Yesterday we discussed the claim by Mary McAleese–a “prominent Catholic,” a canon lawyer, and the former president of Ireland–that infant baptism is an abuse of children because it denies them their religious rights.
Our focus yesterday was on the centrality of the will over the intellect in postmodern thought, so that the question of “consent” is what determines what is right or wrong. Today we’ll look at some theological issues in what she says.
To review, here is a link to her article in the Irish Times (behind a paywall), Baptism Denies Babies Their Human Rights, with the deck, “Rite and Reason: No one is Catholic by birth and the notion of ‘Baptismal promises’ is risible.” Reformed theologian Carl Trueman takes issue with McAlesse in his article for First Things entitled No, Infant Baptism Is Not Child Abuse (also behind a paywall).
Liberal Catholicism as Liberal Protestantism
McAleese says, “No one is Catholic by birth.” True enough. And no one is a Christian by birth. Only those who choose to be Catholics are Catholics, she argues, so baptizing a baby without his or her consent is a denial of the child’s religious liberty. Infant baptism is coercion and thus oppression, a way for the Catholic church to build up its membership role and to exert its control over Ireland.
Funny she should mention birth. Ireland legalized abortion in 2018, after McAleese’s term of office (1997-2011), but before that she has been a proponent of legalized abortion. Do infants consent to being aborted? Apparently, the mother’s choice to have the baby is the only consent that matters, though the mother should not have the choice to have her baby baptized.
The fact is, infants do not choose to be born. So it should not be surprising that they do not choose to be born again. For all of us, both our physical life and our spiritual life are gifts from a gracious God, by virtue of His creating us and redeeming us through Christ.
As Trueman says, baptism is not coercion, indoctrination, or mistreatment. Rather, it has to do with love and grace.
Though we are not born Christians, we are born sinners. And our wills are in bondage to sin, which is why we can’t “consent” to Christianity. This is why infants, as well as adults, need the love and grace of our heavenly Father, the forgiveness and acceptance of Christ His Son, and the faith and holiness bestowed by the Holy Spirit, all of which baptism signifies and bestows.
OK, I’m sounding like a Lutheran. Other Protestants believe the faith has to come first, though they usually believe the Holy Spirit is involved, and only then should the Christian be baptized, a rite seen more as a symbolic act of obedience, leading to church membership. So they too oppose baptizing infants, though they will believe in doing everything they can to raise their children as Christians.
But Mary McAleese is no evangelical; rather, she is a “prominent Catholic.” What is so remarkable in her argument against infant baptism is that it is so contrary to her own professed Catholicism.
That Lutherans disagree with Catholics, including on baptism, is an understatement, but we agree with them that baptism is efficacious, that it does something, or rather that God does something in and through baptism: namely, bestows life and salvation.
So Mary McAleese needs to recognize that Catholic parents who want their baby to be baptized are not trying to harm or oppress or force the baby into church membership. Rather, they want to save their baby’s immortal soul. She may not believe that, though it is Catholic doctrine and she is a prominent Catholic, but this is the parents’ and the church’s intention.
Catholics go so far as to believe that baptism works ex opere operato. That is, “from the work worked,” that the very act of baptism saves no matter what, though it only forgives original sin, with later sins having to be absolved through penance.
We Lutherans believe that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, and we believe that baptized children are given faith. That’s not intellectual knowledge, but dependence and trust. Just as a child has a conscious dependence and trust in his or her parents, a baptized baby can have conscious dependence and trust in his or her Heavenly Father and in the Savior Jesus. (For the Lutheran teaching on baptism, see the Small Catechism here, the Large Catechism, which explicitly addresses infant baptism, here, and this FAQ. For the Catholic teaching, see their catechism.)
But McAleese seems to be fixated on the notion that baptism is just all about church membership, in a denominational sense. She mentions “the notion of ‘Baptismal promise,'” which she finds “risible.” That is, deserving contemptuous laughter.
For Catholics, the “Baptismal promises” are the promises the baptized person makes, or, in the case of infants, the promises the parents and godparents make on behalf of the child. (That is, renouncing the devil and all his works and ways, confessing belief in the articles of the Creed, etc.) I suppose the notion that a person can make a promise, with such high stakes, for someone else is sort of risible.
Those questions and answers are also part of the Lutheran rite, but they are not promises as such but confession of the faith the person is being baptized into. For Lutherans, the Baptismal promises are those made by God in His Word to the baptized. As CPH Vice President for Publishing Jacob Corzine puts it, in a good discussion of the Lutheran view of baptism,
One of those promises—Lutherans consider it one of the main ones—is made in Mark 16:16: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” And 1 Peter 3:21: “Baptism, which corresponds to this (Peter is describing how Noah and his family were saved in the flood), now saves you.” Putting salvation into Baptism like these verses do goes straight to the heart of the thing: The promise in Baptism isn’t a side benefit, not some addition to salvation or some additional matter. The promise of Baptism is actual salvation.
But this is the work of God, not our own work. That’s the biggest difference between Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism.
Anyway, McAleese, despite her credentials, doesn’t seem to believe in the Catholic teaching about baptism. Just as, according to her Wikipedia entry, she doesn’t believe in the Catholic teaching about abortion or homosexuality or a male priesthood. She certainly isn’t Lutheran or, despite her rejection of infant baptism, evangelical.
Yet, despite the reputation of the Catholic Church for authoritarianism, it’s unlikely that she will be disciplined, much less excommunicated. She is the former President of Ireland. Rome seems to have a great deal of deference towards Catholic politicians, no matter how far they deviate from or subvert church teachings.
Liberal Catholicism seems to be pretty much the same as liberal Protestantism. Those Protestants who are tempted to cross over to Rome need to realize that, despite the doctrinal and moral fidelity the church formally stands for, they will likely encounter feminist nuns, Marxist priests, liberal bishops, and scads of laypeople who have little interest in the orthodoxy that exists on paper. There are exceptions, to be sure. Young priests are reportedly far more conservative than older priests, to the old guard’s chagrin. But the legalism and works righteousness of traditional Catholicism may have precipitated a reaction to the opposite extreme.
Photo: Baptism of a child in Finland by a Lutheran pastor by keskieve – Pixabay archive copy at the Wayback Machine, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41870506
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