A friend of mine says she was baptized a Catholic when she was an infant, then rebaptized when her family became Baptists. What does rebaptism do, if anything?
If a person’s inititial baptism was valid, rebaptism does nothing to improve the state of the soul before God. Any valid baptism imprints a spiritual mark or character on the recipient’s soul. This mark cannot be destroyed or removed, so baptism can never be repeated. Any subsequent attempts at baptism will be invalid. They are at least materially an insult to the Holy Spirit, because they imply that what the Spirit did in the initial baptism was not sufficient. Usually, though, a person who receives a “second baptism” is not formally guilty of insulting the Holy Spirit since he has been mistaught concerning the efficacy of his initial baptism. Because of the invalidity of subsequent baptisms and the danger of insulting the Holy Spirit (even materially), the Church is reluctant to apply the rite of baptism to a person who already has been baptized in a non-Catholic sect. Only if there is some reason to doubt the person’s initial baptism does the Church apply the rite of baptism to him-
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