Nothing Sums Up the Essential Nonsense of Religion Better Than This

[davidlau17]

"The issue with using 'We' is that it is not the community that baptizes a person, rather, it is Christ, and Him alone, who presides at all of the sacraments, and so it is Christ Jesus who baptizes."

In that case, isn't the language of the ritual itself incorrect? The priest says "I baptize you..." Time to start from square one?

[davidmartin]

It is unusual, I think. The Detroit case was about 18 months ago, soon after the Vatican "liturgical note" was issued. Supposedly, the Archbishop inquired whether Corporate really meant that do-overs were necessary, and Corporate said yes, that's what was meant

i'm sure you're right but I'm betting there's some politics at hand here that's using the issue for an agenda, that there's some power struggle involved and it's not a clean matter. Of course, that explanation would also feed into the essential nonsense of religion argument!
But perhaps it is as you say considering how pedantic and rigid are some of the rules in the Catholic arena, it brings to mind the debate over the content of the communion wafer and I think it was something to do with allergies to wheat or gluten
But it does make me wonder. I remember reading how the Catholic church in the middle ages was adamant that if a priest was the worst, sinful and sordid character going - his sacraments were still holy because of the office he held or working of God or similar. I'm sure I recall this correctly, which then is ironic that the most sordid priest saying the right words is superior to the most perfect priest who may have goofed on the liturgy. All of this is very strange to the outside observer but there are some corners of the world where this makes perfect sense i guess!

[schillingklaus]

"The issue with using 'We' is that it is not the community that baptizes a person, rather, it is Christ, and Him alone, who presides at all of the sacraments, and so it is Christ Jesus who baptizes."

In that case, isn't the language of the ritual itself incorrect? The priest says "I baptize you..." Time to start from square one?

The I baptise... is a late and degenerate formula, from the time when baptism was forged into a ritual to be performed by a priest on the canditate.

The Antiochian Greek equivalent used the medial or passive voice formula, foobar is baptized, even at that late point.
The Acts of Paul and Thecla still use "In the name of IC, I baptize myself."

Of course, the Greek late apologists refused to acknowledge the originality of the self-baptise as much as their Roman brethren did. Their apologistic justification for avoiding the Roman formula is best expressed by Theo of Mopsuest, who claimed that none of the humans, including priests, are properly able to perform the baptismal ritual, only the divine grace can achieve that.

Verily, the priority of the self-baptismal derives from the fact that both the Roman and the Oriental Greek formulation derive naturally rom the alternative which appears when passing from letting the canditate pronounce the words on himself (I baptise myself) to making the priest pronounce the words of grace.

[Giuseppe]

Why is the expression "we baptize you" so much condemned?

I don't know if there is the remote possibility that the "we" is seen as a cryptical allusion to the "rulers of this age".

Afterall, the baptism is allegory of the death and resurrection, and the baptizer would work as the killer. If the analogy is correct, then more baptizers implies more killers.

[Paul the Uncertain]

It is unusual, I think. The Detroit case was about 18 months ago, soon after the Vatican "liturgical note" was issued. Supposedly, the Archbishop inquired whether Corporate really meant that do-overs were necessary, and Corporate said yes, that's what was meant

i'm sure you're right but I'm betting there's some politics at hand here that's using the issue for an agenda, that there's some power struggle involved and it's not a clean matter. Of course, that explanation would also feed into the essential nonsense of religion argument!

I agree that there is something more going on here than meets the eye. I am not surprised that Rome has some standard formula, nor that they would discipline their functionaries who departed from the prescribed form. What surprises me is the global retrospective aspect of this ruling.

It seems to me that any bureaucrat can see that almost nobody who was baptized as an infant could possibly know verbatim what the officant said when baptizing them. The Detroit case depended on there being a complete audio-and-video record of the event. What are the odds that Pope Francis himself could prove that whoever baptized him hadn't stumbled over one or more words?

I am also confident that any bureaucrat can see that there are alternate forms of baptism. In particular, there is "baptism of desire" (1259 of the Roman Catechism, link to the page appears below). It is within the realm of interpretation that this notion could extend to anybody who, in good faith, has ever believed that they were validly baptized. (= No do-overs needed, not even for those with video records.)

But that's as far as I can go. I don't know what these people were thinking, and I don't know why this wasn't fixed when a big shot like the archbishop of a major diocese pointed out to Corporate the chaos the ruling caused. All I can say is that in ordinary life, it's often wise to follow "don't assume malice when incompetence is a sufficient explanation." On the other hand, this is the Vatican. Who knows?

@Giuseppe

Why is the expression "we baptize you" so much condemned?

Supposedly, the original difficulty was that more elaborate departures from the formula were becoming popular. For example, reciting that the church community was doing the baptism, as opposed to the doctrinal position that Christ was doing it. (Of course, the "church community" is the "mystical body of Christ," which is Christ ... but logic is rarely helpful in these matters).

The Vatican directive concerning "we" is in question-and-answer form, so I gather somebody asked about more modest departures from the word-for-word formula. So far as I can tell, the objections to "we" are (1) that it might be misunderstood as a short form of the "church community" recitation already rejected as contrary to doctrine, and (2) Corporate says the right word is "I," so that's what's going to be said.

To adapt a saying orignating in the American Army: There are three ways to do anything: the right way, the wrong way, and the Roman Catholic way. Guess which way Roman Catholic priests are supposed to do things.

-
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/ ... xt=1257%20

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

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There are also a response and a doctrinal note of the Holy Office.

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS PROPOSED
on the validity of Baptism conferred with the formula
«We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit»

QUESTIONS

First question: Whether the Baptism conferred with the formula «We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit» is valid?

Second question: Whether those persons for whom baptism was celebrated with this formula must be baptized in forma absoluta?

RESPONSES

To the first question: Negative.

To the second question: Affirmative.

The Supreme Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, On June 8, 2020, approved these Responses and ordered their publication.

Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 24, 2020, on the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.

Luis F. Card. Ladaria, S.I.
Prefect

✠ Giacomo Morandi
Titular Archbishop of Cerveteri
Secretary

* * *

DOCTRINAL NOTE
on the modification of the sacramental formula of Baptism

Recently there have been celebrations of the Sacrament of Baptism administered with the words: “In the name of the father and of the mother, of the godfather and of the godmother, of the grandparents, of the family members, of the friends, in the name of the community we baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Apparently, the deliberate modification of the sacramental formula was introduced to emphasize the communitarian significance of Baptism, in order to express the participation of the family and of those present, and to avoid the idea of the concentration of a sacred power in the priest to the detriment of the parents and the community that the formula in the Rituale Romano might seem to imply[1]. With debatable pastoral motives[2], here resurfaces the ancient temptation to substitute for the formula handed down by Tradition other texts judged more suitable. In this regard, St. Thomas Aquinas had already asked himself the question “utrum plures possint simul baptizare unum et eundem” to which he had replied negatively, insofar as this practice is contrary to the nature of the minister[3].

The Second Vatican Council states that: “when a man baptizes it is really Christ Himself who baptizes”[4]. The affirmation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, inspired by a text of Saint Augustine[5], wants to return the sacramental celebration to the presence of Christ, not only in the sense that he infuses his virtus to give it efficacy, but above all to indicate that the Lord has the principal role in the event being celebrated.

When celebrating a Sacrament, the Church in fact functions as the Body that acts inseparably from its Head, since it is Christ the Head who acts in the ecclesial Body generated by him in the Paschal mystery[6]. The doctrine of the divine institution of the Sacraments, solemnly affirmed by the Council of Trent[7], thus sees its natural development and authentic interpretation in the above-mentioned affirmation of Sacrosanctum Concilium. The two Councils are therefore in harmony in declaring that they do not have the authority to subject the seven sacraments to the action of the Church. The Sacraments, in fact, inasmuch as they were instituted by Jesus Christ, are entrusted to the Church to be preserved by her. It is evident here that although the Church is constituted by the Holy Spirit, who is the interpreter of the Word of God, and can, to a certain extent, determine the rites which express the sacramental grace offered by Christ, does not establish the very foundations of her existence: the Word of God and the saving acts of Christ.

It is therefore understandable that in the course of the centuries the Church has safeguarded the form of the celebration of the Sacraments, above all in those elements to which Scripture attests and that make it possible to recognize with absolute clarity the gesture of Christ in the ritual action of the Church. The Second Vatican Council has likewise established that no one “even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority”[8]. Modifying on one’s own initiative the form of the celebration of a Sacrament does not constitute simply a liturgical abuse, like the transgression of a positive norm, but a vulnus inflicted upon the ecclesial communion and the identifiability of Christ’s action, and in the most grave cases rendering invalid the Sacrament itself, because the nature of the ministerial action requires the transmission with fidelity of that which has been received (cf. 1 Cor 15:3).

In the celebration of the Sacraments, in fact, the subject is the Church, the Body of Christ together with its Head, that manifests itself in the concrete gathered assembly[9]. Such an assembly therefore acts ministerially – not collegially – because no group can make itself Church, but becomes Church in virtue of a call that cannot arise from within the assembly itself. The minister is therefore the sign-presence of Him who gathers, and is at the same time the locus of the communion of every liturgical assembly with the whole Church. In other words the minister is the visible sign that the Sacrament is not subject to an arbitrary action of individuals or of the community, and that it pertains to the Universal Church.

In this light must be understood the tridentine injunction concerning the necessity of the minister to at least have the intention to do that which the Church does[10]. The intention therefore cannot remain only at the interior level, with the risk of subjective distractions, but must be expressed in the exterior action constituted by the use of the matter and form of the Sacrament. Such an action cannot but manifest the communion between that which the minister accomplishes in the celebration of each individual sacrament with that which the Church enacts in communion with the action of Christ himself: It is therefore fundamental that the sacramental action may not be achieved in its own name, but in the person of Christ who acts in his Church, and in the name of the Church.

Therefore, in the specific case of the Sacrament of Baptism, not only does the minister not have the authority to modify the sacramental formula to his own liking, for the reasons of a christological and ecclesiological nature already articulated, but neither can he even declare that he is acting on behalf of the parents, godparents, relatives or friends, nor in the name of the assembly gathered for the celebration, because he acts insofar as he is the sign-presence of the same Christ that is enacted in the ritual gesture of the Church. When the minister says “I baptize you…” he does not speak as a functionary who carries out a role entrusted to him, but he enacts ministerially the sign-presence of Christ, who acts in his Body to give his grace and to make the concrete liturgical assembly a manifestation of “the real nature of the true Church”[11], insofar as “liturgical services are not private functions, but are celebrations of the Church, which is the ‘sacrament of unity,’ namely the holy people united and ordered under their bishops”[12].

Moreover, to modify the sacramental formula implies a lack of an understanding of the very nature of the ecclesial ministry that is always at the service of God and his people and not the exercise of a power that goes so far as to manipulate what has been entrusted to the Church in an act that pertains to the Tradition. Therefore, in every minister of Baptism, there must not only be a deeply rooted knowledge of the obligation to act in ecclesial communion, but also the same conviction that Saint Augustine attributes to the Precursor, which “was to be a certain peculiarity in Christ, such that, although many ministers, be they righteous or unrighteous, should baptize, the virtue of Baptism would be attributed to Him alone on whom the dove descended, and of whom it was said: ‘It is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit’ (Jn 1:33)”. Therefore, Augustine comments: “Peter may baptize, but this is He that baptizes; Paul may baptize, yet this is He that baptizes; Judas may baptize, still this is He that baptizes»[13].

_____________________

[1] In reality, a careful analysis of the Rite of Baptism of Children shows that in the celebration the parents, godparents and the entire community are called to play an active role, a true liturgical office (cf. Rituale Romanum ex Decreto Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum auctoritate Pauli PP. VI promulgatum, Ordo Baptismi Parvulorum, Praenotanda, nn. 4-7), which according to the conciliar provisions, however, requires that “each person, minister or layman, who has an office to perform, should do all of, but only, those parts which pertain to his office by the nature of the rite and the principles of liturgy” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 28).

[2] Often the recourse to pastoral motivation masks, even unconsciously, a subjective deviation and a manipulative will. Already in the last century Romano Guardini recalled that if in personal prayer the believer can follow the impulse of the heart, in liturgical action “he must open himself to a different kind of impulse which comes from a more powerful source: namely, the heart of the Church which beats through the ages. Here it does not matter what personal tastes are, what wants he may have, or what particular cares occupy his mind...” (R. Guardini, Vorschule des Betens, Einsiedeln/Zürich, 19482, p. 258; Eng. trans.: The Art of Praying, Manchester, NH, 1985, 176).

[3] Summa Theologiae, III, q. 67, a. 6 c.

[4] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7.

[5] S. Augustinus, In Evangelium Ioannis tractatus, VI, 7.

[6] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, 5.

[7] Cf. DH 1601.

[8] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22 § 3.

[9] Cf. Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae, n. 1140: “Tota communitas, corpus Christi suo Capiti unitum, celebrat” and 1141: “Celebrans congregatio communitas est baptizatorum”.

[10] Cf. DH 1611.

[11] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, 2.

[12] Ibid., 26.

[13] S. Augustinus, In Evangelium Ioannis tractatus, VI, 7.

[00923-EN.01] [Original text: Italian]

[Jax]

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We should better consult the Hammer of Witches to see whether Satan had a hand in this business.

"I" "cough-Satan-cough".......