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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 16, 2015 12:32:15 GMT
I thought of this as I read the Wikipedia entry on Rev Edgardo Mortara OSA. My father knew a house maid who baptised, I believe, six children in a Jewish family. None of these were an emergency baptism and the maid did it out of a misguided sense of charity. I would like to hear reactions.
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Post by Ranger on Sept 16, 2015 17:48:52 GMT
The removal of that child from his family is heartbreaking, and seems to undermine so much of what the Church teaches about the family.
I can't remember which post it was, but I think Fr. Z said once that 'there's a reason we don't fly over non-Christian countries in a C-130 baptizing with water cannons.' I dislike the idea of secret baptisms; who's to say that the formula was followed correctly?
The development of 'invincible ignorance' and other more nuanced readings of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus does bring up the question of how necessary this is in the case of children (emergency baptism of teenagers/adults seems much more pressing since they have been in a position to consciously commit a serious sin).
I was told that a lot of our previous ideas on baptism come from certain opinions of St. Augustine, who argued for practices that were traditional in Christian North Africa to be universalised; can anyone confirm this?
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