Deacons go through several years of schooling and are officially ordained by, I think, a bishop and are only men. Lay ministers can be men or women and their main function is to serve as eucharistic ministers both during the mass and in delivering the eucharist to the homebound. All that is required to be a lay minister is to be a catholic in good standing and to be blessed by the priest to carry out these functions. The two are not the same. Lay ministers do not assist the celebrant at mass, read the gospel or perform the homily the way deacons do.
Deacons and lay ministers are two entirely separate vocations, though they may perform some of the same duties. There is a whole lot more training that goes into becoming a deacon. There are also more stringent strictures placed on them (e.g. both can be married, but if a deacon’s wife dies, he cannot remarry. A lay minister can remarry after the death of a spouse.)
There is no baptism in absentia or after death in Catholicism. The practice of baptizing stillborn infants is not universal; priests will do it, and it makes the parents feel better, but the Church holds that infants who die without baptism still go straight to heaven. (The tradition–never official doctrine–that unbaptized babies go to limbo has been dropped.) This is similar to beliefs held by Protestant Christians and Muslims, among other religions.
The “Catholic minister” sounds pretty suspicious. Maybe he’s not officially converted to Catholicism but has just read a little. Maybe he was trying to cause a splash (no pun intended) with this baptism nonsense. If he really did baptize someone after death, why would he upset all the relatives by telling them about it, unless he was trying to anger them? Sounds like a jackwagon to me.
Right and very important. In the RCC “Deacon” is an actual rank of the Holy Orders (would-be priests are commonly ordained as deacons during their last term of seminary), authorized to carry out certain functions of ***ordained ***clergy; as opposed to auxiliary support work assigned to one the lay ministers.
Never heard of postmortem adult baptism in Catholicism. As mentioned, there is no redo of baptism if it was originally done “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit/Ghost”; and the baptism-by-any-person is intended for dire emergency situations where you do not know their baptismal status.
[Moderator Note]
Religious jabs are against the rules in GQ. Let’s refrain from this kind of commentary. No warning issued.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
In response to the OP, I was raised Catholic. I recall being told in parochial school that extreme unction might be performed on individuals after they had apparently died, on the theory that we have no way of being sure when the soul actually leaves the body. However, I don’t know if that was church policy, or merely the opinion of my teachers.
If that was the case, then a post-mortem baptism of an infant or child that had not been previously baptized could be conducted. However, I would not think it would be done in the case of an adult who had previously been baptized in another denomination.
Probably not, however a valid baptism could be confected by anyone – baptized or not. If a man was dying in a foxhole and he asked the guy next to him (be him heathen, pagan, or Jew) to baptize him, the resulting baptism would be perfectly licit and valid. The only requirement is that the baptizer has the intent to “do as the Church does”. That isn’t a tall order to fill. He need only desire to carry out the will of his dying friend.
I wonder, has anyone ever baptized him/herself if no one else was available and death was imminent? Also, in a pinch, has something other than water been used? It seems like most Christians at least nowadays feel that the intent is more important than the specific ritual?
Baptism just has to be Trinitarian to be recognised. So as long as she was baptised in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it’s valid. I’m pretty sure that Baptist baptism counts.
I’ve never heard of any Catholics baptising the dead. That would be weird. If he were Catholic, I’d maybe expect him to pray for her or get Masses said for her soul or something.
The one Old Catholic group I’m familiar with is obsessively proud about how they adhere to “authentic” Catholic traditions.
I think the guy was just making it up.
The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia seems to say that baptism after death isn’t a Catholic thing.
It earlier states, in regards to unborn infants…
Bolding mine. From both of these, I would take it that Catholic baptism is only to occur if the subject is living.
In the RCC you may not ritually baptize yourself and you must use water. However the RCC (and other churches, surely) recognize what is known as the “Baptism of Desire” – if a person truly and really, from the depth of their soul, repents and converts and surrenders to God’s love, and would have sought baptism but due to circumstances beyond their control can’t make it to some form of the actual rite of baptism before dying, it’s as if s/he had received it. But you still have to go ahead with the proper rite if you survive long enough to have any access to it.
Thank you all very much for your answers. You seem to be in agreement that this really isn’t done. My husband said that he thinks that this is that particular man’s way of feeling important.
I have heard his mother say that at the church that he joined (in another state) that the people there considered him to be “kind of a holy man.” That’s just his mother. I don’t know how she would know this.
I think there was the possibillity that it was said to shock and cause grief to some family members.
Maybe I will suggest that his family will have him baptized as a Southern Baptist after he is dead.
Just to be perfectly clear, the term “lay minister” was not used. He may have phrased it differently, however, by saying something like “I am a minister in the Catholic Church” as opposed to “Catholic minister.” I am not a Southern Baptist nor have I ever been one.
Again, my thanks.
“Baptized as a Southern Baptist?” How’s that work? Douse his corpse in red-eye gravy?
In the Creed that we Catholics recite at every Sunday Mass, Catholic doctrine is stated: “We believe in ONE baptism, for the forgiveness of sins.”
One baptism. Is a Catholic wants to join a fundamentalist Protestant Church, he may well be required to go through a new Baptism. But if a Protestant has already been baptized (as a Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, almost ANY mainstream Christian faith), there’d be no need for him to be baptized again.
Any Roman Catholic priest would know that, as would any Catholic who’s had any training or has any standing as a “minister.”
I have a question about that: does it mean you can’t be baptized again? I know many Protestant denominations allow a rebaptizing, not because it necessarily has spiritual significance, but as an outward sign of rededicating yourself to the faith.
Also, I know a lot of Protestants get you baptized again because they believe a baptism must involve immersion. They aren’t baptizing you a second time–they believe the sprinkle style baptism (or infant baptism in general) is biblically invalid.
In the catholic church? Yes. Well, you could, it’s not like you’d be consumed in a pillar of fire or something. But theologically, there is no benefit to a second baptism. Baptisms, like confirmations and ordinations indelibly mark your soul and cannot be removed.
Indeed it does. You can only be baptised once. If there is any doubt about whether you have been baptised in the past, then you can be conditionally baptised.
Questionable (see below)
True.
True.
True.
False. It may not have upset the deceased (for obvious reasons), and it certainly didn’t upset him, but it upset the deceased’s loved ones (basically seeing it as desecration of their loved one’s corpse if I may conjecture). Very dick-ish move on his part - I don’t even know any advantage to it besides either racking up as many “baptism counts” on his heavenly tally sheet as he can (and if he believes post-mortem baptisms count, then why not just go to a graveyard and knock himself out?), or to deliberately annoy the Protestant loved ones of the deceased. Definitely not cool, and I’d say the OP and his family has every right to fret.
Which is why, say, army chaplains, serving numerous faiths, might be one denomination (let’s pick “Episcopalian” at random) but can easily put on his Catholic hat if needed (or so I understand it (being a Christian and one who was in the army for a brief time))
I was baptised as a baby, primarily because, when I was an infant, my family was living up north, the only Protestant church in town was an Anglican church, who does (did?) believe in infant baptism. I don’t believe my parents do (my mom has attended an evangelical church since we moved away from Up North over 30 years ago, which does not do infant baptism), but since the church they were going to did, they did it. Didn’t bother them too much, heck, didn’t even bother me although, despite being a Christian, I don’t consider that baptism as having “counted” as I was merely an infant with no say in the matter. My church (the same one my mom attends) does to adult baptism, and my wife has asked me the odd time if I want to do that. I’ve always told her that I"m find if anyone (including her) wants to, but it’s not something that I’d want to do for me - our church believes baptism is an expression of faith, basically demonstrating to the world that you are Christ’s. I much prefer to demonstrate that through my actions in my daily life than merely getting my clothes wet, I figure that’s a much better way for people to identify me as Christ’s.
As said above, I belong to one of those denominations, so I can back you up on that.
I believe my church also falls into the “must involve immersion” camp - I’ve heard others say in their testimony at baptisms at my church that they were baptised (elsewhere) as infants, so I’m sure we fall into that camp too. However, the “sprinkle system = invalid” was put to test for one baptism I can clearly remember of a parishoner that had a strong life-long phobia of water. She would be psychologically incapable of being dunked - I distincly recall that being the only sprinkling baptism I’ve seen done at our church (the others that were done the same day as her were all dunked) - even that she was a bit emotional about (but it may have been her being emotional about being baptised). It was explicitly stated from the start to be an exception, so I’m sure there’s a loophole somewhere to deal with phobias (much as I’m sure there’s a loophole (which I think even Cecil discussed) about alcoholics and recieving communion wine.)
Not only is it not normal, but it goes against both belief and practice.
Lissla Lissar didn’t mention it in her previous response, but I seem to remember that when her husband and she joined the RCC, there was a “welcome ceremony” but no baptism - because they had already been baptised in different denominations.
It seems to me like the man in question may be one of those who, when they convert to whatever, are “more Roman than the Romans,” like those recent immigrants who rant against immigration (I’ve known some of these who had been sworn in as citizens in front of me - and no, the rant was not against illegal immgration but against immigration in general).