Colm Fitzpatrick
Former president Mary McAleese A leading theologian in the forefront of calling for liberal reforms in the Church has criticised what he has described as “incendiary” remarks by former president Mary McAleese. US-based Prof. Massimo Faggioli, an expert on Vatican II, said Mrs McAleese’s comments that infant baptism breaches human rights are unhelpful.
“Making incendiary remarks has usually the effect of delaying Church reform,” he told The Irish Catholic.
Complex
On the issue of infant baptism, Prof. Faggioli – who teaches theology at Villanova University – said “it is obviously a very complex historical-theological issue and I do not think that calling baptism a way to make infant conscripts is going to help us address the very important issue of childrens’ rights in the Church or human rights of Church members”.
On Mrs McAleese’s criticism of the World Meeting of Families due to be held in Dublin in August, Prof. Faggioli said he admires the “courage and passion of Mary McAleese.
“I know that she is admired for her fight for a new kind of relationship between the Church and LGBT persons. That is why I am surprised by the fact that she does not perceive that the World Meeting of Families taking place in Dublin will be important for this.
“I do not think that the former President of Ireland calling the World Meeting of Families taking place in Ireland ‘a political rally’ helps her cause. Also, because it is not just ‘her’ cause: it is an important cause and her voice could be spent in a more constructive way,” he said.
Mrs McAleese said that by baptising children before they have reached the age of reason, the Church is creating “infant conscripts who are held to lifelong obligations of obedience.”
“You can’t impose, really, obligations on people who are only two weeks old and you can’t say to them at seven or eight or 14 or 19 ‘here is what you contracted, here is what you signed up to’ because the truth is they didn’t,” she said.