Do Catholic parents
have a divine right to baptize their children? They certainly have a divine
obligation to do so; and obligations usually imply rights. However, the rights
of parents to have their children baptized cannot be direct, since this would
violate the gratuitous nature of grace. In other words, there is no right to
the first grace, namely, baptism, because the first grace is underserved and
freely given. We might say instead that parents (and in general, everyone) has
a right to seek out baptism without being impeded from doing so, since baptism
(or the desire thereof) is one of the conditions necessary for salvation.
According to the 1983 Code of Canon
Law,
Parents are obliged to take care that infants are baptized as
soon as possible after the birth; in the first few weeks; or even before it. They
are to go to the pastor to request the sacrament for their child and to be
prepared properly for it. An infant in danger of death is to be baptized
without delay.[1]
Canon
867 of the 1983 Code replaces canons 770 and 771 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law.
The 1917 canons read,
Infants
should be baptized as soon as possible. Pastors and preachers should often
remind the faithful of this grave obligation. (Canon 770) Private Baptism may,
in case of necessity, be given at any time and in any place. (Canon 771)
Can. 770. Infantes quamprimum
baptizentur; et parochi ac concionatores frequenter fideles de hac gravi eorum
obligatione commoneant. Can. 771. Baptismus privatus, urgente necessitate, quovis
tempore et loco administrandus est.
According to canonist
Fr. Charles Augustine,
The reason for the important law
embodied in canon 770 is the necessity of Baptism for eternal salvation. Leo
XIII justly called the practice of delaying Baptism a detestable and impious
abuse. An instruction of the Holy Office enjoined the Coptic missionaries to
tell mothers that they are guilty of cruelty to their offspring if they delay
Baptism for fear of temporal death while exposing them to eternal death. The
term quamprimum, as soon as possible, is assumed to signify three, or, at most,
eight days from the birth of the child. An urgent necessitas would exist, e.
g., a) if the distance from church were great, say more than three leagues [a
league is equivalent to 3.45 miles]; b) if the parents stubbornly objected to
having the child brought to church. In these and similar cases private baptism
without ceremonies and rites may be administered, but the latter must be
supplied when the parents give their consent or the child can be brought to
church. When a child is so feeble that there is danger of death, the midwife
may baptize him, provided the danger is quite positive.[2]
According to Jesuit
theologian Henry Davis,
Apart
from particular diocesan prescriptions, it appears to be the general view --
and certainly it is a very common practice -- that an infant should be baptized
within about a week or ten days after its birth. Many Catholics defer Baptism
for two weeks or a little over. The view that Baptism should be administered
within three days after birth is considered too strict. St. Alphonsus,
following common opinion, thought that a delay, without reason, beyond ten or
eleven days would be a grievous sin (Theol. Mor., lib 6, n. 118, note 2). In
view of modern custom, which is known and not corrected by local Ordinaries, a
delay beyond a month without reason would be a serious sin. If there is no
probable danger to the child, parents cannot be convicted of serious sin if
they defer Baptism a little beyond three weeks at the outside, but the practice
of having an infant baptized within about a week or ten days of birth is to be
strongly commended, and indeed an earlier date may be rightly recommended.
Parish priests and preachers must remind the faithful of the grave obligation
of having their children baptized as soon as possible, consistent with the
safety of the child.[3]
Here,
one might ask whether the one month limit is set in stone, since the global infant
mortality rate varies from generation to generation. Some graphs suggest that
the infant mortality rate in 1950 was 16%,[4] whereas
the current infant mortality rate globally is 29 deaths per 1,000 live births for those
under one year of age, which
equates to a 2.9% infant mortality rate. The question becomes how do we
assess the moral culpability of parents who delay baptism in modern circumstances?
Does a lower infant mortality rate justify waiting longer to baptize one’s children?
I’ll leave that question up to the theologians. However, deferring baptism may suggest
heretical beliefs. In other words, why would parents defer baptism without
grave reason aside from sheer ignorance or disbelief in the dogma of original
sin or the efficacy of baptism?
So far I’ve only
addressed the rights and duties of parents, now I would like to address the question
of whether bishops have the authority to suspend infant baptisms. During this
current crisis, I don’t think rights of parents have been
violated since parents can baptize their children in case of emergency. The question
is just how long of a delay is necessary to justify parents taking that route?
According to canonist Fr. Stanislaus Woywod,
If
circumstances are such -- and they certainly exist in the scattered districts
of the United States -- that the priest cannot be had within a month, some lay
person should be asked by the parents to baptize the child, rather than delay
the baptism.[5]
Canon 1116 of the 1983
Code of Canon Law also makes the provision that “those who intend to enter into
a true marriage can contract it validly and licitly before witnesses only,” if they
perceive that “a person competent to assist according to the norm of law cannot
be present or approached without grave inconvenience” will not be available for
over a month. I think we can apply the same principle to infant baptism. If the
faithful cannot acquire a priest to baptize their children for over a month,
then they not only have permission, but also a duty to baptize their children. Canonist
Edward Peters also adds
Parents, unable to
secure the ministrations of a cleric during a pandemic, who baptize their own
children, should simply report such baptisms to the pastor of the parish, per canon
878.[6]
Dr. Peter’s also suggests
an audio-visual recording of the baptism, should the pastor later have any
questions about the matter & form of the sacrament.
Interesting
Quotes:
Stanislaus
Woywod, “A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law,” Volume 1, (New York:
J. F. Wagner, 1948), 396-397. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010475746
If there is no particular law limiting the time and
no special danger of death from the condition of the child or other
circumstances, one may hold with Noldin (Theol. Moral., III, 78,, n. 66.) and
Vermeersch-Creusen (Epitome Jur. Can., II, 25, n. 52) that one cannot delay
Baptism over a month without sinning gravely against the law. If circumstances
are such -- and they certainly exist in the scattered districts of the United
States -- that the priest cannot be had within a month, some lay person should
be asked by the parents to baptized the child, rather than delay the baptism.
The Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda approved an Instruction given to
catechists and other well-instructed Catholics to baptize any of the infants of
Christians, though they are in good health, if the priest is absent or it is
difficult to go to him (16 January 1804; Collectanea de. Propaganda Fide, I. n.
674.). We saw that the instruction to
the missionaries among the Nestorians insisted that baptism should be conferred
within eight days, and that, when necessary, the infants should be baptized
privately rather than delay baptism and expose the infants to the danger of
dying without it.
Anton Koch, “A
Handbook of Moral Theology,” Volume II (Sin
and the Means of Grace), edited by Arthur Preuss, (St. Louis, Mo.: B.
Herder Book Co., 1919), 119.
Under the present discipline infants must be
baptized as soon as it can conveniently be done. Most theologians deem it a
mortal sin to defer Baptism for more than a month without reasonable cause. It
is safe to say that the reception of this most important Sacrament should not
be postponed for more than a few days unless there be some very good reason for
delay.[7]
John
McQuirk, “Short Discourses for All the Sundays in the Year: According to the
Mind & Method of the Catechism of the Council of Trent,” (New York: St
Paul's library, 1908), 12.
From the necessity of Baptism to salvation even for infants,
and from the continual danger of death, because of their weakness and
tenderness, to which they are especially liable, we can understand the great
guilt which parents and others who are interested incur who allow them to
remain destitute of the grace of the Sacrament longer than necessity absolutely
requires. The faithful parents will not allow more than a week to pass without
securing this Sacrament for the new-born child; the careless parents will learn
that it were a mortal sin to defer it for a month.
Leo
XIII’s Apostolic Letter Gratae Vehementer (22 July 1899):
Venerable Brethern,... with pastoral zeal you
deplore the now well-known abuse which postpones the administration of holy
Baptism of infants for weeks, months, nay even for years, and you have done all
in your power to banish this abuse. In truth, there is nothing more worse than
this evil custom, nothing more contrary to ecclesiastical laws, for not only
does it, with unforgivable audacity, put in evident danger the eternal
salvation of many souls, but still more it undoubtedly deprives them in this
period of waiting of the ineffable gifts of sanctifying grace which are infused
by the waters of regeneration... We cannot but reproach and condemn this abuse
with all Our might as detestable in God's sight.
The
Council of Florence:
With regard to children, since the danger of death is often present and the
only remedy available to them is the sacrament of baptism by which they are
snatched away from the dominion of the devil and adopted as children of God, it
admonishes that sacred baptism is not to be deferred for forty or eighty days
or any other period of time in accordance with the usage of some people, but it
should be conferred as soon as it conveniently can; and if there is imminent
danger of death, the child should be baptized straightaway without any delay,
even by a lay man or a woman in the form of the church, if there is no priest,
as is contained more fully in the decree on the Armenians (Denziger 712).
[2] Charles
Augustine, “A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law,” Book III, Volume IV,
Chapter V (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder Book Co., 1921), 84-85.
[3]
Henry Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology,
Volume III (London & New York: Sheed and Ward, 1959), 65
[4]
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
[5]
Stanislaus Woywod, “A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law,” Volume 1,
(New York: J. F. Wagner, 1948), 396-397. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010475746
[6]
https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/canonical-deep-breath-time/
[7]
Anton Koch, “A Handbook of Moral Theology,”
Volume II (Sin and the Means of Grace),
edited by Arthur Preuss, (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder Book Co., 1919), 119.
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