What is involved in a Catholic Christening?

Question

I am neutral of faith (basically agnostic) but my husband would like our first born to be christened Catholic in his family tradition. They are not strict church attending Catholics and I was never christened myself. Would the Church have a problem with this fact? And what is required of us spiritually to have our child christened Catholic. I was told that you would have to go to confession and church a lot afterwards etc. I know basically nothing about it! HELP!

Answer 1

Do you mean baptized? For a baby to be baptized in the Catholic Church, "there must be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be delayed according to the prescripts of particular law after the parents have been advised about the reason." (Canon 868.1.2)

If you are not prepared to bring the child up Catholic, I'm sure the priest will be happy to bestow a blessing instead.

Answer 2

My suggestion is you go to the parish where you plan to have the child baptized. The following will give you an idea how infant baptism is performed in the Church.

The Baptism of infants

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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.50 The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.51

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Christian parents will recognize that this practice also accords with their role as nurturers of the life that God has entrusted to them.52

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The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole "households" received baptism, infants may also have been baptized.53
Faith and Baptism

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Baptism is the sacrament of faith.54 But faith needs the community of believers. It is only within the faith of the Church that each of the faithful can believe. The faith required for Baptism is not a perfect and mature faith, but a beginning that is called to develop. The catechumen or the godparent is asked: "What do you ask of God's Church?" The response is: "Faith!"

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For all the baptized, children or adults, faith must grow after Baptism. For this reason the Church celebrates each year at the Easter Vigil the renewal of baptismal promises. Preparation for Baptism leads only to the threshold of new life. Baptism is the source of that new life in Christ from which the entire Christian life springs forth.

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For the grace of Baptism to unfold, the parents' help is important. So too is the role of the godfather and godmother, who must be firm believers, able and ready to help the newly baptized—child or adult—on the road of Christian life.55 Their task is a truly ecclesial function (officium).56 The whole ecclesial community bears some responsibility for the development and safeguarding of the grace given at Baptism.

Grace and peace to you!

Answer 3

Technically when you baptize your child, you're supposed to raise him or her Catholic. The child has godparents, who pledge themselves to help your child develop in their faith. Lately, however, you can have a non-Catholic Christian be the "Christian Witness" if they go to a few weekend classes.

Basically it's a mass and the four adults take the child up to the baptismal font, where the priest puts some water on their forehead. (For an adult, some churches will have a font you actually walk into and they pour water over you with a pitcher.)

I'd say that if his family really wants you to do it, go ahead and do it. Very Catholic people believe that you won't go to heaven if you aren't baptized, so I'm sure your in-laws would appreciate the gesture so they don't have to fear for their grandchild's eternal soul.

How seriously you take the whole thing is up to you. I was baptized as a baby, but my godparents lived in a different country than me. They took me on trips with their kids and stuff, which was cool, but they never pushed the religion thing. My parents took me to church every week, but if they hadn't, the Vatican wouldn't come after them with enforcers, you know.

Answer 4

I may have my facts wrong, but I think they break a bottle of champagne against the baby's head and then send it off to sea.