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Catholic Chuch Retroactively Invalidates Baptisms


Posted on April 09, 2008 at 16:04

OK... after a conversation with a friend I found this article about the Catholic Church retroactively invaliding Baptisms. It's a problem of language

Words make a difference -- so much of a difference that they can make a sacrament invalid, according to a declaration from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published Feb. 29. The congregation said gender-neutral language makes baptisms null. Formulas used by some Christian churches to replace the phrase “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” are not valid in Catholicism, the Vatican ruled.

The official note, approved by Pope Benedict XVI, said those baptized with alternative Trinitarian formulas, such as in the name “of the Creator, and of the Redeemer and of the Sanctifier” or “of the Creator, and of the Liberator and of the Sustainer” must be rebaptized if they wish to remain Catholic or to convert to Catholicism.

The extension of this is that if the Baptism is invalid; any sacraments received afterwards are invalid. So people who have been married will have to be remarried (That's all in the article).

I'm not sure how far this extends, if both of someone's Godparents have invalid Baptisms is his Baptism invalid as well? Is a couple has their marriage invalidated, have they been having sex outside of wedlock? Are their children technically (or actually) bastards?

Has the church given the divorce loophole. Instead of a length and costly annulment process, one person "discovers" that their baptism was invalid... and they go their separate ways.

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