A listener named Ginger asks Father Dave about baptizing older children. She asks, “When a child is between the ages of 8 to 9, how do they get a baptism?”
Father Dave first discusses the Church’s recommendation for infant baptisms. “Canon Law recommends not waiting too long…within a few weeks [from birth], really. But sometimes that’s not always practical,” he says.
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Father Dave notes that the other most common time that baptism occurs is as adults. He says, “People that are adult enough to approach the Church themselves of their own volition would say, ‘I’m fairly interested in this.’ For that, we have the process that’s called the OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults,” formerly known as the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.
“OCIA is typically a nine-months-to-a-year process of preparation. It includes formation, learning, praying, and a mutual discernment if the person feels called to the Catholic Church, and the Church is seeing that as a genuine call,” he continues. “There’s almost always a sponsor, that’s somebody who’s walking that journey with them.”
For the ages in between infancy and adulthood, Father Dave says it is a case-by-case basis. “Because it’s not one of those two most normative things, the practice will vary a little bit from parish to parish, depending on what sort of resources they’re able to offer, or even really at the pastor’s discretion,” he says, noting that there is a version of OCIA for children that some parishes offer.
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Father Dave says that the Church ideally would want the child to be more prepared for the Sacrament than an infant, but not necessarily in the same classes as adults. “Obviously you’re going to use different resources, different curricula. It’s not all about learning, and so therefore the prayer and discernment process would be different. If you’ve ever been a chaperone on a retreat with junior high kids or elementary school kids, that’s different than going on a retreat with adults,” he adds. “So as you can see, a lot of these elements would need to be modified. While there are guidelines from the Church, because it’s less common [a parish] might not know what to do.”
For Ginger or anyone in this situation, Father Dave advises, “I would certainly just encourage them to approach their local Catholic parish and ask the same question you asked me: ‘Do you have anything that you’d offer here? Or, if not, do you know of a neighboring parish? Or is there someone I can contact at the diocese to find out where they might be able to go through the appropriate process to then be baptized?’”
