{"id":466,"date":"2008-03-03T09:13:04","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T09:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/in-the-name-of.html"},"modified":"2008-03-03T09:13:04","modified_gmt":"2008-03-03T09:13:04","slug":"in-the-name-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/in-the-name-of.html","title":{"rendered":"In the name of…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lots of discussion about last week’s rather terse CDF note.
\nFirst, the note:
\nThe document itself is not yet up on the CDF website, but when it arrives (whenever that will be), I’d imagine it would be here. <\/a>\u00a0But here it is at ZENIT. <\/a><\/p>\n

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS PROPOSED?on the validity of Baptism conferred with the formulas?\u00abI baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier\u00bb?and \u00abI baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer\u00bb
\nQUESTIONS
\nFirst question: Whether the Baptism conferred with the formulas \u00abI baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier\u00bb and \u00abI baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer\u00bb is valid?
\nSecond question: Whether the persons baptized with those formulas have to be baptized in forma absoluta?
\nRESPONSES
\nTo the first question: Negative.
\nTo the second question: Affirmative.
\nThe Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved these Responses, adopted in the Ordinary Session of the Congregation, and ordered their publication.
\nRome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, February 1, 2008.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The note – an explanatory note usually, if not always attached to statements like this – is reported in the Vatican Information Service article:<\/a><\/p>\n

An attached note explains that the responses “concern the validity of Baptism conferred with two English-language formulae within the ambit of the Catholic Church. … Clearly, the question does not concern English but the formula itself, which could also be expressed in another language”.
\n“Baptism conferred in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”, the note continues, “obeys Jesus’ command as it appears at the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew. … The baptismal formula must be an adequate expression of Trinitarian faith, approximate formulae are unacceptable.
\n“Variations to the baptismal formula – using non-biblical designations of the Divine Persons – as considered in this reply, arise from so-called feminist theology”, being an attempt “to avoid using the words Father and Son which are held to be chauvinistic, substituting them with other names. Such variants, however, undermine faith in the Trinity”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The note makes very clear the source of the problems here – the theological trends that have sought to strip God-Talk of any intimations of gender.
\nA huge, widespread, problem? Maybe not huge, tsunami like, but yes, a problem – there have been instances, for example, at the Paulist Center in Boston back in 1993 – this Creator-Redeeemer-Sanctifier formula wasn’t used, but another<\/a>. More recently, in Australia, hundreds of baptisms have been performed using Creator-Liberator-Sustainer. <\/a>
\nFr. Philip Powell has commentary and notes that the formula was pushed during his seminary days.<\/a>
\nSome of the best commentary I’ve seen on this comes from Anglican theologian Fr. Robert Hart:<\/a><\/p>\n

First, let us recall the theology of why we say what we say. A description of something that is either an attribute or the work of God most strongly associated with a specific Person of the Godhead, could be called a title, but not a name. “The Son” is a name, or rather, part of a Name; but nowhere is “the Redeemer” revealed as a Name. “The Son” relates the Logos Himself to the Father, as “the Father” relates the first Person to the Son, without whom He is not Father. This speaks of the Son who is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit is part of the Name as well, since this relates Him to the Father from whom He eternally proceeds, and speaks of his equality to the Father and the Son, whereas “Sanctifier” only describes one of His workings in relation to creation, specifically to man. Furthermore, St. Basil, in On the Holy Spirit<\/span>, reminds us that the Risen Christ told us that the Name is not three names, but One Name. “In the Name..” not, “in the names.”
\nOnce again I take the liberty of quoting one of my own articles:<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

To the ancient Hebrews, a name represented the very person. After Israel returned to their land from Babylon, they ceased to pronounce the holy ineffable Name of God. In place of the mysterious YHVH they would say the word <\/span>Adonai,<\/span> which was translated into Greek as <\/span>Kyrios,<\/span> and into English as \u2018\u2018Lord.\u2019\u2019 From this we see that the New Testament proclaims Jesus as God by calling him Lord (and also the Holy Spirit 2 Corinthians 3. 17). Also, we see that the Tetragrammaton (???? YHVH) pronunciation has been lost, perhaps providentially. We do not need the ineffable Name; a far greater revelation shines in the brilliant light of the New Covenant.<\/span>
\nThe first mention of prayer is \u2018\u2018Then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord (Genesis 4.26).\u2019\u2019 In the greater glory of the New Covenant revelation, he teaches us: \u2018\u2018In this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name\u2019\u2019 (Matthew 6.9). When uttering what is called the High Priestly Prayer, he addresses God with that same Name, \u2018\u2018Father.\u2019\u2019 He says: \u2018\u2018I have manifested Thy Name unto the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world\u2019\u2019 (John 17.6). Whether we ever again can say the ineffable Name, we have this greater revelation by which we call God \u2018\u2018our Father\u2019\u2019 \u2013\u2013 the gift of the Father\u2019\u2019s love.<\/span>
\nAfter rising from the dead, the Lord fully revealed the Divine Name by commanding us to baptize \u2018\u2018in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost\u2019\u2019 (Matthew 28.19). We see that \u2018\u2018The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost\u2019\u2019 is the Name of God. The revelation of the Trinity did not come as an abstract proposition; it came in the life of Jesus Christ, intricately bound up in his salvation. So it is that the Creeds teach us the truth of the Trinity and also of our redemption in Christ; for the revelation of one is intimately tied up in the revelation of the other. And, only in this Person, our salvation himself, is God revealed and known (John 17.3). This is not an image created by human imagination, but rather the saving revelation.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
You can see that this isn’t just about “doing what Jesus said in Matthew” – although that is part of it. The deeper point is that when we are baptized we are baptized in the name of God, who is Trinity, which is a relation of Persons, not an arrangement of functions, especially not an arrangement of functions that we are free to describe any way that strikes us as meaningful at the moment.\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of discussion about last week’s rather terse CDF note. First, the note: The document itself is not yet up on the CDF website, but when it arrives (whenever that will be), I’d imagine it would be here. \u00a0But here it is at ZENIT. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}