Posted on 07/24/2003 11:31:43 AM PDT by 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.
There are the Opus Dei clergy, known as the Priestly Fraternity of the Holy Cross; numeraries - laypersons who are celibate, full-time workers in Opus Dei; supernumeraries, laypersons who are generally married or who plan to marry and who live in the workaday world; and cooperators, who are not necessarily even Catholic and not really members of the prelature.
Freeh and Hansen were supernumeraries if they were actual members. They may just have been cooperators. No news article I've seen makes it clear.
Unless you're a Jewish convert. Oooooh, that can't be too pleasant.
I know Reformed Christians who were raised Christian but not baptized until their late teens or early twenties - their feeling was that they shouldn't be baptized until they really experienced being born again.
If Bork belonged to such a denomination, and fell away from churchgoing as a young man, it's possible that he was never baptized.
It did when my wife and I became Catholics nine years ago. As we both had been baptised as children in our parents' Protestant denominations (Presbyterian and Congregational), our priest brought us into the Church with us reciting the Nicene Creed in a small, private ceremony. A wonderful, grace-filled day!
Did the article say he was sprinkled?
Despite the error in threads, I love it! LOL!
A post on what should be good news is now turned into a back-and-forth between Catholics and Protestants! The flames should be coming soon.
If only there were some mention that Bork was a Mason or a Knight of Columbus, then the action could really get going!
NB: The Catholic Church recognizes all Christian baptisms, whether performed by Protestant, Orthodox, or Evangelical clergy, as long as these are valid in form (trinitarian) and matter (water).
Valid baptisms perfomed by laymen and even non-Christians are also recognized, believe it or not!
I was baptized as an teenager in an Assemblies of God church. When I was reconciled to the Catholic Church, our priest declined to perform another baptism, since my "Evangelical baptism" was done in the name of the Holy Trinity and was thus completely valid. When serious doubt exists as to the validity or correct performance of a previous baptism, a bishop will sometimes authorize a "conditional" Catholic baptism (i.e. "just in case"), but this is rare; the Evangelical church where I was originally baptized didn't even record my baptism, but its validity was accepted by the Church upon my word alone, with the option of obtaining testimony of witnesses (which they did not ask for).
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