Imagine having your Catholic marriage invalidated because a priest used the wrong pronoun when you were baptized as an infant. Or you are told to leave the priesthood for the same reason... Or possibly even going to hell because of one word? If you were baptized as an infant, should you be worried? The short answer is maybe... Earlier this year, thousands of Catholics in the Phoenix, Arizona, area learned that they had been improperly baptized as infants. Why? Because they were baptized with the wrong pronoun by Pastor Rev. Andres Arango, who used the “wrong” pronoun for over twenty years. He resigned in disgrace on February 1, 2022. Other Catholics in Troy, Michigan, who were baptized between 1986 and 1999 also found their baptisms were deemed invalid because of the “wrong” pronouns used during the baptism ritual. The Michigan situation was uncovered when Father Matthew Hood, a priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit, watched a video of his own infant baptism. He discovered that Deacon Mark Springer, who performed his baptism, who, like Arango, had used “we baptize” instead of “I baptize”. Hood’s baptism was immediately ruled invalid by the Catholic church. Because Hood’s baptism was not valid, his status as an ordained priest was also invalidated. Faced with permanent expulsion, Hood moved quickly to get baptized, confirmed, and re-ordained a priest. The consequences of the wrong pronoun went beyond his own baptism. Hood had officiated at roughly 30 marriages during his first three years as a priest. Those Catholic couples were forced to retake their vows. So if a couple married by Hood has not yet become aware of this foolishness, are they now living as adulterers? Is the Catholic Church more interested in pronouns than intent? Likely so... considering the global order from the Vatican in Rome that pronounced that “It’s not the ‘we’ of the congregation doing the baptizing, but rather the ‘I’ of Jesus Christ, working through a priest or deacon, that makes baptism valid”. All of this is rank legalism... No one is saved or becomes a Christian through infant baptism. The official Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation (from the Catholic Catechism of 1871) is that the grace of God is infused into a baby at baptism… making them justified before God. This justification can be lost through sin and must be regained by repeated participation in the many sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. This is NOT biblical. Grace is a gift from God, not something we can ever earn or be removed from us. It is a mockery of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to say that it was not enough and you also have to do what we say. (Some Christian churches engage in the practice of child dedication where parents stand in front of the congregation with their child and vow to raise the little one in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This is in keeping with Proverbs 22:6 … “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”) Baptism by itself does not save anyone, Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, or otherwise… nor does it make one’s marriage valid or not. Salvation must precede water baptism. Water baptism is a public symbol of a believer’s faith in Christ. Infants cannot make such a decision on their own. Baptism is for those old enough to understand and publicly demonstrate and celebrate true repentance and a new faith in God’s saving grace. The Bible teaches that we are saved only by the grace of God, through faith in Christ alone and nothing else. 1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we celebrate in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2 NASB) The scriptural truth is that infant baptism saves no one… instead, baptism is a public declaration of one’s reasoned and informed decision to follow Jesus Christ. Anything else amounts to teaching another Gospel... one that is opposed to the Word of God as found in scripture. If you liked this post from The American Faith & Freedom Blog, why not share it? |
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