Archbishop Diarmuid Martin wants parents to attend compulsory religion classes before being allowed to have their children baptised.In a letter to all priests in the diocese, the Dublin archbishop said baptism was ‘‘not a once-off private family celebration’’, but a sacrament of initiation into the Catholic Church.
He said parents and children could be invited to apply formally for all sacraments, with ‘‘appropriate catechesis’’ of parents, and that people might be required to ‘‘opt in’’ for sacraments, rather than opt out.
‘‘Contact with parents should be demanding, but not unrealistic or such as to make them feel resentful," he said. ‘‘Programmes should be attractive, rather than simply compulsory."
The archbishop said canon law stressed that, before a child could be baptised, there had to be ‘‘a realistic hope’’ that the child would be brought up in the Catholic faith.
‘‘In the past, Irish society was imbued with Christian values," said Martin, but it could ‘‘no longer be presumed that all parents are committed to, or feel able to carry out effectively, their responsibilities for the faith-formation of their children’’.
The archbishop said the issues about baptism would ‘‘not be resolved overnight’’, but there had to be a change to practice in the diocese.
‘‘Without wanting to be a church only of the perfect, I believe that we should be looking at ways to encourage a commitment from parents to truly help their child to become a member of the faith community," he wrote.
‘‘We need programmes for the reintroduction of families to the practice of faith after long absence and into the faith communities [of which] they wish their child to become a member."
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