Dear Father: I’m in a quandary. I’ve been a church-going Catholic all my life and raised my kids in the Church. All of them go to church except for one of my daughters. She quit going to church in college and got married outside the Church. Now she has a beautiful baby boy but refuses to have him baptized. My friends tell me to just baptize him in the kitchen sink when I’m babysitting him. Can you explain the procedure to me, please? I’m very worried for his salvation. – L.K.
Dear L.K.: You seem to have a wonderful apostolic spirit, wanting your grandson to be bathed in the saving waters of baptism. But don’t do it, not in the kitchen sink, nor the tub, nor a pool. Not even with a water drink.
We believe that parents have the responsibility to raise their children in the Catholic faith. This includes making sure that their children receive the sacraments of the Church so that the children may have communion with their heavenly Father. After all, parents do not “own” their children. Rather, they share in the procreation of a child with God, the Creator of all.
God made us for Himself with the intention that we would be happy (blessed) in His love. No one has a right to stand in the way of God’s plan for each person to be saved: to share in God’s life on earth and to enjoy union with Him in eternity.
It is very short-sighted for parents to refuse to baptize their children and to refuse the gifts of the other sacraments. To refuse the greatest good to someone shows great selfishness and lack of love.
If a good parent would want the best nourishment and education and home for his or her child on earth, why not also desire the end for which the child was created: eternal life? Baptism is the beginning of eternal life on earth. It is the beginning of the interior life of grace in the soul. It is the sacrament of divine adoption. It is the infusion of the life of the Blessed Trinity in the soul.
That said, baptism is not magical. The baptized child needs to know about his or her spiritual birthright. Imagine someone who is the heir to a vast fortune but is never told of being an heir. But even if that child was told that he or she is an heir to a financial dynasty but not told how to manage the finances, there would soon be financial disaster.
It’s the same with the divine dynasty that we receive by being made children of God, heirs to His glory. We need to know our divine identity, and we need to know how to live as sons and daughters of God. Without this most important education, we will live as paupers on the streets of despair and the gutters of unruly passions.
Thus, dear grandparent, unless your grandchild is going to be raised in the faith by the child’s parents, it is quite wrong for you to baptize the child. Try to explain the faith to the child, and take the child to church, but the parents must also directly participate in teaching their child about God and the Catholic faith.
At the very least, they, and not you, have the responsibility to take the child to their parish to be baptized. Your responsibility is to encourage them to return to and live the faith at home.
There is one exception to the right and responsibility of the parents to have their child baptized: danger of death. If the child is in danger of death, then anyone, including hospital personnel, have the responsibility to baptize the child.
In a true emergency, baptism is accomplished by using this formula: “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” while pouring water over the head of the child three times, once at each of the three names of the Trinity.
But you don’t need to be passive, dear grandparent! Instead of baptizing the child yourself, pray! Pray hard for the child to survive the threats of the kingdom of darkness.
If the parents of the child permit you to babysit your grandchild, you can pray with the child. Perhaps you could teach your grandchild some essential prayers, such as the Sign of the Cross, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory be and so forth.
You could make visits to the Blessed Sacrament while out on errands with the child. If the parents allow it, take the child to Mass. Teach the child how to genuflect before the tabernacle.
Pray hard, too, for the conversion of the parents of your grandchild. God wants all to be saved, and He always answers prayers for conversion. Always!