Arranging a Catholic baptism for a child

Most of the questions parents arrive with are practical: which church, how soon, how many godparents, and does the person who cannot come to Mass still count. The answers divide cleanly. Some are universal Church law and are the same in Aberdeen and in Southwark. The rest is how a particular parish runs its diary, and no article can tell you that.

Which parish to ask

Apart from a case of necessity the proper place of baptism is a church or oratory, and as a rule an infant is baptised in the parish church of the parents. Baptism is not to be conferred in private houses unless the local ordinary has permitted it for a grave cause, and, except in an emergency or for some other compelling pastoral reason, not in hospitals either unless the diocesan bishop has decided otherwise. The rite makes the same point positively: baptism should normally be celebrated in the parish church, which must have a baptismal font.

So the first call is to the parish you live in, and the parish rather than the nearest building, since one parish often serves several churches.

Wanting the baptism elsewhere, in a grandparents’ parish or the church where you were married, is common and is not a problem, but it is a permission rather than a booking. The Archdiocese of Southwark puts it plainly: if you are seeking baptism in a parish other than the one in which you live, you ought to contact your own parish priest in the first instance. Practice on how that permission is recorded varies by diocese and by parish, and a parish may want it in writing.

How the request itself is made varies too. One parish in the Diocese of Aberdeen states that arrangements for baptism and the other sacraments are made in person rather than by phone or email, and that a family living outside the parish boundaries needs prior permission from their own parish priest. Read that as what it is, one parish describing its own practice in one Scottish diocese, and the reason to ring before you turn up.

When it happens

Parents are obliged to take care that infants are baptized in the first few weeks, and as soon as possible after the birth, or even before it, they are to go to the pastor to request the sacrament and to be prepared properly for it. An infant in danger of death is to be baptised without delay, by anyone, and this is the one case where none of the rest applies.

The rite is more explicit about the reasoning. The first consideration is the welfare of the child, then the health of the mother, so that if at all possible she can be there, and then the time needed to prepare the parents and plan the celebration. It also allows conferences of bishops to determine a longer interval between birth and baptism for sufficiently serious pastoral reasons.

Although baptism can be celebrated on any day, the liturgical books recommend Sunday, or the Easter Vigil. The rite says that on a Sunday it may be celebrated during Mass so that the whole community is present, adding that this should not be done too often. That single line explains most parish diaries in Britain: baptisms after the last Sunday Mass, once or twice a month, with occasional ones inside Mass.

What the parish asks of the parents

Two things, and they are set out in law rather than invented locally. For an infant to be baptised licitly the parents, or at least one of them, or whoever legitimately takes their place, must consent; and there must be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion. Where that hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be delayed under the prescripts of particular law, after the parents have been told why. The Archdiocese of Southwark expresses the same condition as asking that at least one parent should be a practising Catholic.

Preparation is the other. Church law asks that the parents of an infant to be baptised, and those who are to be godparents, are properly instructed on the meaning of the sacrament and the obligations attached to it, and that the parish priest sees to it personally or through others, bringing several families together where he can. In practice this is the baptism preparation session English and Welsh parishes run on a weekday evening or a Sunday morning, and Southwark lists attending it among what the diocese asks of parents. A parent who cannot make the profession of faith, for example by not being a Catholic, may keep silent during the rite, and is asked only to make arrangements, or at least give permission, for the child’s instruction in the faith.

None of that is a test. The rite is blunt that parents have a ministry in the baptism of an infant more important than the godparents’, and describes what they actually do: they ask publicly for the child to be baptised, sign the child with the cross, make the profession of faith, carry the child to the font, and hold the candle.

Godparents

The law here is short and it is the part most often got wrong.

There is to be only one male sponsor or one female sponsor or one of each. Not four, and not two of the same. A godparent must be designated by the parents and have the aptitude and intention of doing the job; must have completed the sixteenth year of age, unless the diocesan bishop has set another age or the parish priest grants an exception for a just cause; must be a Catholic who has been confirmed, has already received Holy Communion, and leads a life of faith in keeping with the role; must not be under a canonical penalty; and must not be the father or mother of the child. Southwark restates the whole of it in one line: either one godparent, or two, one male and one female, who is a confirmed Catholic over the age of sixteen.

A baptised person belonging to another Christian communion is not shut out. Such a person is not to take part except together with a Catholic sponsor, and then only as a witness of the baptism. The distinction is real and it appears in the register: godparent and Christian witness are different entries, and a parish will ask which of the two a particular friend is being.

Someone who is not baptised at all cannot take either role. That is worth saying early, before the invitations, because it is the conversation nobody wants to have late.

The register, and the certificate

The parish priest of the place of the baptism must record in the baptismal register, carefully and without delay, the names of the baptised, the minister, the parents, the sponsors, any witnesses, the place and date of the baptism and the date and place of birth. If someone else administered the baptism, that person must tell the parish priest so that he can enter it.

This is the part that returns years later. A Catholic marrying in Britain is asked for a baptismal certificate, and the Diocese of East Anglia tells couples to contact the church where they were baptised and ask for a baptism certificate for marriage, adding that it must be an original. School applications, confirmation and reception into the Church all lead back to the same book. So it is worth knowing which parish holds the entry, and worth keeping the certificate the parish gives you.

Finding the parish

Look the church up in our directory of churches, or start from the Mass times pages if you know the town but not the parish. Each church page carries the contact details and, where the parish publishes one, a link to its own site, which is where any baptism preparation dates are announced. If you have moved and are not sure which parish covers your address, the diocese pages list the parishes in each diocese, and the diocesan office will tell you.

Then ring or call in. Our guide to what happens at Mass covers the hour itself if you are going back for the first time in a while, and first confession and first Holy Communion picks the story up several years later.

If a contact detail on this site is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.