Note on infant baptism

Fr. Chad Ripperger discusses the real reason for latae sententiae excommunications for women who procure abortions, or the “health care“ professionals who carry them out.

I cover infant baptism here.

Ripperger’s claim that abortion is especially heinous, not because it involves killing only, but because it permanently denies the victim any hope of the beatific vision, confirms my own reflections.

In particular, unbaptized children who die in, say, a car accident or under an abortionist’s knife, are doomed to suffer for all eternity through no exercise of their own volition. Here, we assume no rebirth beyond the one resurrection, so the dead infant never exercised anything like morally culpable volition in a previous life.

Christians of a theologically conservative bent will justify the traditional Catholic teaching on the grounds that Yahweh is sovereign, his ways are inscrutable. God owes salvation to no one and even if you are properly baptized and confirmed, your decision to believe is not your own, but the operation of elective grace.