This is a question from my childhood memories of Catholic school. I was in Catholic grade school from 1964-1972. I remember there were frequent fundraising pitches to us students. We were supposed to collect our pennies and nickels so priests could go to non-Catholic places (IIRC it was suggested it was Africa, but could just as well have been Hawaii) and baptize pagan babies. They also tried to spur competition among the classes – the class that saved the most souls got some special reward, though I can’t recall what.
I seem to remember there was a specific cost per soul. Does anyone else recall this, and how much it cost per soul to save through baptism?
Here is a reminiscence from someone about a dozen years older than you. No actual price per soul, although if the amount mentioned in this not-too-serious blog entry is to believed, souls retailed for $5 each. Did you get a medal?
This page confirms the going rate of a fin per pagan.
Similar time frame for me, Boyo Jim. As I recall, the price of a pagan baby was $5. In my class, whoever donated the nickel or dime that put us over the top got to name the baby. It seems to me our pagan babies came from Guatemala, but considering how heavily Catholic that country is, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, so my memory on that point may be faulty.
Ah, I had forgotten about naming the baby – now I recall it was talked about though I’m not sure of the context. Were we naming the soul? One would presume the parents weren’t sitting around with unnamed babies waiting for a priest to bestow one.
I know that my boss has done a lot of research into *[what he claims is] *the practice that the Mormons have of baptizing the dead, including Jews, into the LDS faith.
Maybe the priests were baptizing the babies and giving them a “Catholic” name.
The nunnery where I’ve had retreats has a graveyard full of nuns with male names: Sister John, Sister Alphonse, or Sister Paul. Sometimes Sister Paul Beatrice, or Sister John Catherine… I’m betting their parents didn’t give them those names.
Hey, Boyo, that Bishop Morlino is such a fun, open guy – why don’t you ask him about them pagan babies? :dubious:
Our $5 went farther. We were buying the whole baby – not just the soul!
In retrospect, I’ve always assumed that we were doing nothing more nefarious than contributing money to an orphanage or mission, and the “name the baby” business was just a ploy to keep us coughing up our candy money.
I recently found out that I’d been originally named “Humberto”. But then some kid (with a nice normal name, Jim) from Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament in Madison, WI donated his comic book money because he thought digs would be a “truly bona fide awesome” name… sigh.
[/bald-faced lie]
ASIDE: Jim, did you grow up in Madison? The Catholic churches there (like BS) seem too liberal to do Pagan Babies (many walked out when Bishop Morlino demanded his Vote For Pro-Lifers audio tape be played during Mass last October).
