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Perth, Thursday, June 28, 1962. gllstrgiL
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CHANGES IN BAPTISMAL
RITE FOR ADULT CONVERTS
-
By JAMES C. O'NEILL
Price 9d.
The Town Hall Is opposite
MISSION DIRECTOR
APPOINTED AUXILIARY BISHOP
VATICAN CITY. Catholic Bishops throughout the world may authorise the administration of Baptism to adults in seven distinct steps instead of all at once. The Sacred Congregation of Rites, in a newly published decree, provides for conferring the sacrament to adults according to time intervals based on the amount of Christian instruction they have received and the progress they have made in studying Christian
doctrine. The decree allows much of the baptismal rite to be conferred in the local language. It also permits bishops in mission regions to alter certain rituals if because of peculiar local traditions scandal or evil interpretation may be attached to them.
The congregation recalled that the adult baptismal rite as prescribed in the Roman Ritual of today is composed of various ceremonies in which, in ancient times, candidates for Baptism were brought to the sacrament
gradually.
Many bishops in mission areas have asked that the various rites now combined in one ceremony be returned to the ancient form so they can be administered separately. The reason for the request, the congregation said, is that the number of converts in the mission territories is constantly increasing, and that graduated steps would aid in better and more orderly preparation. At the same time, however, the congregation said, the growing number of adult baptisms in traditionally Christian regions has prompted many bishops of those areas to request the same privilege. Their hope, according to the congregation, is to use the teaching power of the liturgy to aid in conveying a deeper significance to the catechetical instruction being given.
candidates through their own prayers and through the example of a serious Christian life, said the decree. The steps for administering Baptism to adults are given as follows: THE FIRST STEP involves the first imposition of the baptismal name on the candidates, basic catechetical instruction, the solemn renunciation of error and the conversion to God, and the first solemn making of the Sign of the Cross. THE SECOND STEP consists in the rite of the tasting of blest salt, a symbol of wisdom signifying the growing appreciation of the Christian instruction by the
candidate. THE THIRD, FOURTH and FIFTH STEPS provide for the three traditional exorcisms. THE SIXTH STEP involves the candidate's solemn entry inside the church structure and the recitation of the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The final exorcism is pronounced and then the "opening of the ears" to receive the word of the Gospel takes place. There follows a renewed abjuration of Satan, and then the anointing of the candidate with the Oil Seven of Catechumens, which signifies the power of the sacrament to prepare the The congregation's decree, person anointed to combat while dated April 16, ap- the enemies of Christ. peared in the latest issue of THE FINAL STEP is the the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the official publication of essential rite of Baptismthe pouring of the water the Holy See. In spelling out the seven while pronouncing the words of the sacrament. separate steps for baptising The decree warns that adults, the Congregation of Rites left it up to local since the various steps are bishops to determine the designed to accompany the increase in the candidate's time lapse between steps. It specified only that the steps knowledge of the Christian religions, "one may not omit should be taken at "oppor tune intervals of time," and any of the steps or mix them thus left the bishops free to up or change the established combine two or more steps order." But the decree specitogether in immediate fies that when there is a pastoral reason to do so, one senuence. Before listing the separate step may be united with steps for administering the another. The congregation spelled sacrament, the decree deals with the spiritual prepara- out norms by which the tion of priests who give in- bishops' conference of a struction to candidates for country or region m -v alter Baptism. The priests and certain rituals if scandal or their congregations must evil interpretation r",,,1 be provide spiritual help to the attached to them 'e of
Steps
Separate
the peculiar circumstances in a place, region or among certain people. If in a certain area the action of the priest making the Sign of the Cross physically on the candidate is taken as a sign of a juridical action or in a sense alien to its Christian significance, it said, then, especially if the work of conversion is still in the first phases, the bishop may establish the manner in which the godparents may be marked with the Sign of the Cross-that the godparents make the Sign of the Cross on the candidate or that the candidate himself do so while the priest makes the Sign of the Cross over all.
church. But they must then be carried out in a holy place and in a simple form, according to the decree.
Instruction
The bishops' conference must take care in preparing the vernacular versions of the rites for their regions, the decree says. It provides for the establishment of a national or regional commission composed of experts, clergymen or laymen, who will compile . a text which is not only faithful to the original Latin but which also responds to the spirit sit the local language. The final vernacular versions must be duly approved by the proper episcopal conferences at least once every ten years so that tney may be adapted to the continual change in linguistic usage.
.
Corresponds In the matter of the imposition of the salt, too, the bishops may decide whether the salt is to be collected in a ccntainer larger than that from which the candidate himself takes the salt. The decree recommends that the candidate be given most careful instruction concerning the anointing with the Oil of Catechumens. But it states that in cases in which, because of inveterate family customs, the candidate cannot be made to understand the significance, the bishops may dispense with the priest from the rite of anointing. This is to be done only in determined places, and only for a set period of time, the decree states. It adds that the same thing applies in the case of the anointing prescribed for administration of the Sacrament of Confirmation. The
All of the formulae of Baptism may be pronounced in the vernacular, with the exception of the exorcism, the words accompanying the anointing, and of the bless ins and the formula for Baptism itself,The vernacular versions must be approved by the episcopal conferences of the nation or region, or by the local bishop in special cases.
The decree provides that if the candidates wish to
hear the exorcisms in their own language, they may be read in the vernacular following the Latin ceremony.
decree recommends
that the rites and ceremonies be carried out with the greatest solemnity possible. When there are only one or a few candidates for Baptism, however, the rites may take place outside of the W THE first girls from
the Northern Territory who have b ec o m e aspirants for a religious congregation, At present under the care of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, later they will be taken to the novitiate in Bowral, N.S.W., for advanced preparation. This picture was taken on the banks of the Daly River,
Northern
Territory,
Your donations to this , appeal can help native-. born religious to look after Aborigines. It in line with universal. Church policy - -it is -a worthy c- ".
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They Want To Be Nuns
By publication in "L'Osservatore Romano," semiofficial Vatican newspaper, on Saturday, June 23, it was announced that the Very Reverend Monsignor Myles McKeon had been appointed Auxiliary Bishop to His Grace the Archbishop and Titular Bishop of Antipyrgos in North Africa. The Bishop-elect, who is well-known throughout the Archdiocese for his work for the missions and Catholic migration, was able to phone Ireland on Sunday morning to inform his two sisters of his elevation to the episcopate. He has three brothers, Patrick, John and Hugh, living in England, and another brother, Maurice, living in America. Bishop -elect McKeon, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. John McKeon, was born in Drummin, Westport. County Mayo, Eire, on April 3, 1919, and was educated at All Hallows College, Dublin, from whence he 'was ordained on June 22, 1947. He arrived in Perth Archdiocese in February of the following year and was appointed as assistant priest at Maylands. In February, 1952, he was changed to St. Mary's Cathedral and remained there for two years. In February, 1954, His Grace appointed the Bishop -elect to be the Director of Pontifical Mission Aid Societies in the Archdiocese. Apart from a year's leave in 1958, he has held this appointment up to the time of his appointment as Auxiliary to His Grace the Archbishop. Bishop-elect McKeon was made a Privy Chamberlain in April, 1960. As yet no date has been determined for the Episcopal Consecration.