Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 196 - Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 196 - Part II. Who can be baptized, and what is required of a candidate?      

(Youcat answer - repeated) Any person who is not yet baptized can be baptized. The only prerequisite for Baptism is faith, which must be professed publicly at the Baptism.         

A deepening through CCC    

(CCC 1249) Catechumens "are already joined to the Church, they are already of the household of Christ, and are quite frequently already living a life of faith, hope, and charity" (AG 14 § 5). "With love and solicitude mother Church already embraces them as her own" (LG 14 § 3; cf. CIC, cann. 206; 788 § 3).      

Reflecting and meditating     

(Youcat comment) A person who turns to Christianity is not just changing a world view. He travels a path of learning (the Catechumenate), in which he becomes a new man through personal conversion, but especially through the gift of Baptism. He is now a living member of the Body of Christ.  

(CCC Comment)    

(CCC 1250) Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called (Cf. Council of Trent (1546): DS 1514; cf. Col 1:12-14). The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth (Cf. CIC, can. 867; CCEO, cann. 681; 686, 1).     

 
(This question: Who can be baptized, and what is required of a candidate? is continued)