Baptism

[Era Might]

Does the Church teach that a person (that is, an adult person) must desire Baptism in order to be validly Baptized? In other words, does the Church believe that a Baptism done against the adult's will, is an invalid Baptism?

[CatherineM]

Canon Law says that only those who want to receive baptism, should be baptized, but it doesn't really speak to baptizing someone against their will. An ordinary minister of baptism wouldn't do that except I suppose in an emergency situation where they conditionally baptize someone in eminent danger of death without knowing that they were an atheist for example.

[quote]Canon 865 §1 To be admitted to baptism, an adult must have manifested the intention to receive baptism, must be adequately instructed in the truths of the faith and in the duties of a christian, and tested in the christian life over the course of the catechumenate. The person must moreover be urged to have sorrow for personal sins.

§2 An adult in danger of death may be baptized if, with some knowledge of the principal truths of the faith, he or she has in some manner manifested the intention to receive baptism and promises to observe the requirements of the christian religion.[/quote]

[CatherineM]

Res just supplied me with a quote on point that I wouldn't have found in a million years.

[quote]Pope Innocent III declared forced baptism to be invalid:

"This is contrary to the Christian religion, that anyone always unwilling and interiorly objecting be compelled to receive and to observe Christianity. On this account some absurdly do not distinguish between unwilling and unwilling, and forced and forced, because he who is violently forced by terrors and punishments, and, lest he incur harm, receives the sacrament of baptism, such a one also as he who under pretense approaches baptism, receives the impressed sign of Christianity, and he himself, just as he willed conditionally although not absolutely, must be forced to the observance of Christian Faith. . . . But he who never consents, but inwardly contradicts, receives neither the matter nor the sign of the sacrament, because to contradict expressly is more than not to agree. . . . The sleeping, moreover, and the weak-minded, if before they incurred weak-mindedness, or before they went to sleep persisted in contradiction, because in these the idea of contradiction is understood to endure, although they have been so immersed, they do not receive the sign of the sacrament; not so, however, if they had first lived as catechumens and had the intention of being baptized; therefore, the Church has been accustomed to baptize such in a time of necessity. Thus, then the sacramental operation impresses the sign, when it does not meet the resisting obstacle of a contrary will." (Pope Innocent III, [i]Ex parte tua[/i]: Denzinger-Schonmetzer 781)[/quote]