Maltese Priest Makes Radical Call To End Baptism And Holy Communion For Babies And Children
Fr René Camilleri has made a stunning pitch for the Church to stop baptising newborn babies and giving Holy Communion to young children as part of a strategy to reinvent itself for the 21st century.
“We must radically revise the way we dish out our sacraments,” Camilleri said on Times Talk this morning. “For hundreds of years, we’ve been accustomed to a transition of faith in that we’re born, baptised, come to Catechism, are taught religion, receive our sacraments, and then that’s it.’
“The Church is facing a crisis in this regard, because giving Baptism to newborn babies and Holy Communion to seven years olds no longer makes sense.”
“We should wait [until people are old enough to decide whether they want to undergo the sacraments or not], especially seeing as there are some parents who are baptising their children and giving them sacraments despite not being believers themselves. What sense does that make?”
The provocative priest also called for the removal of Catholicism as Malta’s official religion from the Constitution, arguing it no longer makes sense in this day and age.
“We live in a lay state so why should we start our Constitution with a declaration that we’re a Catholic country? It no longer makes sense…we’re a cosmopolitan and plurality society.”
Fr Camilleri’s intervention comes shortly after the publication of a Church census which showed that only 37% of Maltese people regularly attend Sunday Mass, a figure that is projected to sink to 10% by 2040.
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