One baptism, five first Communions, and 13 confirmations marked the sacred rites that were celebrated on April 12 for the 13 St. John’s University students who had completed the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) and were fully initiated into the Church.
Just as we wouldn’t leave newborns without clothes or food, we cannot leave them without faith and baptism, Pope Leo XIV told parents of children he baptized in the Sistine Chapel Jan. 11.
The number of Catholics and permanent deacons in the world rose in 2023, while the number of seminarians, priests, men and women in religious orders, and baptisms all declined, according to Vatican statistics.
Parents usually feel joy and anticipation on the day their child is baptized into the Catholic faith. Philip and Jessica Chan were no different, except they experienced those emotions five times over. The Chans watched as their five daughters — Olivia, 7, Madeline, 5, twins Camile and Eloise, 4, and Genevieve, 2 — were baptized by Father Gregory McIlhenney at St. Andrew Avellino Church in Flushing on Jan. 26.
When children are baptized, their parents and the church are giving them the greatest gift ever: the gift of faith, Pope Francis said before baptizing 21 infants in the Sistine Chapel.
Pope Francis used his third day at Rome’s Gemelli hospital to visit children hospitalized in the oncology ward and to confer the sacrament of baptism on a tiny infant named Miguel Angel.
Telling parents and godparents to teach their little ones to pray from the time they are small, Pope Francis baptized 13 babies in the Sistine Chapel as their older brothers and sisters looked on — or got away and ran around.
Hundreds of people came to St. Patrick’s Church, Bay Ridge on Sunday, March 6, to take part in the Rite of Election — a prayer service in which those who are enrolled in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) in the Diocese of Brooklyn took an important step toward becoming full members of the Catholic Church.
Before baptizing 16 babies in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis reminded parents and godparents of their responsibility to care for and preserve the Christian identity the infants were about to receive.
For the next three years, if Catholic families in the Archdiocese of Catania in Italy want to baptize their babies, they’ll have to do so without godparents.
