Baptism
Parishioners wishing to have a child baptized should be registered in the parish and should contact the pastor (E-mail Fr. Matt) as early as 3 months before the birth of their child. For an adult who desires baptism, please refer to our RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation) page.
Parents should contact the pastor and propose a date of baptism and a date to meet with a member of the clergy for preparation. Finally, they should have the sponsor affirmation form filled out by the sponsor and bring it to the baptism preparation meeting. At the baptism preparation meeting, the family will turn in the sponsor affirmation form, fill out the baptism application with the member of the clergy, and receive formation on baptism.
“Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua),4 and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: “Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1213).
“Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called.50 The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1250).