A collection of various works taken from online resources in fidelity to the teaching of the Magisterium and by the authority of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.

Infant Baptism


  • Infant Baptism is a rite by which children who have not yet attained the age of reason are  initiated into the Family of God—the Church.
  •  remits the effects and stain of Original Sin while at the same time infusing Sanctifying  Grace into the infant’s soul (CCC no. 1250).
  •   The rite of circumcision as the doorway into the Old Covenant was replaced in the  New Covenant with the rite of Baptism—both applied to infants.
  •   St. Paul makes this correlation:  “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by  putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him  in baptism” (Co 2:11–12).
  •   Catechism informs us that “this sign [of circumcision]  prefigures that ‘circumcision of Christ’ which is Baptism” (CCC no. 527).
  •   When Peter preached under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost  he was speaking to a Jewish audience (Ac 2:5–35). Peter announced, “Repent, and let  each of you be baptized
  •   Jews would have been dismayed had the New Covenant not included  their children, especially since it was promised to them, and the New Covenant was to be  an improvement over the Old in which they were included
  •   when the head of a household converted and was baptized,  his entire household was also baptized with him (Ac 16:15, 33; 1 Co 1:16). The inference  of course, especially based on Jewish understanding of the family and covenants, would  include the aged, the adults, the servants, and the infants.
  •   If the practice of Infant Baptism  had been illicit or prohibited it would surely have been explicitly forbidden, especially to  restrain the Jews from applying Baptism to their infants as they did circumcision.
  •   Even  though Tertullian espoused a later baptism for children, he acknowledged that Infant Baptism  was already the universal practice and does not try to avoid the interpretation of this  verse’s reference to Infant Baptism.
  •   Infant Baptism is mentioned not as an innovation,  but as a rite instituted by the apostles. Nowhere do we find it prohibited and everywhere  we find it practiced. Early in the nascent Church we have St. Irenaeus (c. 130–c. 200)  who provides a very early witness to Infant Baptism, based on John 3:5. Irenaeus wrote,  “For He [Jesus] came to save all through means of Himself—all, I say, who through Him  are born again to God,—infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men”  (Against Heresies, 2, 22, 4)
  •   Origen (ad c. 185–c. 254) who had traveled to the extents of the Roman Empire wrote  with confidence, “The Church received from the Apostles the tradition [custom] of giving  Baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of divine  mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must be washed  away through water and the Spirit” (Commentary on Romans 5, 9).
  •   St. Augustine confirmed the ubiquitous teaching of the Church when he wrote, “This  [infant baptism] the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of  our ancestors; this she perseveringly guards even to the end” (Augustine, Sermon. 11, De  Verb Apost)
  •   “Who is so impious as to wish to exclude infants from the kingdom of  heaven by forbidding them to be baptized and born again in Christ?” (Augustine, On  Original Sin 2, 20).
  •   The opposition  resides mainly in those of Anabaptist heritage which originated in the sixteenth  century and who were strongly opposed by Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin  who both taught and practiced Infant Baptism.
  •   Anabaptists’ opposition to the baptism  of infants lies mainly in their belief—unsupported by Scripture and with no supporting  evidence from the practice of the early Church—that one has to be of sufficient age to  exercise personal faith in Christ and make a personal confession at baptism. Nowhere is  this taught in Scripture that only adults can receive baptism. To hold this extreme view is  to be outside the continuity of historical Christianity
SOURCE: http://www.catholic-convert.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Infant%20Baptism2.pdf


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"To condescend to the humblest duties, and to devote oneself to the lowliest service is an exercise of humility: for thus one is able to heal the disease of pride and human glory."

- Decretal on Penance (D. II., cap. Si quis semel)