User talk:Sandwiched

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) will produce your name and the current date. You should always sign talk pages, but not articles. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! AnnH ^(talk) 08:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Rebaptism

Hi, Sandwiched. Thanks for your message. Actually, I felt after making that edit summary that I hadn't expressed it very well, but it's not possible to go back and change edit summaries. Let me explain. I put that Catholics can only be baptized once. Actually, according to Catholic teaching, people, whether Catholic or not can only be baptized once. Baptism places an indelible mark on the soul. In cases where the first baptism was definitely invalid, the Church would require that the person be baptized – note, I didn't say rebaptized. In cases where there is doubt over the first baptism, the Church would require that the person be conditionally baptized. In such a case, the person performing the baptism would say something like, "If you are not baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." In that case, if the person has already been baptized, nothing happens, and if the person hasn't been, then the "conditional baptism" is a real baptism. But you can't be partly baptized, or re-baptized. But a re-baptism where someone is known to be baptized is not just unnecessary: it's absolutely forbidden, because it's imitating a sacrament. So I don't know what the Pope did at the River Jordan, because I wasn't following the news at the time, but I can state categorically that he did not go through a valid or invalid baptism ceremony! Sorry I can't be more helpful. Cheers. AnnH ^(talk) 09:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)