Leap Day = Groundhog Day?

In light of this morning's CDF decision on baptisms, it might be wise to go back and check the christening videos -- if yours was performed "in the name of the Creator..." you've gotta do everything all over again:

"I think if you are over the age of 45 to 50 you have nothing to fear" regarding the validity of baptisms, said Father Tom Weinandy, a Capuchin Franciscan who is executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Doctrine. Those in the younger generation shouldn't "have a huge amount of fear" either, he added.

According to the statement released by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Feb. 29, a baptism administered "in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer and of the Sanctifier" or formulas that do not say "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" is not a baptism at all. If the baptism is invalid, so are the other sacraments the person may have received, such as matrimony.

"If you are not validly baptized," and thus not validly married, "a person needs to get rebaptized and remarried," explained Father Weinandy.

However, unless a witness at the baptism knows that an incorrect formula was used, "it is assumed they used the right formula," he said. "The presumption is the obvious truth that the baptism is valid."

The Vatican's statement was released "because of the abuse (by priests and Protestant ministers at baptisms) and the questions that have come from it," said Father Weinandy.

The Vatican "wants to make sure the formula is the proper formula," he told Catholic News Service Feb. 29.

Instances in which a baptism has been considered invalid have been "very, very, very few and far between," he said.

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