Baptismal Recall
Are you about to pour water on my head?
Warning: If you have been baptised as a Christian with any other formula than the precise words: ”...in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (‘Ghost’ may do…),” the Vatican would like to speak to you. Your baptism, whether performed in a proper Catholic Church or in the tabernacle of some Protestant cult, may not be valid; in fact, certainly is not valid. Your Christian warranty is hereby declared null and you are required to immediately take steps to repair the error.
So, use only certified spare parts, er, no, not exactly. At any rate, those people in the Vatican we weren’t going to write about for a while – but they are trickier than we are – have discovered that politically correct religious practitioners both within and without the Roman Catholic Church itself have for some time been yielding ground to feminist insistence that less sexist baptismal terminology be used than what God himself clearly expects is to be employed.
Words like “Redeemer” or “Saviour”, intended to keep the boys out of it, are not acceptable substitutes. God and his Son are both of the “he” gender and that’s all there is to it.
However that may be, according to a recent finding of the “Holy Office” – once better known as the Inquisition – anything less than repetition of the original and authentic formula absolutely invalidates the baptismal ceremony, which must now be repeated. You are without coverage until such time as this is done.
The ruling by the way also applies to Protestants and any other kind of would-be Christians, since there is only one true Church – that’s what “Catholic” means, after all – and if you intend to be redeemed you belong to it whether you expected to or not.
We just thought you might want to know…