By Bob Sullivan
There are a lot of different beliefs out there regarding baptism, especially the baptism of infants. Numerous non-Catholic faiths teach that baptism is merely a symbol or a ceremony. Some believe that no infant should be baptized under any circumstances and others are okay with baptism, as long as everyone agrees that it is simply received as a sign that a person has been saved and is entering into the congregation as a “believer.”
The Catholic teaching on baptism has not changed for 20 centuries. We baptize our infants, we also baptize adults who enter the Church, as long as they have not already received a valid baptism in another Christian faith beforehand. We believe that baptism is necessary for salvation because, among other things, it places an indelible mark on our soul as a member of God’s family, it cleanses us from original sin and actual sin, it confers sanctifying grace (which is a share of God’s own life), it confers actual grace (which is God’s way of helping us overcome temptation to sin), it makes us a temple of the Holy Spirit, it bestows virtue in us, and it makes us eligible to enter Heaven (CCC 1213-1284).
Therefore, as Catholics, we believe that baptism is way more than a symbol, a ceremony, or a public profession of faith. And we believe you should be baptized (and only once) as soon as possible, even when you are moments, hours, or days old.
So who is right? The non-Catholic who criticizes us for baptizing infants and believing that baptism is necessary for salvation, or the Church? Let’s look at the argument to see which one stands up to Scripture and common sense.
Just before he ascended into Heaven, Jesus took his disciples to the Mount of Olives and told them: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19).
Clearly this is an extremely important mandate from Christ. This is also a very clear “formula” for making disciples – Trinitarian baptism. No age limits, no ethnic restrictions, no other qualifications or criteria. Everyone is to be baptized, and they are to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How is this supposed to be done? Christ left the form up to the Apostles, but with a little more help earlier in his ministry. Baptism was not new to the Jewish faith. By the time of the Ascension, many other faithful Jews had been baptizing people, and the ceremony included water. John the Baptist most famously baptized even Jesus Christ with water. If you read carefully, you will see that “John was also baptizing at Ae’non near Sa’lim, because there was much water there.” (John 3:23) Recall that Jesus had already told Nicodemus that one must be born of water and the Spirit in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (John 3:5).
This helps explain the necessity of baptism and why the Apostles used water for baptism for the rest of the New Testament (See Acts 3:38, Acts 16:15, 1 Peter 3:21).
But what about infants? Jesus never explicitly taught that infants should be baptized. Here, we once again look at Christ’s example and the practices of the Apostles and the first Christians.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were Jewish. Therefore, when Jesus was an infant, he wasn’t baptized, but he was circumcised. For Jewish males, it was circumcision which made them a member of the chosen people. How could an infant agree to this? He couldn’t. It was up to the infant’s parents. In Jesus’ case, this was the faith of Mary and Joseph. In the same way, it is the parents’ Christian faith which is essential in baptism.
There are numerous passages in the New Testament which allow us to conclude that the first Christians were baptizing young children and infants. This includes passages in which entire households were baptized such as Acts 16:30-33, Acts 18:18, and 1 Cor 1:16. Then there are non-biblical accounts of infant baptism, such as St. Irenaeus in about 180 AD, and St. Hippolytus in about 215 AD (both saints explicitly write about infant baptism).
It is now common for parents, even Catholic parents, to think that they should not impose their faith on their children. Because of this, many children of Christian parents are not being baptized. The parents mistakenly believe that the child will then be able to choose their own faith beliefs when they are ready to make that decision. What we find is that children do end up choosing, but many choose agnosticism, atheism, or false gods of the world instead of Jesus Christ. Because of this, the population of unbaptized is increasing in the U.S. and the Western world.
Maybe someone you know thinks that baptism is not a big deal. This totally contradicts Christianity. The Catholic teaching on baptism follows the standard set by Christ Himself. Jesus taught that baptism is necessary for salvation, and the Apostles and early Christians took these words of Jesus to heart. He said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). St. Peter tells us that baptism, not circumcision, now saves us in 1 Peter 3:21. In multiple New Testament accounts, the conversion of the first Christians is coupled with their baptism.
The first gift a parent can give to their newborn, and probably the greatest gift other than life itself, is baptism. To withhold this gift is to ignore the words of God Himself, thereby throwing their child’s eternity to the winds of the culture. Spread the word.
