Ayala: Furor over baptisms makes a big church look small and out of touch
Father Matthew Hood celebrates mass at Our Lady of the Rosary church in Detroit. In 2020, he watched a video of his own baptism from decades earlier and realized the presiding priest had made an error, saying “We baptize” rather than “I baptize.”When members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests meet, the discussion centers on trauma and recovery.Patti Koo, who leads the San Antonio-New Braunfels chapter, says a recent meeting was different.
At the SNAP meeting, this set off a discussion about “ontological issues,” the philosophical, metaphysical, even supernatural powers assigned to a priest the moment he’s ordained.The baptism imbroglio is reverberating through the church and may for some time, as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of invalid baptisms are uncovered.
The problem is that in the eyes of the church, “we” implies that the community is the source of grace in baptism. “I” signifies that Jesus is working through the priest or deacon who performs the sacrament. From the church’s perspective, the primacy of “I” over “we” is inviolate and longstanding. The Vatican reaffirmed it in a 2020 document.
My family includes a lot of lapsed Catholics. They love the rituals of the church. They pray and believe. But the church’s history and abuses of power have left an imprint.One of our family’s most recent weddings was held at Beacon Hill Presbyterian Church. It was packed.
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