Section VI. On Adults

When Baptism is in question, those are considered adults who enjoy the use of reason (canon 745, § 2). Moreover:

I. Adults are bound, as soon as it can morally be done, to acquire sufficient instruction for themselves and to receive Baptism. If they are sufficiently instructed and rightly disposed and ask for it, per se they must be baptized, even if they are minors and their parents contradict it (canon 745, § 2). The reason is that with respect to eternal salvation they are in their own right (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 12; St. Alphonsus, VI, 128). I said per se, since circumstances or even the common good sometimes require that Baptism be delayed.

The Holy Office,¹ to the question "whether a girl of ten years living in a monastery can safely be admitted to the profession of the Catholic faith, her heretical father being unwilling," responded: "Let the Vicar Apostolic first take care with all his strength to obtain the consent of the girl's father. If consent is not obtained, let him seriously weigh the inconveniences which are foreseen to arise from the admission of such a girl into the Church, both with respect to grave damage to the Catholic school and mission; and insofar as no inconveniences, or only contemptible ones, are foreseen, let him admit her without delay; but insofar as grave inconveniences are foreseen as future, let him defer her admission to the formal and public profession of the Catholic faith, unless danger of death is imminent; and meanwhile let him take care to exhort her to persevere in her good purpose, and to pray God that He deign to remove all obstacles; and at the same time let him see to it that she continue in the monastery, so that in this way she may complete and perfect her Catholic education." Therefore great prudence is necessary, and in cases of this sort a new reason is found for observing canon 744, by force of which the Baptism of adults, where it can conveniently be done, is to be referred to the local Ordinary.

Corollary. Children baptized against the will or without the knowledge of their parents per se can, if they are exposed to dangers of faith, withdraw themselves from their parents and be helped in this by others; but prudence commonly prohibits these things from being put into practice, all the more because civil law commonly stands in the way.

¹ 16 July 1881.

II. With respect to the Baptism of dying adults, these things specifically must be noted:

1. A dying adult who can no longer ask for Baptism, but who either previously or in the present state with some probability manifested an at least more or less explicit intention of receiving Baptism, is to be baptized conditionally; if afterward he recovers and a doubt remains concerning the value of the Baptism conferred, Baptism is again to be conferred conditionally (cf. canons 752, § 3 and 754, § 3).

2. A dying adult who can no longer ask for Baptism, but who with some probability is judged contrite or attrite, or to have the will of employing the means of salvation, in our opinion can, but need not, be baptized conditionally if he more or less explicitly rejects Baptism, as if the case concerns a Jew (n. 41). If that does not obtain, per se he seems to be baptized conditionally (n. 41). I said per se, because prudence can prohibit this doctrine from being brought into practice.