We offer you some quick answers to recurring questions concerning baptisms of both adults and children.
Please contact your parish for more information.
These answers are taken from the Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church.
This is not a baptismal preparation but a quick guide.
Who can be baptised?
Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is capable of baptism.
Can there be 2 male or female sponsors?
Insofar as possible, a person to be baptized is to be given a sponsor who assists an adult in Christian initiation or together with the parents presents an infant for baptism. A sponsor also helps the baptized person to lead a Christian life in keeping with baptism and to fulfill faithfully the obligations inherent in it. There is to be only one male sponsor or one female sponsor or one of each.
Commentary: “Insofar”, thus, it is not an obligation to have a sponsor.
Who can be a sponsor?
To be permitted to take on the function of sponsor a person must: 1/ be designated by the one to be baptized, by the parents or the person who takes their place, or in their absence by the pastor or minister and have the aptitude and intention of fulfilling this function;
2/ have completed the sixteenth year of age, unless the diocesan bishop has established another age, or the pastor or minister has granted an exception for a just cause;
3/ be a Catholic who has been confirmed and has already received the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist and who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on;
4/ not be bound by any canonical penalty legitimately imposed or declared;
5/ not be the father or mother of the one to be baptized.
Does the baptism need to be at the church?
Apart from a case of necessity, the proper place of baptism is a church or oratory. As a rule an adult is to be baptized in his or her parish church and an infant in the parish church of the parents unless a just cause suggests otherwise.