Judge Bork, baptized at 76

U.S. News & World Report ^ | 7/22/03 | Paul Bedard With David LaGesse

[nickcarraway]

It may be a little late to start for most, but Robert Bork, the former Supreme Court nominee who has written books decrying the decline of Western culture, has just been baptized. Rev. C. John McCloskey, who represents the conservative and activist Opus Dei arm of the Roman Catholic Church and oversaw the baptism, said, "I can confirm that he was received in the Catholic Church." Bork, a scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was raised a Protestant and had called himself a "generic Protestant." He was known more for his conservative legal views, which some Democrats used to shoot down his court nomination during the Reagan administration.

In a brief interview, he said that years of "conversations and reading" led him to baptism at McCloskey's small Catholic Information Center chapel on K Street near the White House. "There's more to talk about than you can put in a brief story." He called himself a regular Catholic who attends Sunday mass, not an Opus Dei member.

He said talks with and recommendations from the priest, as well as attending church with his wife, Mary Ellen Bork, a former nun, helped pave the way to the ceremony.

Bork's sponsors were Kate O'Beirne, a conservative media star, and John O'Sullivan, head of UPI.

Lots of other prominent Catholics were there, such as columnist and speechwriter Peggy Noonan, herself a convert.

McCloskey has made several other high-level conversions of conservatives, bringing into the Catholic Church conservative columnist Robert Novak and Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.

The best part of getting baptized at 76, said Bork: "If you get baptized at my age, all of your sins are forgiven. And that's very helpful."

According to Archdiocese of Washington Communications Director Susan Gibbs, Msgr. William Awalt, the longtime pastor of the Borks, baptized the judge, confirmed him and gave him First Communion. Father McCloskey celebrated the Mass, along with Msgr. Peter Vaghi, pastor of St. Patrick's.

[BibChr]

You're still on my "ignore" list, Campion; I broke my rule again, but only briefly.

Your terrible privilege is to choose to preach manmade traditions and impotent rituals, to the glory of a sect, to the damnation of precious souls.

I'll go on preaching Jesus Christ as sole and sufficient Savior, by His grace alone, through faith alone, from the Word of God alone, to the glory of God alone.

But you'll have the poorer deal.

Dan

[Dusty Rose]

Welcome to the fold, Judge Bork!

[wideawake]

I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm just saying I know people who consider themselves Reformed who cavil at infant baptism.

[Campion]

What do you think Baptism is, but the symbolic putting off of the old man and the raising up of the new.

Nothing in Scripture says that baptism is merely symbolic.

[Clintons a commie]

“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

When did the water part become unimportant and optional? We receive remission of our sins through the laver of regeneration,ie Baptism. It's not optional.

[Campion]

Your terrible privilege is to choose to preach manmade traditions and impotent rituals, to the glory of a sect, to the damnation of precious souls.

I'll go on preaching Biblical Christianity, all of it, thanks be to God. You'll go on claiming to.

[Campion]

impotent rituals

By the way, do you really think God commanded "impotent rituals" -- because he certainly commanded baptism -- and sent Ananias, under the guise of a righteous man, to lie to Paul?

What kind of God does that?

Why don't you just believe in the Scriptures, instead of clinging to silly slogans that stick four things while simultaneously insisting that they're "alone". (That flunks logic, not to mention Scripture.)

[mdmathis6]

I used the term "symbolic" but I was not denying the reality
behind what I called symbolic. We put off the "old man" we "put on Christ". That is symbolic of the very real spiritual reality that occurs within the hearts of converts. You're being a little anal aren't you?

[Puddleglum]

Good points, Campion! I'm sorry I'm too tired to help out, but you do a good job of fighting back the neo-Platonic gauze. Next thing you know they'll be saying Christ didn't even have to be incarnated. He could have easily been a ball of light that appeared when folks wished ever-so-hard.

[Mr. Lucky]

I generally don't intervene in the quarrels of others, but sola scriptura is not a silly slogan. It's what most Protestant churches ostensibly rely upon in testing the accuracy of church dogma.

[mdmathis6]

Heaven resists the complexities that men ascribe to her!

[mdmathis6]

"I generally don't intervene in the quarrels of others, but sola scriptura is not a silly slogan. It's what most Protestant churches ostensibly rely upon in testing the accuracy of church dogma"


Sola Scriptura is also a road map back home when prodical sons..and institutions... need to find their way back home!

[mdmathis6]

"I'll go on preaching Biblical Christianity, all of it, thanks be to God. You'll go on claiming to."

You claim to preach BIBLICAL Christianity while sneering at the notion of Sola Scriptura...that's like cutting a stream off from its own source don't you think?

[Puddleglum]

Heaven resists the complexities that men ascribe to her!

Heaven resists bumper-sticker theology and images of praying "Calvins" on the backs of pickup trucks.

[victim soul]

Welcome Home, Judge Bork! ping ...

[BibChr]

Prepare for a barrage of irrelevant, long-since-refuted, cut and paste blather.

But you'll still have been right.

Dan

[Dr. Eckleburg]

You should ask the Presbyterian minister the circumstances for his children's baptism. I would bet it wasn't for theological reasons that they were baptised as teens and not infants.

Infant baptism is a basic principle of the Reformed faith. It's not something that's debated. But it's not a means of "soul-saving" to the Presbyterian, as it is to the Catholic or Evangelical.

FWIW, our sons were baptised in our Presbyterian church as pre-teens, not infants. This was only due to the fact that we finally found a church we liked and wanted to be a part of.

But Reformed means infant baptism.

[Flying Circus]

Chalk one up for Campion. It sounds like UnBibChr can't win the arguement and can't take losing it.

[Libertina]

Welcome to the family, Judge Bork :)

[BibChr]

Don't know you. In spite of your foolish, baseless, ignorant comment, you get one try.

Could you "win the argument" with James Carville about whether or not Bill Clinton was a wonderful, superb president who should not have been impeached — win it in his eyes, and in the eyes of an audience full of Lanny Davises and Eleanor Clifts? If so, how? If not, why not?

Think before you write this time. Answer directly and honestly, or please don't bother.

Dan