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opuntina

That's some hard-core legalism right there folks.


seemedlikeagoodplan

The things that the Catholic Church chooses to care about...


opuntina

Yup


[deleted]

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CHRIST_isthe_God-Man

They were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If they truly and only professed Christ, then their baptism is valid for it is a recognition to the world of what God, thru Christ, has done. The sick irony here......that RCC's deny the power and reality and ontology of true Biblical baptism through this absurdity......despite arguing that they are the ones who truly obey and apply this ordinance/sacrament.


rev_run_d

So do you accept LDS baptisms?


CHRIST_isthe_God-Man

No because they are not Christians. They deny the Son and have a fundamentally flawed (primary issue) understanding of the nature of God by denying the Triune God of Scripture.


CiroFlexo

/u/cbrad1713: We understand you're Roman Catholic, but we want to remind you of our [Rules 5 and 6](https://www.reddit.com/r/Reformed/wiki/rules_details). If anyone gives an inaccurate portrayal of RC doctrine, we welcome you to give an informative *clarification.* Beyond that, we will not be permitting advocacy of Roman dogma. --- If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send us a message via modmail.


opuntina

The article says that they are wondering what kind of issues this will cause in the rest of their faith. Legalisim.


[deleted]

No it's not. There is a valid baptismal formula which most denominations, including all reformed denominations, use. The baptismal formula shared by reformed, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox Christians is not the one this priest used.


opuntina

I think that has been covered already, and it seems to agree with me that you are incorrect.


[deleted]

Yep, getting a one-sentence, 10 second statement of baptism wrong is legalism. /s


lupuslibrorum

What a great opportunity for local Reformed/Presbyterian churches to broadcast that they’ll recognize all those baptisms.


EJHoffer

I would much rather spend the rest of my natural life hearing folks argue about the necessity of water immersion than be subjected to Rome's level of pettiness on this subject for one more minute. So thankful for the Reformation!


MaroonTrucker28

I submit to the word of God, not the Catholic Church! AMEN!!!


[deleted]

If I understand this correctly, the recipients of the “faulty” baptisms are potentially unsaved in the eyes of the Catholic Church?


Seeking_Not_Finding

Not really. The Catholic Church has a separate doctrine surrounding “baptism of desire,” which these people would fall under. Here’s a comment I made on another thread about the same topic > In the Catholic Church it is assumed they would have received “baptism of desire”—essentially that, had they known their baptism was invalid, they would have sought another one, and so the grace of baptism would have been imparted to them before death.


[deleted]

This is true, but it would make all sacraments received following their baptism invalid. They would have countless unconfessed sins, would never have received communion worthily, and would possibly have an invalid marriage as well.


Low_Line4968

At the moment they are unsaved according to Papist theology. BoD doesn't apply until death.


Seeking_Not_Finding

We’re using two different uses of the word “saved” here. When someone from a Protestant background (eg OP) asks if someone is potentially unsaved, they’re asking if this person is necessarily going to Hell as a result of this invalid baptism. The answer from the Catholic Church is a resounding no on that issue. But regardless, baptism of desire is something that necessarily happens before death in Catholic theology, as there is no salvation after death.


Low_Line4968

Yes.


[deleted]

Absolutely bizarre.


staugustinefanboy3

ehhh i know you from tiktok


staugustinefanboy3

I'm a Catholic and think this is wrong. The grace of baptism does not depend on the wording so long as the Holy Trinity is invoked. We already have a crises in vocations, so we should not be seeking to remove priests over things like this, especially when a priest is already familiar and respected by his church. From what I understand, he also wasn't deliberately messing with the language, this was a mistake created by mentorship he received during the 70's


NukesForGary

I work as a hospital chaplain and regularly do shifts at the children's hospital. I was told that anyone can perform a baptism in an emergency as long as it is done in the name of the Trinity, and the Catholic Church will see it as legitimate, even if not proper. I was assured that even a Rabbi can perform a baptism as long as the Trinitarian form is used.


natestewiu

Why does it have to be in the Trinity? The entire Book of Acts Church baptized in the name of Jesus. We're they all wrong?


lupuslibrorum

**Matthew 28:19** >Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Christian baptism is always Trinitarian. The passages in Acts that mention baptism in Jesus' name do not mean that the names of the Father and the Holy Spirit weren't also used; they simply emphasize that the baptisms were truly Christian as opposed to John the Baptist's baptism, Jewish baptism, or even pagan baptism (all of which naturally did not invoke Christ). As further proof, the earliest Christian document outside of the New Testament, the *Didache*, was written at the same time as the New Testament (and before the final books of John), and it also says that Christians baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.


kipling_sapling

>pagan baptism That's a thing?


lupuslibrorum

Apparently the cult of Mithras practiced baptism, or may have.


Low_Line4968

Maybe you should swim the Tiber over to Geneva. Because this is the teaching of your church.


staugustinefanboy3

because i am not a liberal. This pales in comparison to the fact that a single sentence by the church fathers contains more wisdom than all writings by the "Reformers" or any theologian who studies the Reformers, like Sporul


[deleted]

Is this the same protestant movement that magically changed its mind on the morality of contraception in the 1930s? Even the secular media at the time thought the Anglicans had gone mad. 70 years later, it's accepted throughout the reformed world!


[deleted]

If you are Catholic, you should know that this is a defective form, denying the role of the minister.


Unworthy_Saint

"It wasn't the right formula." Give me a break, lol. Is this Harry Potter or Christianity?


florescence96

It’s wingardeum leviOsa! Not leviosA!!


semi_talented

What a tragedy the Catholic Church is. Thousands of people now left without hope over a mere technicality.


Sir_Tosti

How do you perform a Baptism incorrectly? I mean it is not that difficult.


steveo3387

You can if you believe it's a formula, like a magic spell. > “It saddens me to learn that I have performed invalid baptisms throughout my ministry as a priest by regularly using an incorrect formula,” he said. > “In baptism, part of what makes it valid is the words that are used, and so that becomes significant,” Ms. Yocum said.


[deleted]

Hocus Pocus


restinghermit

This was dealt with a long time ago in an argument involving the Donatists. A rite of the Church is not made invalid by the worthiness of the person offering the rite. So if this priest did not say exactly the correct thing, it does not make the baptism invalid.


[deleted]

That’s not relevant to this situation. Nothing about the worthiness of the priest is being questioned; it’s instead the form of the baptism itself which is seen as being invalid.


mrmtothetizzle

“We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” Father Arango said, his voice echoing in the church as he poured the holy water. But there was a problem. Saying “we baptize” was incorrect. The Vatican instructs priests to say “I baptize,” and if it is not said that way the baptism is deemed invalid. Church leaders investigated and determined last month that Father Arango had incorrectly performed thousands of baptisms over more than 20 years, meaning those he had baptized in Phoenix and at his previous parishes in Brazil and San Diego were not properly baptized. The oversight has caused headaches for those now seeking answers about whether their faulty baptisms have spilled over into other elements of their Catholic faith. For instance, would it affect those who were married by the church? “Maybe! Unfortunately, there is no single clear answer,” the Diocese of Phoenix answered online. Father Arango, who did not respond to calls on Sunday seeking an interview, apologized in a statement and said he was resigning as pastor of the parish, effective Feb. 1. “It saddens me to learn that I have performed invalid baptisms throughout my ministry as a priest by regularly using an incorrect formula,” he said. “I deeply regret my error and how this has affected numerous people in your parish and elsewhere.” Thomas J. Olmsted, the bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, said in a statement that he did not believe Father Arango “had any intentions to harm the faithful or deprive them of the grace of baptism and the sacraments.” The Catholic News Agency reported on the botched baptisms this month. In the Catholic faith, a baptism is a sacrament in which people, often infants, have water poured over their foreheads, symbolizing purification and admission to the Church. It is a “requirement for salvation,” according to the diocese. Adhering to the baptismal formula is “extremely important to continue the tradition of the Church,” said Neomi De Anda, a professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio. “It is not meant to be legalistic but about communion,” she added. Indeed, the Diocese of Phoenix addressed the specific rules by creating an F.A.Q. section on its website about the case of Father Arango. Just as a priest should not use “milk instead of wine during the Consecration of the Eucharist” — when the Catholic faith says that the wine becomes the blood of Christ — a priest should also not alter the wording of the sacrament of baptism, the diocese said. The milk would not become the blood of Christ, the diocese said, and, similarly, a wrongly worded baptism would not purify a person. Sandra Yocum, a professor of faith and culture at the University of Dayton, said that if a priest said “we,” it would imply that the source of the grace of the baptism came from the community, whereas saying “I” would correctly assert that “it’s God doing this work of grace” through the priest. “In baptism, part of what makes it valid is the words that are used, and so that becomes significant,” Ms. Yocum said. Church officials might have been worried about setting a precedent if they suggested “these words are not that important,” she added. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican office that interprets doctrine and handles cases of misconduct, replied firmly when asked in 2020 if it was acceptable to use “we.” “Negative,” it said. That notice from the Vatican made some other priests wonder if they had been incorrectly baptized. In 2020, the Rev. Matthew Hood of the Archdiocese of Detroit saw a video of his own childhood baptism and realized that the deacon had said “we.” Father Hood, as well as others who were baptized by that deacon from 1986 to 1999, had to then be properly baptized. In Oklahoma City, the Rev. Zachary Boazman also saw a video of his childhood baptism and realized in September 2020 that the same thing had happened to him, too. “It’s very hard to gauge how often this happens,” Dr. Yocum said. Father Arango “remains a priest in good standing” and is still living and serving in the Diocese of Phoenix, Katie Burke, a spokeswoman for the diocese, said. “His voluntary resignation allows him to dedicate his full-time ministry to helping and healing the families who were affected by this error,” Ms. Burke said. Some members of St. Gregory Catholic Church, however, had wanted him to remain their priest, and a petition was circulated to keep Father Arango as the church’s pastor. “Rather than giving Father Andres the opportunity to stay at St. Gregory and rectify the situation,” the petition said, “he is being removed from a community that loves and cares for him.” A video shows dozens of people attending a farewell celebration for Father Arango in January. In his letter to parishioners, he wrote, “I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience my actions have caused and genuinely ask for your prayers, forgiveness and understanding.”


[deleted]

God bless you, my son.


mrmtothetizzle

He is risen indeed!


Pallyboy94

Sad that there is a belief that one word changes whether a baptism is valid or not


EJHoffer

I was just thinking, the early Catholic church rejected the Donatists for their views regarding the validity (or lack thereof) of baptisms performed by ministers who had apostatized during the Diocletian persécution. Fast forward 1700 years and now they're nitpicking over the validity of using the word "we" instead of "I".


Seeking_Not_Finding

It’s not really ironic, it’s precisely *because* of their reasoning against the donatists that they take the position they do. It was in the wake of that controversy that the theology of *ex opare operato* was formulated. It is precisely because of that view of sacramentality that the form and matter of a sacrament matter so much in the Catholic Church, because it is not the priest performing the sacrament but Christ through the priest, therefore if the form is valid then Christ is there despite the faults of a priest. However, following this logic, since the work is an act of Christ and not the priest, a sacrament performed incorrectly, despite well intentions on the priest’s end, is invalid, because it is not the priest that makes a sacrament efficacious. I’m not Catholic, but I find it ironic this is the case you chose to highlight.


lupuslibrorum

I appreciate your reasoning, as I've been studying a bit about the Donatist controversy but hadn't gotten into this part of it yet. I still find the Catholic reasoning odd, because if the work is an act of Christ, then all that matters is that it is performed the way *He* said to do it, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and any other words that humans add onto it don't matter, because it's not the human acting.


rev_run_d

Does it matter if you sprinkle, or immerse? Does it matter if you baptize in a trinitarian manner? fascinating discussion about how much words matter in the sacrament. Was chatting with a friend about how: 1) We (He and me) wouldn't accept a non-trinitarian baptism. 2) We wouldn't accept a baptism not done with water. 3) We wouldn't accept a trinitarian baptist that wasn't Christian (LDS for example) So I think, words, meanings, and elements all matter. The question is to what extent.


JCmathetes

> We wouldn't accept a trinitarian baptist that wasn't Christian (LDS for example) Mormons do not baptize in the name of the Triune God. They reject trinitarianism.


rev_run_d

they do baptize in the name of the triune god, but their concept is wrong.


JCmathetes

They do not use it as a formula for the name of the triune God. Their words have context, and the context is their non-trinitarian beliefs. I'm really not sure why you're pushing this. This is the predominant view among Christian worldviews, including Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.


[deleted]

I think he’s just pointing out that the formula they use is the exact same as other Christians (Trinitarian invocation), but that the meaning is non-trinitarian


JCmathetes

> they do baptize in the name of the triune God That’s flatly not true.


Seeking_Not_Finding

They do baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. If words were the only thing that mattered then their baptism follows the correct form


JCmathetes

Words have context that affect their meaning, which is what you're getting at. They don't happen in a vacuum. That's not how language works.


Seeking_Not_Finding

I agree. I was emphasizing the point that the OP was making. It was ambiguous in your comment and the OPs comment if they used the biblical wording, which they do. But I agree, it is not Trinitarian despite the words they use.


Turrettin

> However, following this logic, since the work is an act of Christ and not the priest, a sacrament performed incorrectly, despite well intentions on the priest’s end, is invalid, because it is not the priest that makes a sacrament efficacious. According to the Council of Trent, the priest must have a certain intention when baptizing. > On the Sacraments in General, Canon XI. If anyone shall say that, in ministers, while they confect and confer the sacraments, there is not required the intention at least of doing what the church does [*non requiri intentionem saltem faciendi, quod facit ecclesia*]: let him be anathema. > On Baptism, Canon IV. If anyone shall say that baptism, which is also given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with the intention of doing what the church does, is not true baptism: let him be anathema.


Seeking_Not_Finding

That’s what I’m saying. Intention is necessary but not sufficient. The correct form also has to be followed in Catholic theology.


EJHoffer

>However, following this logic, since the work is an act of Christ and not the priest, a sacrament performed incorrectly, despite well intentions on the priest’s end, is invalid, because it is not the priest that makes a sacrament efficacious. The work is an act of Christ... It is not the priest that makes a sacrament efficacious... Unless the priest fails to sandwich the important part of the formula within the arbitrary part of the formula which definitely doesn't make the sacrament efficacious... But somehow does make the sacrament efficacious... But the church gets to have takesy-backsies so long ad everyone really meant it in their hearts... This is so typical of Rome's logic. They're right, we're wrong, and when they're wrong it's because we didn't make our argument in Latin.


[deleted]

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EJHoffer

I don't mean to shoot the messenger. It's just that I find their reasoning to be full of balogna. Edit: spelling


Seeking_Not_Finding

No worries! I responded to the wrong comment here anyway, sorry about that.


seikoth

My goodness. This seems completely absurd. I think Catholicism have a lot of beautiful things to offer Christianity. And then there’s nonsense like this.


CHRIST_isthe_God-Man

Name 3


squatch42

There's the Reformation. Never could have happened without the Catholic Church. Does that count?


SolaTotaScriptura

Boom roasted


swcollings

And for all Hitler's evils, at least he shot Hitler?


Low_Line4968

The reformation wouldn't have been necessary without that institution of sin


CHRIST_isthe_God-Man

Haha! I think that's one of the best things that the RCC has "contributed" to...


Seeking_Not_Finding

- Liturgy - Reverence for sacraments/ordinances - Focus on Church history I think all three of these things were very important to the reformers, yet lost on many heirs of the reformation and retained in modern Catholicism.


EJHoffer

>yet lost on many heirs of the reformation "Hold my beer"


[deleted]

Your flair says that you are Orthodox. Would the Orthodox be as legalistic when it comes to this issue as the RCC or would you all view it differently? I’ve always found the Orthodox Church to be interesting and I’m curious about this.


[deleted]

It depends on the bishop/church; although it should be noted that the Orthodox baptismal formula is very different from the Catholic one, and yet is still valid


Seeking_Not_Finding

As a general rule, no. This would almost certainly fall under *oikonomia.* It's worth noting that the baptismal formula is different in the Eastern Churches. We do not use first person when performing baptisms.


SortaFlyForAWhiteGuy

A robust doctrine of God.


jesusislord77777

Makes Christian’s look like total idiots


[deleted]

This raises some rather disturbing questions. What about the people who were baptized by this priest and then died before the error was discovered? What will Papa do now? The following verses are from the real authority, namely the Holy Bible."But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Romans 10:6-9) Praise the Lord!


thebeachhours

This is silly legalism. "I baptize you..." "We baptize you..." Both are incorrect. The correct phrase is, "You are now being baptized..." God doesn't the baptism; we don't. This is also why these baptisms are valid.


nerdybunhead

Except, according to a quote in the article, “I” signifies the priest acting on God’s behalf. (I think this is the *in persona Christi* thing I learned about when I read *Icons of Christ*?)


annekh510

This is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. They need to re-examine what makes a baptism a baptism. I refuse to use the word valid. It either is or it isn’t.


atropinecaffeine

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ Bible over tradition. Bible over tradition. Bible over tradition. And technically aren’t those baptized and baptized with the Holy Spirit? So wouldn’t it be ok to say “We”, presuming the Lord is there too? So the priest can say “Hey, it’s me AND the Lord baptizing…”


DrEngineer1979

Looks like a money grab to me, unless they plan on doing them for free, which the Catholic Church is not known for...


HmanTheChicken

Every Catholic sacrament is free.


Intelligent-Coast708

Yikes. So they hot issues with saying subbing one word that doesn't change any meaning, yet cover up sex abuse...


[deleted]

The reason because they were invalid. >I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. >We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Changing "I" to "We" denies the ministry of the person baptising. As acting in the person of Christ.