It was the seminary/theological college and the curacies which have informed, right through their lives, the attitudes and methods of many priests. Cartainly it’s true for me and for many (ex) Anglicans. So all my life I have struggled with the issue of baptism and how to prepare for it. My first vicar in the 1970’s had introduced a ‘baptism policy’, requiring parents to attend Mass for six months before the baptism of their child. The number of baptisms dropped, in one year, from around 145 to 9! The policy was regarded as draconian by many of our neighbours, but ‘indisciminate baptism’ continued to be an issue in the C of E and even made it into “Coronation Street” – a popular TV soap opera. In a remark which particularly challenged me, the late Fr Leslie Chadd, then vicar of St Peter & St Paul, Fareham, insisted that baptism was often ‘innoculation’ against the Faith. He explained that, just as in a vaccination we receive a tiny dose of the disease which then prevents us catching it for the rest of our lives, so baptism gives people a tiny dose of Christianity which means they can forget about it for the rest of our lives.

My guess is that I have officiated at more baptisms (of babies and small children) here in France in six years than in all the years I was an Anglican! But a huge question was posed three years ago when we contacted 60 families from our parish, with baptised children now at the age for Catechism. Even allowing for families moving house, we were shocked not to have a single response – let alone inscription for Caté.

Now the preparation for adult baptism – and there were around 4,000 last year in France – is strict: basically two years of Catechumenate, with interventions by the Diocese as well as preparation the the parishes, and Confirmation administered by the Bishop. ‘Conversion of life’ is deemed to be the number one priority, and not just instruction in the Catholic Faith.

TEAM RCIA, an American website with all sorts of resources for the Catechumenate says:

“The gospel story about the rich young man always amazes me. The man is a model of Jewish piety, having assured Jesus that he has followed all the rules Jesus lists. It almost seems he’s boasting a bit when he asks Jesus for more rules to follow.

He reminds me of some inquirers I’ve met. They just want to know what it takes to become Catholic. They’ll come to all the meetings, learn all the rules, check all the boxes. How do I tell them it takes more than that to be a disciple? “

Jesus’s answer to the rich young man is really a discernment question. He’s asking the young man where his heart is. What and who does he truly love? Inquirers come to us for a bunch of different reasons. But how do we know what is truly in their hearts? “

The author goes on the maintain that it is the responsibility of those who accompany the seeker, the Catechumen, to discern – and not to make the excuse that this is best left to to the Holy Spirit. He acknowledges that this discernment is often hard and may result in the Catechumen – like the rich young man – going away sad (or angry).

Fr Alexander Schmemann, the Orthox theologian, writes in a very different context. Nonetheless it seems to me that what he says about our encounter with Christ in the Sacraments is relevant:

The flaw of contemporary theology (including alas, Orthodox theology) and its obvious importance lies in the fact that it ceases to refer words to reality. It becomes “words about words”, definitions of a defenition. Either it endeavours, as in the contemporary West, to translate Christianity into the “language of today”, in which case, because this is not only a “fallen” language but truly a language of rejection of Christianity – theology is left with nothing to say and itself becomes apostasy ; or, as we often see among the Orthodox, it attemps to thrust on “contemporary man” its own abstract and in many respects “archaic” langauge, which to the degree that it refers neither to any reality nor to any “experience” for this “contemporary” man, remains alien and incomprehensible, and on which learned theologians, with the aid of all these definitions and interpretations, conduct experiments in artificial resuscitation.” ‘

‘The Eucharist’ – Alexander Schmemann – St Vladimir’s Seminary Press – New York 1987 (spelling anglicised)

Now if Fr Schmemann’s words are critical of Western Liberalism, they are also directed against those who would retreat behind interpretations of Canon Law, and who long for a previous age when, for example France could be called a ‘Catholic Country’ simply because the majority of its citizens were baptised!

Yet among the strongest proponents of ‘indiscriminate baptism’ are those faithful Catholic lay-peoplewho insist that we must not erect any barriers to the Sacrament, on the grounds that ‘you never know what God might do.’ (Do they believe that God ceases to have anything to do with those not baptised as babies?) My own belief, is that many grandparents still have not come to terms with the wholesale rejection of the Catholic Faith by their children’s generation – and desperately hope that by getting their grand children baptised this will, in some way, make up for what they believe (wrongly, I think,) to be their “failure”.