Case 2. A Young Convert

Anna, a Protestant girl twelve years of age and educated for several years by nuns in a Catholic elementary school, asks Titius, who served that Mission situated in England, to receive her into the Catholic Church. From her answers to his questions, Titius finds that she is a girl of excellent character, sufficiently well instructed in the Catholic religion, and possessed of a firm intention to embrace the Catholic religion. Nevertheless, he knows well that within a short time she will leave the school, that her father, who is exceedingly hostile to the Catholic Church, is ignorant of his daughter’s will and will most certainly refuse consent; and he rightly fears that, if Anna is received, a considerable number of non-Catholics who send their children to the same school, anxious about their own children, may remove them from the school. Being doubtful, therefore, he asks:

1. What dispositions are required in adults that they may be admitted to Baptism?

2. Is it lawful to baptize children under parental authority whose parents are infidels or heretics, and when?

3. What is to be done in the case set forth above?

What dispositions are required in adults that they may be admitted to Baptism?

For valid reception they must have the will to be baptized, and that it may be lawful they must have faith, hope, and that sorrow for sin which is called attrition.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, p. 62.

2. Is it lawful to baptize the children of infidels and heretics, and when?

The First Council of Westminster (d. XVI, n. 6) says: “ A priest may baptize infants born of non-Catholic parents, provided that consent is had that they are to be educated in the true religion and that they have a Catholic godfather or godmother.” When children come to the use of reason they are their own masters per se and independent of their parents in what relates to religion. However, in concrete cases, converts of tender years should seldom be received unless they can be brought up amid Catholic surroundings. The danger of their afterwards falling away, of scandal and the opposition of parents and others must be considered, lest more harm than good be done. Non-baptized parents are not subject to the Church and St. Thomas teaches that it would be against natural justice if an infant of such parents who is in no danger of death were to be baptized without their consent.²

2 Ibid., p. 63.

3. What is to be done in the case?

Ann, a girl of twelve, educated by nuns in a Catholic elementary school, asked Titius, the parish priest, to receive her into the Church. Titius finds out that she is a good girl, well instructed in the Catholic faith, and determined to become a Catholic. However, in a short time she will leave school, her father is anti-Catholic, would certainly refuse his consent to her becoming a Catholic, and Titius fears that if she were received many non-Catholic parents would withdraw their children from the school. Under these circumstances Titius should tell Ann that he will receive her if she can get her father’s consent; that until she can do this she should foster the grace that has been given her by being good, constant at her prayers, reading good Otholic books, and patiently waiting till she is older or can get her father’s leave to enter the Church.