What is Baptism, and why do Catholics baptize babies?
The short answer
Baptism is the first sacrament: through water and the Holy Spirit it washes away original and personal sin and makes a person a child of God and a member of the Church. Catholics baptize infants because it is a free gift of grace, not a reward for understanding — and because the apostles baptized whole households.
The doorway to every other sacrament
The Catechism calls Baptism "the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments" (CCC 1213). Jesus tells Nicodemus, "no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit" (John 3:5).
What Baptism does
- Forgives original sin and all personal sins (CCC 1263)
- Makes the baptized an adopted child of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit
- Incorporates them into the Church
- Leaves a permanent spiritual mark, so it is never repeated
Why infants?
- Grace is a gift. No one earns Baptism. An infant's inability to understand underlines, rather than undermines, that salvation is God's initiative (CCC 1250).
- Households. Acts records Lydia "and her household" and the jailer "and all his family" being baptized (Acts 16:15, 33).
- The promise is for children. Peter on Pentecost: "the promise is made to you and to your children" (Acts 2:39).
- The new circumcision. Paul links Baptism to circumcision (Colossians 2:11-12), which was given to infants eight days old.
- Early witness. Writers such as Hippolytus (c. A.D. 215) and Origen speak of baptizing little children as a practice received from the apostles.
Who can baptize?
Ordinarily a bishop, priest or deacon. In an emergency, anyone — even a non-Christian — can validly baptize by pouring water on the person's head while saying, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," intending to do what the Church does (CCC 1256).