- 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
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
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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)
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