Chrzest dzieci niechrześcijan i akatolików w potrydenckim prawie kościelnym

Abstract

Provisions of post-Tridentine law take account of a principle previously known in the Catholic Church i. e. that non-Christian and non-Catholic infants cannot be baptized against their parents’will. There are two exceptions to this principle viz., when the infant is in danger of death, and when parents lost their parental rights over the child. In danger of death Baptism can be administered only when it does not cause scandal or indignation in non-Christian surroundings. Any general danger of death (e. g. war, epidemie) is not sufficient to make Baptism of such an infant permissible. It is permissible, however, to baptize an infant subject to illness or an invalid if it in danger of death before it reaches the age when it can use reason. This kind of danger is described in legal provisions by the term articulus mortis although infant may live for a longer time and need not be in danger of death at the moment. A child of non-Christian or non-Catholic parents may be baptized if the parents lost their parental rights over their child. Loss of parental rights may be caused by death, desertion, or if parents were taken into captivity. The priest who administered Baptism against the will of the parents (except in the quoted cases) used to be severely punished according to Contemporary regulations. This kind of Baptism although impermissible was valid and the child baptized in this way ought to be brought up as a Catholic. The order to bring up the child as a Catholic very often had no practical application if the minister who administered Baptism did not confess the transgression because he was afraid of punishment, and the parents, afraid to lose their child, kept the fact of Baptism secret. When parents agree to Baptism or ask for it the infant can be baptized only when Catholic education is assured. Catholic education is not assured by the fact that infant is brought to be baptized by Catholic godparents. The written undertaking of the parents may be considered as satisfactory guarantee only in the countries where civil law considers it valid. There were cases when pagans or Mohammedans brought infants to be baptized for purely worldly or even superstitious reasons (for the sake of health, healing a disease). Non-Cątholics sometimes brought infants to be baptized because they did not have their minister. Unless it could be reasonably hoped that the child would be brought up as a Catholic the provisions did not allow to administer Baptism. Baptism of children whose parents reverted to paganism should be treated as a separate question among the cases of lapsed Catholics. General regulations demand at Baptism of the child of lapsed Catholics a guarantee that it will be brought up as a Catholic, at Baptism of the child whose parents reverted to paganism the guarantee is not needed. It is enough to take care that the parents and their child are taught truths of the Faith. According to the pronouncement of the Congregation of Propagation of the Faith of 1777 all doubts connected with Baptism of non-Christian and non-Catholic children should be solved according to the three following rules: 1) If there is no danger of death it is not allowed to baptize non-Christian and non-Catholic children against their parents’ will. 2) Non-Christian and non-Catholic children may be baptized if their parents agree and their Catholic education is assured. 3) If Baptism is administered in danger of death it should be administered without causing any scandal. Mixed marriages can be contracted in the Catholic Church only with dispensation which can be obtained after presentation of an undertaking that all the children of such a marriage will be brought up as Catholics. Therefore it is permissible to baptize these children into the Church. The difficultfes arise in case of Baptism of a child of a mixed marriage when there was no such guarantee. Such cases occured mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth Century when the Turks took captive Christian women and they had to stay in captivity as their slave wives. They brought their children to be baptized in secret though it was obvious that their Mohammedan fathers would bring them up in Islam. They could be baptized if it was possible for them other to teach them Catholic faith or if the child was in any danger of death. If the Catholic side in a mixed marriage was not deprived of freedom the child could be baptized according to her wish.