Case LXIX: A Protestant Godmother

This is a case of a mixed marriage. The father is a Protestant who has hitherto kept his promise and has had his children baptized Catholics. When the youngest child was brought to be baptized, the Catholic godmother was prevented from being present, and so the father proposed that his own mother, a Protestant, should take her place. The priest objected to this arrangement, and so the child's father had it baptized by the Protestant minister. Did the priest act rightly?

Answer.—We must notice, in the first place, that the Protestant husband could not simply nominate his mother to represent the Catholic godmother; only the Catholic godmother herself could appoint a representative.

Assuming that the Catholic godmother had agreed to the proposal, and had appointed the child's Protestant grandmother to represent her and act on her behalf at the baptismal ceremony, the question arises, whether the Catholic priest was right in refusing to allow a Protestant to represent a Catholic.

If it had been proposed to have a Protestant godmother, we could settle the matter by reference to certain answers given by the Sacred Office on May 3, 1893, and June 27, 1900, to the effect that Protestants are not permitted to be godparents, and rather than accept them, it is better to administer baptism without godparents. According to an instruction issued in 1723: " A Catholic priest ought not to hesitate to reject non-Catholic godparents, because otherwise the baptism would be Protestant or schismatical in its administration."

With these decisions of the Sacred Office before us, it is difficult to see how to have a non-Catholic godparent could ever be advisable, though we ought not to conclude that under no possible circumstances there could be an exception and a reasonable excuse. But in the case under discussion there is no question of a non-Catholic godparent, but simply of the representative of a Catholic godmother. We are not justified in applying what is true of a godparent to his representative. Hence the Catholic priest's action must decidedly be condemned, especially if he could foresee its disastrous results; for the child, baptized a Protestant, was lost to the Church, and so would probably be any further children born of that mixed marriage. (Cf. Lehmkuhl, Casus conscientiae, II, cas. 24.)