Invalid baptisms: A Catholic explainer about the facts and the fears

Baptism involves a simple formula: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The celebrant pours water on the head of the baptized, or immerses them in water. Usually, Catholic clergy are responsible for baptisms. But anybody can baptize in an emergency, as in cases where a prospective Christian, even an infant, is in imminent danger of death.

Sometimes, people mess with this formula. Many of them mean well, but that can have consequences. In rare cases, Catholic clergy weren’t baptizing using the form of the baptismal rite approved by the Church.

This has prompted some questions and some worries. Here’s what you need to know:

Have some clergy really been baptizing Catholics incorrectly?

In August 2020 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a document approved by Pope Francis, said that Catholics who use the phrase “we baptize” when they try to baptize someone don’t get the job done. In Church parlance, it is an “invalid” baptism.

In effect, saying “we baptize” tries to baptizes someone “in the name of the community.” Who is the baptizer here? It’s too vague.

Some clergy would ad lib the baptismal rite. They would use phrases like "In the name of the father and of the mother, of the godfather and of the godmother, of the grandparents, of the family members, of the friends, in the name of the community we baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

This sloppy talk has important consequences, the CDF noted. The sacrament cannot be presumed to be valid: these baptisms were not really sacraments, but simply attempts to baptize.

So what happened next?

Cases where a priest or deacon attempted a baptism, but used an invalid form, means re-examining the sacramental life of everyone who thought they were baptized validly.

Most recently, the Diocese of Phoenix announced that a priest had been incorrectly trying to baptize people for over 20 years. The priest, Father Andres Arango, apologized, and the diocese took steps to help those who had been invalidly baptized.

So this is a big deal?

Baptism is definitely a big deal! Christ told believers to be baptized. Baptism washes away both personal sin and original sin.

In the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, baptism is “the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as Sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission.”

If you aren’t baptized, you can’t receive the other sacraments.

In rare cases, there have been invalidly baptized men, who thought they were priests, acting as priests.

After the 2020 announcement from the Vatican, some men who thought they were priests looked back at videos of their own baptisms only to realize that the priest or deacon who baptized them hadn’t followed the basic rite in important ways.

Father Zachary Boazman of Oklahoma City is one such priest. He watched a video from his infancy in which a deacon from the Diocese of Dallas, during service in the Diocese of Fort Worth, had tried to baptize the infant Boazman using the wrong formula.

Father Matthew Hood of the Archdiocese of Detroit also watched a video of a different deacon, Mark Springer, performing an invalid baptism on him as an infant in Troy, Michigan.

In both cases, these would-be priests weren’t really priests, or even Christians! Both men had to be baptized, confirmed, and ordained deacons and then priests for the first time.

Compounding this problem, these men who were mistaken to be priests did not in fact consecrate the Eucharist at the Mass. Their confessions, confirmations, and anointings of the sick weren’t valid.

What did the Vatican have to say about this?

The CDF’s 2020 statement cited the Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium, which said "no one, 'even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.'"

Those who changed the form of baptism acted with “debatable pastoral motives” which revive "the ancient temptation to substitute for the formula handed down by Tradition other texts judged more suitable.”