'Cause I Gotta Have Faith - Part XI

Ok, guys. We’re in the home stretch now.  Only 3 articles to go.

Article 10:

Current Text:

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Beginning Advent 2011:

I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Apart from reading the Bible and, of course, believing in the Trinity, one of the main things that ties most Christian denominations together in common is Baptism.  Baptism comes from the Greek word baptizein, meaning “plunge” or “immerse.” Being plunged or immersed in water symbolizes our burial into Christ’s death.  This is indicated by St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 3, which says, “Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  Once we have “died” to our former selves, we can “rise” through Baptism to new life in Christ as his follower.  From the flood to cleanse the earth of evil—the flood that prompted Noah’s ark building, to the flowing back of the Red Sea over the army of Pharaoh after Moses had parted it, water was used throughout the Bible as (surprise, surprise) a symbol of being washed clean, typically of sin and evil.  Jesus, himself, was baptized in the Jordan River by his cousin John the Baptist (not a very creative title, I know).  Jesus put stock in the idea of being spiritually washed clean, not only for himself, but also for his followers, so much so that baptism is referenced in the last two verses of Matthew’s Gospel: “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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

Now, depending on which denomination you talk to, Baptism has slightly different traits and requirements attached to it from faith to faith.  In many (if not most) Protestant (non-Catholic Christian) faiths, for instance, when you become a part of their congregation, no matter how many times you may have been baptized before in no matter how many different churches, you must be baptized AGAIN to become a part of their church.  Not only must you be re-baptized, but you must be an adult.  In the Catholic Faith, we view things a little differently.

First of all, you have to realize that most Protestant faiths do not baptize infants like we do in the Catholic Faith.  They hold to this belief because they feel that in order to be baptized into a life in Christ, you should be able to understand what you’re getting into and profess your own faith.  Seems like a logical enough theory, but these Christians forget about (or simply don’t believe in) the concept of Original Sin.  Original Sin is the idea that before the sin of Adam and Eve, humanity had the opportunity to live sin-free and guiltless for all time, but because they chose to disobey God, we as humans are born with tainted souls—souls stained by the original sin that all humanity shares in.  Because of this tarnished soul, we Catholics believe that children deserve the cleansing and forgiveness of sin that comes along with baptism without having to wait until they are adults.  This has a good bit to do with receiving the Eucharist.  See, if you remember from our posts about the Penitential Rite, we touched a bit on the fact that our souls should be cleansed and our hearts should be right in order to receive the Eucharist.  A person who has not been baptized is not FULLY clean, because they have original sin on their souls.  Since in the Catholic Church, we have children begin to receive the Eucharist at the “age of reason” (the age at which a child should understand right from wrong), we have our children baptized before this point.  When Catholics become adults (different dioceses put this at different points, usually in high school), they receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, which is our opportunity for a Catholic adult to make an independent choice to become a member of the Church. 

When you think about it (soapbox alert!), the Protestant faiths that have an issue with us baptizing infants don’t really have MUCH of an argument against it, because they say that a person should have the choice as to whether they want to be baptized or not.  However, their belief is (generally) that baptisms in other churches have no importance, but that a person needs to be baptized into THEIR church to belong to the body of believers.  This is contrary to the Catholic belief of ONE baptism: once you’ve been baptized, you’ve been baptized, whether you were baptized in the Catholic Church, or in the Baptist church, Episcopal church, or in some random non-denominational church, as long as you were baptized with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (we call this the “formula” for baptism).  So in the end, if someone who has been baptized (at ANY age) wants to leave a church, they can just leave.  If they go to another Protestant church, that church will tell them that they have to be baptized again in THEIR church, so in the end, whatever previous baptism they had was meaningless (to them) anyway, no matter WHEN in their life they received that previous baptism.  Also, if an adult decides that they want to leave religion altogether and become an atheist, then to them all that happened in the baptism was that they got a little wet.  No harm done.  So I still have yet to hear a good reason as to why we SHOULDN’T baptize infants.  If you have one, I’d love to hear it in the comment section below.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering about that word “confess” that replaced the word “acknowledge” in this line, right?  Well, maybe not, but you’re probably wondering about it now…you’re welcome.  The word used in the Latin text is confiteor.  Look familiar?  The Confiteor is the “I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters…” prayer from the Penitential Rite earlier on in the Mass.  Here, though, it has a slightly different connotation (connotation is the suggested meaning of a word as opposed to the denotation, which is the literal meaning of the word).  Here the word means more of “profess” than the typical sense of “confess” that we are used to, as in “confessing your sins.”  Both meanings are definitions of the word confess, but the one we’re using here is “profess.”  

I have to admit that there is a much cooler explanation that I’ve heard recently about the word “confess” used here, but I cannot for the LIFE of me think of what that explanation is.  I’ll do a little research and post it in the comment section later.