Friday, February 29, 2008

A Vatican "Service Bulletin" for a Serious Abuse

Coincidentally, I was just mentioning this exact invalid formula in an email to Bubba a few days ago:

The Vatican has warned that Baptism is not valid when the celebrant uses a popular new formula.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) released a statement on February 29 saying that a baptism "in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier," is not a valid Christian sacrament.

The invalid formula, the Vatican statement points out, arises from feminist ideology, and an attempt "to avoid using the words Father and Son, which are held to be chauvinistic."

Aside from being a serious liturgical abuse which would offend any traditional Christian with its sheer arbitrariness, this formula depersonalizes God. It reduces Him from his existence through all eternity as a community of all-knowing, ever-loving persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to a gender-neutral super-entity with a triple job description. Referring to what He does for us rather than the Mystery of His Being practically objectifies God. But hey, feminists objected to the objectification of women by objectifying men as "sperm donors". So welcome to the club, God.

The Roman Catholic Church accepts valid baptisms from all the non-Catholic Christians who use water and recite the Trinitarian formula properly. Let's hope and pray to the Holy Spirit that those who were not validly baptized will get a do-over by someone who knows what they are supposed to be doing. This is more serious than a radiator fan relay recall.

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