The Deacon's Bench
From CNN:
Umma Azul, whose godmother is the country’s President, on Saturday became the first child of a lesbian couple to be baptized by the Catholic Church in Argentina.
Carina Villarroel and Soledad Ortiz asked Archbishop Carlos Jose Nanez for the blessing, according to national news agency Telam. The bishop reportedly said their marital status has no bearing on the child.
A priest performed the baptism at the cathedral in Cordoba, Telam said.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Argentina since 2010, but is not sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the baby girl’s official godmother, could not attend but sent a representative, according to Telam.
For those who are wondering, here is what the Code of Canon Law says about infant baptism:
Can. 868 §1. For an infant to be baptized licitly:
1/ the parents or at least one of them or the person who legitimately takes their place must consent;
2/ there must be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be delayed according to the prescripts of particular law after the parents have been advised about the reason.
§2. An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents.
The catechism, meantime, adds:
IV. WHO CAN RECEIVE BAPTISM?
1246 “Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is able to be baptized.”
The Baptism of infants
1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.51
1251 Christian parents will recognize that this practice also accords with their role as nurturers of the life that God has entrusted to them.
1252 The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole “households” received baptism, infants may also have been baptized.
Faith and Baptism
1253 Baptism is the sacrament of faith. But faith needs the community of believers. It is only within the faith of the Church that each of the faithful can believe. The faith required for Baptism is not a perfect and mature faith, but a beginning that is called to develop. The catechumen or the godparent is asked: “What do you ask of God’s Church?” The response is: “Faith!”
1254 For all the baptized, children or adults, faith must grow after Baptism. For this reason the Church celebrates each year at the Easter Vigil the renewal of baptismal promises. Preparation for Baptism leads only to the threshold of new life. Baptism is the source of that new life in Christ from which the entire Christian life springs forth.
1255 For the grace of Baptism to unfold, the parents’ help is important. So too is the role of the godfather and godmother, who must be firm believers, able and ready to help the newly baptized – child or adult on the road of Christian life. Their task is a truly ecclesial function (officium). The whole ecclesial community bears some responsibility for the development and safeguarding of the grace given at Baptism.
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