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Can Non-Catholics Baptize Their Children as Catholics?

Question:

Can non-Catholic parents baptize and raise a child in a Catholic environment?

Answer:

Yes.  The Code of Canon Law requires only that there “be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion” (can. 868). The Church does not actually require that the parents be Catholic, it requires only that there be some well-founded hope that the child will be raised as a Catholic.

Obviously, the fact that the parents are not Catholic would raise a red flag regarding the probability of the child being raised Catholic, but there are some situations where that would be a reasonable assumption.  For example, if a Catholic couple died and their child was to be raised by a non-Catholic relative, it would be reasonable to believe that relative could commit himself to raising the child in the religion of his parents.

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