Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article First. On Infants to Be Baptized
66. On the infants of Catholics. 1. Infants of Christian parents are to be brought to the church as soon as possible, that they may be baptized.1
Not only because of danger of death, which in infants is much greater than in adults, but also because of the universal custom prevailing in the Church, which has already for a long time obtained the force of law, parents are bound to take care that the baptism of their infants is not delayed too much, unless some grave cause excuses.
- There exists no universal law which more accurately determines the time beyond which the baptism of little children cannot be deferred without sin. But in most places there exists a particular law prescribing that the baptism of infants not be deferred beyond one or two weeks. To defer baptism notably beyond the time prescribed by the bishop without just cause is a grave sin. But where a particular law does not bind, delay of baptism, even notable delay, does not seem to be charged as a grave sin, provided there is a serious will of not neglecting baptism and no danger of death is truly to be feared.2
The rigorists hold that a grave sin is committed if baptism is deferred beyond five or six days, indeed even if it is deferred beyond one or two days. Others judge the delay to be grave if baptism is deferred beyond a month without cause.3
1 Roman Ritual, tit. 2, c. 1, n. 15. Cn. 770 established this obligation and calls it grave.
2 Ballerini-Palmieri IV, 745; Genicot, Theol. mor. inst., II, 146.
3 Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 118.
67. On the infants of heretics. 1. It is certain that the Church has the right of baptizing the children of heretics and of preventing them from being imbued with the errors of their parents, because heretics can be compelled by the Church, whose subjects they are, to observe the divine law. Nevertheless the Church does not use her right, because she cannot prevent the children of heretics from being educated in heresy.
- Therefore, if they are not in danger of death or in such a crisis of life that they are prudently foreseen to be going to die before the use of reason, it is not licit to baptize the children of heretics unless there is some probable hope that afterward they will be educated in the true faith.1
a. If heretical or schismatic spouses, lacking their own minister, present their own infant to a pastor or another Catholic priest to be baptized, declaring that by this they do not wish to be bound to educate him in the Catholic religion, the pastor cannot baptize him in order meanwhile to place in safety the eternal salvation of the innocent little infant, prescinding from what could happen in the future when he comes to the age of discretion, unless he is in danger of death.2 This is not then licit even when he foresees that the infant must be perpetually without baptism.
b. If Catholic parents who now are of no religious confession (Konfessionslose), or parents of whom one party is apostate and the other Jewish, ask baptism for their children, the parents are indeed to be warned and exhorted concerning the education of their offspring in the Catholic religion; nevertheless the children can and ought to be baptized, unless an extraordinary and almost certain danger of perversion is foreseen. Since judgment concerning the gravity of the danger is not without serious difficulty, let the pastor not decide the matter without consulting the Ordinary.3
c. It is licit for a pastor to baptize a child with one Catholic parent consenting, even if he certainly knows that the other will afterward take care that the infant be baptized by a heretical minister; but the Catholic spouse is bound to inform the heretical spouse that the child has already been legitimately baptized.4 For this disposition of the Catholic party supplies a sufficiently founded hope of future Catholic education.
1 Holy Office, 26 Aug. 1885. Cn. 750, 751.
2 Holy Office, 26 Aug. 1885.
3 Cf. E. Muller III, tr. 2, section 72; Bucceroni, Casus consc.^5, n. 113, 3.
4 S. C. de Prop. Fid., 20 Nov. 1672.
68. On the infants of unbelievers. 1. Of itself it is not licit to baptize the children of unbelievers without the knowledge or against the will of the parents; for if the baptized children are taken away from the parents, the natural right of the parents is violated; but if they are left under the power of the parents, injury is done to the sacrament on account of the certain danger of defection.1 With respect to the children of Hebrews there exists, moreover, a special prohibition of the Church, namely that they not be baptized against the will of the parents.2
Where it is a question of baptizing the children of unbelievers, the Church, which does not have power over them, chiefly attends to two things: first, that those who receive Christian baptism also be educated and instructed in the true religion and live in Catholic fashion; then, that the natural rights of the parents not be harmed. For there belongs to parents the natural right and duty of caring for their children until they use reason.
- Nevertheless, sometimes the infants of unbelievers can, indeed must, be baptized without the knowledge or against the will of the parents: a. if they are in danger of death; b. if they have been placed outside the power of their parents or guardians, so that they can be educated as Catholics.
a. If they are in certain and proximate danger of death, they must be baptized from the precept of charity, if this can be done when occasion is given without stirring up the hatred of unbelievers against the Christian religion. If they are in probable danger of death, they can licitly be baptized, even if death is still rather distant.3 But the danger of death must be proper to the one who is baptized; therefore, when a plague is raging, it is not licit to baptize infants indiscriminately, even if the greater part of them are foreseen to be going to die.4
b. If baptism, whether for a little child or for an adult, whether in danger of death or outside it, cannot be conferred without stirring up the hatred and persecutions of unbelievers against the Christian religion, baptism can be deferred or entirely omitted, because the common good of the Christian community must be preferred to a private good, however great.
Note. If a non-Catholic child has been baptized without the knowledge or against the will of the parents, whether licitly or illicitly, then a child of unbelievers and of Hebrews must indeed be withdrawn from the parents on account of the proximate danger of perversion; but a child of heretics can be left in the power of the parents if they themselves do not deny faith in Christ. Since the civil power now prevents a child baptized in danger of death from being withdrawn from unbelieving or Hebrew parents if he recovers, that baptism itself must be diligently observed as far as possible, lest perhaps afterward he be baptized again.
1 Cf. St. Thomas III, q. 68, a. 10; Benedict XIV, constitution Postremo mense, 28 Feb. 1747.
2 Constitution of Julius III and S. C. C., 16 July 1639. Cf. Benedict XIV, constitution Postremo mense (28 Feb. 1747), who in n. 27 cites the constitution of Julius III and several responses of S. C. C. on this question.
3 Holy Office, 18 July 1894.
4 Cf. Instruction of S. C. de Prop. Fide, 17 Aug. 1777.
69. 3. With unbelieving parents consenting, it is not licit to baptize their children if the danger of future perversion is special and extraordinary; but it is licit if no danger is foreseen except the danger common to all in circumstances of this kind. For in this latter case there is, but in the former there is not, probable hope of perseverance in the faith. But it belongs to the bishop or apostolic prefect to judge whether in a particular case there is a probable hope of Christian education or a certain danger of perversion.
a. In practice there is no difficulty if the unbelieving parents who ask baptism for their child consent to the Catholic education of the child outside the paternal home. Ordinarily, however, the greatest danger of perversion is to be feared when the baptized child must remain under the power of unbelieving parents, both of whom are unbelievers. Nevertheless, even if a child baptized as a Catholic must afterward remain in the paternal home under the power of the parents, a grave danger of perversion is not always immediately to be supposed; but sometimes children of this kind also can be baptized, especially where the future conversion of their parents can reasonably be hoped for, or where at least no special danger of perversion is foreseen.1
b. Ordinarily it is licit to baptize an infant who has at least a believing mother, although the father is Jewish, unbelieving, or apostate, because almost always the providence of the mother suffices, so that a probable hope of the Catholic education of the infant may be conceived.2
c. It is licit to baptize an infant if one of the parents, with the other unwilling, or the one who uses paternal power in place of the parents (the paternal grandfather, the paternal grandmother), with both parents unwilling, offers the infant to be baptized; because on the one hand those persons participate somewhat in paternal power and their consent in favor of the faith is judged to outweigh the perverse will of the others, and on the other hand this consent supplies some hope of Christian education.3
1 Cf. Holy Office, 22 July 1840 and 11 Dec. 1850.
2 Holy Office, 17 Sept. 1671.
3 Cf. letters of Benedict XIV, Probe te meminisse, 15 Dec. 1751.