Q. Are all Christian baptisms valid?
A. The One Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium 8). Simply put, this means that the Catholic Church has received from Christ “the fullness of the means of salvation which he has willed: correct and complete confession of faith, full sacramental life, and ordained ministry in apostolic succession” (CCC 830). As Catholics we should not shy away from this reality. We know that what the Catholic Church teaches corresponds to the objective reality of existence that God has created. To be very blunt, we are right.
However, just because we are right does not mean that every other faith is completely wrong. It means that they lack the fullness of Truth. To borrow an analogy, imagine light shining through a perfectly clean, clear window. There is nothing stopping the light, so all of the light is able to get through.
Now imagine a window that is partially covered in handprints or has something splashed across it. Because there are things getting in the way, all of the light is not able to shine through the window. Some light still does, but not all of it. The Catholic Church is the clear window, other ecclesiastical communities are the smudged window. They get some of the light, but the Catholic Church gets it all.
One element of the “light” that makes it through the window of most Christian traditions is baptism. Generally speaking, Christian baptisms are valid. Most Christians recognize the elements that make baptism baptism, namely, the necessity of pouring true water (the matter) and baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (the form).
A less commonly spoken requirement for validity is the necessity of the minister to intend what the Church intends when celebrating a sacrament. While a Protestant minister would likely not think of themselves fulfilling this requirement, the reality is that, so long as they believe that baptism forgives sins and incorporates the one being baptized into the life of the Trinity and the Church, then they are doing what the Catholic Church intends, whether they recognize that or not.
Having the valid matter, form, and intention is what determines whether a baptism is valid or not. Therefore, for those faith communities who observe rituals that are referred to as baptism but lack valid matter, form, and/or intention, their baptisms are invalid.
For example, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not have valid baptism because their understanding of the Trinity is so different from that of the Church that, “such doctrinal diversity, regarding the very notion of God, prevents the minister of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from having the intention of doing what the Catholic Church does when she confers baptism, that is, doing what Christ willed her to do when he instituted and mandated the sacrament of Baptism” (“The Question of the Validity of Baptism Conferred in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Fr. Luis Ladaria).
Unfortunately, even baptisms conferred in the Catholic Church are not always guaranteed to be valid, as some recent news stories throughout our country have revealed. In 2020, for example, a priest from the Archdiocese of Detroit reviewed the video of his own baptism ceremony when he was an infant, and realized that the deacon had used the incorrect words. He was not validly baptized, despite believing he had been ordained a priest three years earlier. (He was then baptized and ordained.)
Even though situations like his have led to significant time and effort to address, they reveal something beautiful about the Catholic Church, namely, we believe what we say we do.
It would be easy to simply wave a magic wand and say that an invalidly baptized priest is still a priest because everyone thought he was and it would be too much work to fix or because God doesn’t care about all these rules and regulations (which is really code for I don’t care about rules or regulations), but instead the Church (in this case individual dioceses) goes through all the effort of baptizing the priest, ordaining the priest, and regularizing all the sacraments he performed and witnessed because we recognize that we have to do that.
Our theology is not just nice ideas a bunch of old men in robes made up, but God’s revelation regarding the objective means by which human beings can enter into eternal life. God can and does work outside the sacramental system, but the rest of us are bound to it, and we should not take any chances with it.
This question was answered by Father Caleb La Rue, chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
