 | Charlie Traffas has been involved in marketing, media, publishing and insurance for more than 40 years. In addition to being a fully-licensed life, health, property and casualty agent, he is also President and Owner of Chart Marketing, Inc. (CMI). CMI operates and markets several different products and services that help B2B and B2C businesses throughout the country create customers...profitably. You may contact Charlie by phone at (316) 721-9200, by e-mail at ctraffas@chartmarketing.com, or you may visit at www.chartmarketing.com. |
***image1:left***QUESTION: Does one have to be baptized in order to enter Heaven? What about babies who die early in life or at birth and never get a chance to be baptized?
ANSWER: The Lord Jesus himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation: "I say to you that no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is reborn of water and the Spirit" (John 3:5). Jesus also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them: "Go throughout the whole world and preach the Gospel to all mankind. Whoever believes and is baptized, will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:15-16).
Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed, and who have the possibility of asking for this Sacrament. The Church takes very seriously this injunction of her Lord, and endeavors to provide that all who can be baptized are "reborn of water and the Spirit." God has tied salvation to baptism, but He Himself is not bound by His Sacraments. This truth affords hope of salvation for good persons not formally baptized.
The Church has always been convinced that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith or of morality (authentic martyrs), without having received Baptism, are baptized by their death in union with Christ. This "Baptism of blood," assumes the desire for Baptism, and achieves the effects of Baptism. Likewise, those persons who are preparing for Baptism but die before receiving the Sacrament: are considered to have received "Baptism of desire," through their explicit desire to receive it, and are repentant for their sins. These alternate forms of Baptism assure those persons the salvation that they were not able to receive through "Baptism by water."
Also, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Every person, who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the Will of God insofar as he/she understands it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired baptism explicitly, if they had known its necessity." The Catechism continues: "As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church entrusts them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God, who desires that all persons should be saved (cf 1 Tim 2:4), and Jesus' tenderness toward children, which caused him to say: 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them' (Mk 10:14), allows us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children, who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of Baptism."
As regards infants who are aborted or who die in their mother's womb, many theologians teach that these are saved and go to heaven: through "Baptism of desire" on the part of their parent or at least on the part of holy mother Church, established by Jesus as the common mother of all God's children.