the Church adhere to the practice of infant baptism?
From antiquity the Church has practiced infant Baptism. There is one reason for this: before we decide on God, God has decided on us. Baptism is therefore a grace, and undeserved gift of God, who accepts us unconditionally. Believing parents who want what is best for their child want Baptism also, in which the child is freed from the influence of original sin and the power of death. [1250, 1282]
Infant Baptism presupposes that Christian parents will raise the baptized child in the faith. It is an injustice to deprive the child of Baptism out of a mistaken liberality. One cannot deprive a child of love so that he can later decide on love for himself; so too it would be an injustice if believing parents were to deprive their child of God’s grace in Baptism. Just as every person is born with the ability to speak yet must learn a language, so too every person is born with the capacity to believe but must become acquainted with the faith. At any rate, Baptism can never be imposed on anyone. If someone has received Baptism as a little child, he must “ratify” it later in life—this means he must say Yes to it, so that it becomes fruitful.
“The gift received by newborn infants needs to be accepted by them freely and responsibly once they have reached adulthood: the process of growing up will then bring them to receive the sacrament of Confirmation, which precisely strengthens the baptized and confers upon each one the “seal” of the Holy Spirit.” Pope Benedict XVI, January 8, 2008
[1250, 1282]
The Baptism of infants
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.(compare Council of Trent (1546): Denzinger-Schönmetzer 1514; compare Colossians 1:12-14)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.(compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 867; Corpus Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, cann. 681; 686,)51 –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition
IN BRIEF
1282 Since the earliest times, Baptism has been administered to children, for it is a grace and a gift of God that does not presuppose any human merit; children are baptized in the faith of the Church. Entry into Christian life gives access to true freedom.–CCC
Sacrament A modern
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