Why do Catholics think baby's can be baptized?

Question

Show me the Bible verses,oh right there is non,The Bible indicates that olny believers should be baptized and dunked under the water.

Answer 1

You are absolutely correct. They believe you can save a baby and the rest is a cake job. Well not really, it's so if the baby were to die it would be saved. However, it's any child under the age of reason that has a pass no matter what into heaven. If the baby is baptized without choice, obviously, he/she has the choice of being baptized again. Born again Christians are everywhere and do just that. Catholics aren't the same as Christians but they may still become born again Christians when they choose to.
Never understood this myself.....
How many criminals were baptized? Did that matter to them? Nope! It should be when a child or adult chooses Christ!

Answer 2

I am a Roman Catholic who does read the bible.

Acts 16-33: He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once.

1 Corinthians 1-16: I baptized the household of Stephanas also; beyond that I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.

Acts 16-15: After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, "If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,"and she prevailed on us.

Unquestionably there were children in these families. There are your bible verses for infant baptism, look them up if you like.

Answer 3

I've always thought that in the Catholic religion, the baptism of babies was more of a dedication ceremony. The parents are dedicating themselves and their child to the ways of Jesus.

We do a similar ceremony in the Baptist religion. We don't do a baptism, we generally have the parents and babies line up at the front, and the pastor says a prayer over each one before giving each a little Bible. Then he prays with the congregation for God's blessing on the children and has the congregation agree to help the parents raise the child morally.

Answer 4

+ Infant Baptism +

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "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."

Infant baptism is not a new thing. There are non-biblical documented sources starting in the second century telling of infant Baptism.

There are even several passages in the Bible where whole households were baptized. This would include everyone who lived there, men, women, children, and infants.

Acts 16:15, "After she and her household had been baptized"

Acts 16:33, "then he and all his family were baptized at once."

Acts 18:8, "came to believe in the Lord along with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians who heard believed and were baptized."

1 Corinthians 1:16, "I baptized the household of Stephanas"

St. Paul wrote that baptism has replaced circumcision (Col 2:11-12), and in Judaism circumcision was performed primarily on infants.

+ Immersion in or Pouring of Water +

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: Baptism is performed in the most expressive way by triple immersion in the baptismal water. However, from ancient times it has also been able to be conferred by pouring the water three times over the candidate's head.

Acts 2:41 states that three thousand people were baptized in one day.

It has been argued by people smarter than me that not only was there not enough fresh water to baptize three thousand people in Jerusalem but there would not have been enough time to baptize all of them by full immersion in one day even though they started in the morning.

Could these have been baptized by pouring or even sprinkling water over them?

+ With love in Christ.

Answer 5

Your right !
The bible clearly says that we must repent and be baptized. since babies are innocent they have nothing to repent of. and even if they did, they could not understand well enough to repent.

I think it started back during the times of the plague. Since children were dying before they were baptized people began to question whether their children would spend eternity in heaven or hell. Remember that back then, most people were illiterate. If they did know how to read a language it was not likely to be Latin. And to make it even worse, the bible was not widely available like it is today. So even if they knew how to read Latin, they would have had difficulty studying. I don't know if the practice was started by the Catholic church because of their ignorance or greed. What is pretty clear is that the laity was deceived. I feel real sorrow for them.

Answer 6

Faith is a personnel thing. I'm not catholic but I'm not going to attack catholics for baptizing their kids as baby's. After all, we are all babes in Christ. I know several so called believers that need to be dunk several times because they really are not the Christians they go around saying they are all the time. If someone is dying and they accept Christ as their lord and savior are you going to insist that they also be dunked in water.

Answer 7

You are all giving only PART of the Bible quote. That is the problem with memoraizing Bible verses rather than read the entire Bible, like good Catholics do. "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). But he did not restrict this teaching to adults. He added, "For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him" (2:39). To you and to your CHILDREN, how much more Biblical can infant Baptism be? Moreover, listen to the Bible when it says 1 Peter 3:21: "Baptism . . . now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Yes, an infant does not need dirt removed (repent) but we appeal to God for the child, just as the Bible very clearly tells us to do. Now, for a change, listen to Christ's own words, since you won't listen to me, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19:14). Perhaps it is you who are hindering teh children from coming to Jesus. I am simply reading the Bible, it is you who are interpreting it as a man. At the very least, know that you are wrong about Catholics not reading their Bible, this is one Catholic who does! One last quote since I am on a role, "I did baptize also the household of Stephanas" (1 Cor. 1:16). It is a well documented fact that Stephanas had several small children. Game, set, match!

Answer 8

I know that the Catholic cultists will deny this till they are blue in the face, but here's the truth.
This ritual started by scaring the hell out of parents of new borns into believing that if the baby died before it was baptized the baby would go to hell. So, being the ignorant people that they were before people educated to read and write, they baptized their babies, the Catholic cult kept getting new converts. That's why the Holy Roman Pagan Catholic Cult believes in baptizing babies.

Answer 9

The old testament precedent for infant baptism was circumcision, which was perfomed on the eight day of life.

In the new testament, entire households were baptized, including slaves and infants.

No where in scripture is infant baptism prohibited.

The Catholic church was given the authority by Jesus himself to make rules and determine what to do in matters like this.

They did.

Who gave you the authority, and where is it written?

Answer 10

REPENT and be baptized. What does a baby have to repent of? Just their beliefs as is some others that follow them. Just like Sunday worship was instituted by them and most churches will follow them on that with no question. they are very open on it and claim to have done it but people follow them on that so why not on the baptism? Baptize comes from baptizmo, to bury, not to pour over the forehead.