Catholic church doesn’t understand LDS doctrine of baptism
David May 7th, 2008
After looking into the story about the Catholic church’s concerns about LDS baptism a bit more, it sounds to me like the Catholic church doesn’t really understand the LDS doctrine of baptism and hasn’t taken the time to research or ask about it. From Catholic World News,
The Catholic Church objects to the Mormon practice of "rebaptism" for two reasons: first because baptism is permanent, and cannot be repeated; second because the "baptism" practiced by Mormons is invalid, since the faithful are not baptized "in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
The Catholic officials quoted here haven’t looked at the exact wording of the LDS baptismal ordinance from D&C 20:73
Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
OK… we have "Holy Ghost" here instead of "Holy Spirit"… but looking the actually wording of the Catholic baptismal prayer from the Catholic Encyclopedia we get…
I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
Hmmm… if we are concerned with actual wording, the Catholic news source doesn’t even know exact Catholic doctrine, much less LDS doctrine.
And as for the rebaptism objection, didn’t the Catholic church recently announce that any converts from Mormonism to Catholicism need to be rebaptized? Hmmm… That would mean that they believe that some baptisms are not efficacious, and must be repeated in order to be valid.
@Bryce
I hadn’t heard anything to this regard, but it wouldn’t surprise me. In fact, I would expect that most religions that believe in the concept of baptism would require all converts to be baptized again if that baptism was performed by another Faith.
David,
That is actually not true, although it’s a recent (last 100 yrs) devt. Most churhes do not require rebaptism.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Mormon’s maintain the orthodox Christian understanding of the Trinity so this is why the Catholic Church does
not consider Mormon baptisms valid. Technically speaking a Mormon joining the Catholic Church would not be rebaptized, but baptized for the first time,
because the Mormon ritual isn’t considered a Baptism by CC.
Most people who convert from a Christian denomination don’t need to be baptized in order to convert. It depends on the belief of the tradition they’re
coming from.
See the NY Times article:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E7D7113AF937A15754C0A9679C8B63
And the Vatican:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010605_battesimo_mormoni_en.html
The problem is simply that the Mormon church holds to an abberant doctrine of the Trinity, or rather that is does not believe in the historic Trinity of One God in Three Persons, as believed by the church fathers, and described in the Apostles and Nicean creeds. form apostolic times. This is a conception that was never known until Joseph Smith and therefore cannot be considered as coming from apostolic teaching. It has nothing to do with the wording but the belief and intent of those performing the sacrament.
@Gregory
Yes, the LDS Church does have a different understanding of some doctrines, such as the Trinity, than other contemporary churches. Nevertheless it seems strange to me that the Catholic church can determine the validity of a saving ordinance like baptism by the “belief and intent of those performing the sacrament.”
Even if this is the public reasoning behind for this Vatican policy change, I believe that there are more political motivations. The LDS Church membership has been performing baptisms using the same methods for over a hundred years but the Catholic church hasn’t introduced this policy until now.
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