INFANT BAPTISM. Ready kids?
Fundamentalists often criticize the Catholic Church’s practice of baptizing infants. According to them, baptism is for adults and older children, because it is for only after one has undergone a "born again" experience—that is, after one has "accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior."
But, in Luke’s Gospel, we read: "Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God’" (Luke 18:15–16).
The present Catholic attitude accords perfectly with early Christian practices. Origen, for instance, wrote in the third century that "according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants" (Holilies on Leviticus, 8:3:11 [A.D. 244]).
2007-11-08
05:12:59
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Catholic Crusader
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Religion & Spirituality