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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
[b]I don't know whether this helps or not.  One is actually not baptized a Catholic--even if a Catholic priest does it--one is baptized a Christian. [/b] This is why Protestant converts to the Catholic Church are not baptized--their baptism is fully accepted as a Christian baptism.  (Although I don't think a Mormon baptism would be accepted.)  It is also why your child can't be baptized by a priest if it is found that someone of any faith has already baptized him or her in the bathtub.

So I think your first question is do you want your children baptized as Christians.  If so, your second question is whether you want a Catholic priest to do it, clergy from another church, or indeed yourself as someone suggested.

The Catholic church is a human institution and will always have the same frailities as any other human institution, including governments and corporations.  It is actually not realistic to expect a higher standard.  Boccaccio wrote about this long ago in the Decameron, where an innocent visited corrupt Rome centuries ago.  His conclusion:  Any church that could withstand all the corruption he saw and still survive and give hope to many must have something really good going for it!  Or as my grandmother used to say, "Priest are just servants of the church, and you know how hard it these days is to find good help"

OP you said: "I also assume DC will have a lot of questions about religion themselves one day and quite frankly, I can't answer them and refuse to answer them with sentences that start with "Well, Father so and so says..."

Whichever way you take, please don't eve say that!  It is important to be educated in church teachings and give a straightforward and honest answer along the lines of:  "The church's reason for XYZ is ABC, but I have a hard time agreeing with that because of PQR."  (And if you can't articulate the Church teaching have a Catechism of the Catholic church to look it up.)   It would be nice, but not necessary, to add, "Maybe someday I will understand the reasons for its position and support it; I just don't right now."

The church, properly understood, strongly supports respectful (emphasis on this word) dissent because thinking Catholics are its strongest asset.  My chaplain at college was fond of saying the best Catholics are agnostic at least half the time.

[/quote]

Is that correct?  I am baptized Christian, not Catholic, but my extended family is all Catholic and I went to a Catholic university,  so I have been to many, many Catholic masses, weddings, etc.  At all the masses I attended, the priest would invite all baptized Catholics to come forward for communion. Since I am not a baptized Catholic, I sat out countless communions, sometimes as the only one remaining in the pew.  Could I have gone forward and taken communion?  Sorry for the hijack, OP.  I, too, struggled with whether to baptize my child, because I'm not particularly religious, but ended up doing so, although not in the Catholic church. [/quote]

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