28 articles from the existing collection.
The Catholic Church has consistently taught that Baptism is the foundational sacrament for salvation. Instituted by Christ, it serves as the gateway to the other sacraments and the life of grace. The Church draws this understanding from John 3:5 , where Jesus declares, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter…
A sacrament is a visible rite established by Jesus Christ to impart grace to the faithful. The Catholic Church teaches that sacraments are not merely symbolic actions but effective signs that truly bring about the grace they signify (CCC 1127). This grace is a share in God’s divine life, enabling believers to grow in holiness. E…
Immersion was never thought necessary in the Christian Church. After St. Peter’s first sermon three thousand people were baptized, and it is most unlikely that it could have been by immersion, above all in the light of recent research into the water supply available in Jerusalem itself at that time. The Didache, or Teaching of t…
It nowhere says that they were not, and implicitly demands that they should be.
Since there is no proportion between the visible action and the giving of interior grace of a supernatural character, it is evident that God alone could institute a Sacrament. It calls for His infinite power. Jesus Christ, therefore, at once God and man, instituted the Sacraments.
Mary did not need Baptism in so far as that Sacrament was instituted for the destruction of original sin. She received that Sacrament in order to participate in its other effects, and chiefly in order to receive the Christian character which that Sacrament impresses upon the soul.
No. We read of some adult baptisms, but they were not administered precisely because the subjects were adults, but because they happened to be converted as adults. Acts XV commemorates the reception of two complete households into the Church by St. Paul, and we are not told that the adults only in those households were received.…
Every human being has a conscience which dictates a natural law of moral obligation at least when he comes to the age of reason. If a pagan knows nothing of Christianity, and is ignorant of it through no fault of his own, he can at least repent of his personal sins against his conscience, and desire to do the right thing. God gi…
Christ was baptized as an adult because only then did He institute this essential rite of the New Law. You could not expect Him to receive it before instituting it. Yet remember that He had received the rite of Circumcision which is figurative of the Baptism to be received by Christian children, and that rite He received in infa…
CHAPTER 10. — THE SACRAMENTS: BAPTISM.
The Catholic religion. Baptism, if valid, makes a Christian. Now Catholicity is the only true form of Christianity. Therefore everyone validly baptized is radically a Catholic, even though he be unaware of it.
That text has no reference to Baptism. Christ’s purpose there was to insist upon humility. He impressed the moral lesson that only such as cultivate the dispositions of a child before God will enter Heaven. But he never said that all children, even the unbaptized, will necessarily go to Heaven. He would contradict His own doctri…
The command to believe and be baptized was addressed to adult listeners only who, without faith, would not even see the necessity of Baptism. But children belong to their parents, and the parents may certainly give their children to God, professing faith on their behalf and promising to bring them up as Christians.
The Catholic Church’s teaching on baptism is rooted in the words of Jesus Christ, who declared the necessity of being “born again” through water and the Spirit to enter the Kingdom of God ( John 3:5 ). This teaching forms the bedrock of the Church’s understanding of baptism as a sacrament that imparts supernatural grace. Baptism…
He was speaking to adults, and undoubtedly adults must repent of their personal sins before they can come to God. Yet children who are incapable of personal sin and repentance are born in original sin, to destroy which is the primary purpose of Baptism.
It would be. But no mingle mangle occurs in the baptism of children. Mingle mangle means a meaningless jumble of formulas. But every least item in the baptismal rite is full of meaning and significance. And it is to God’s honor and glory to use the holy ceremonies instituted by the Church of Christ with the authority of Christ. …
Why does the Catholic Church baptize infants, who have no understanding of what is taking place?
The Bible says that after Christ was baptized He “came out of the water” (Matt. 3:16), indicating that He was baptized by total immersion. Why doesn’t the Catholic Church also baptize by total immersion instead of by pouring on the head?
Yes. All the Sacraments were instituted by Christ, and belong to Christ. Now Christ founded the Catholic Church and committed His religion to her keeping only. Therefore the Sacraments, without exception, belong to her. Not a valid Sacrament is proper to the Church of England or to any other Protestant Church. There is but one L…
No one will ever be lost save through his own fault. Christ is God, and, as God, can work with secondary causes or without them. The ordinary means of salvation is by Baptism, and one who is convinced of the necessity of Baptism yet deliberately refuses to receive it cannot be saved. But God can supply the grace usually given by…
Some Protestants have those things, at least theoretically. Others have some of them. Others have none of them. But in any case they would not prove Protestants to be true Christians. At most they prove that some Protestants are attempting to do some Christian things. But a true Christian accepts the complete teaching of Christ,…
There are seven Sacraments precisely because Christ did institute seven. Had He not done so, there would not be seven. The Catholic Church emphatically denies that she has the power to institute a Sacrament Far from instituting Sacraments, she has never even claimed the power to do so. From the very beginning Christians have alw…
Injustice is not involved in this question. When treating of original sin I explained how such a child lacks that supernatural grace which is not due to human nature, and without which no one can enter Heaven. Christ offers that supernatural grace to such of Adam’s children as receive Baptism. It is His sheer goodness that He do…
Yes. We call it the Limbo of unbaptized children. The word Limbo is derived from the Latin word Limbus, which means a bordering place. Limbo is an intermediate state of purely natural happiness. In that state unbaptized children will receive all the happiness proportionate to their natural capacity.
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