[Cicero]

Two points. One is that Catholics consider baptism to be a sacrament that wipes away the effects of original and actual sins committed up to that point. If you read Augustine's "Confessions" you will note that his parents did not baptize him as a child because they wanted to save it until later, after he had committed his adolescent sins. Not a normal Catholic idea, but based on Catholic the theology of baptism.

Second, if Bork was originally baptized as a Protestant, then that earlier baptism was probably valid. It depends what he means by "generic Protestant." Catholics believe that anyone can administer the sacrament of baptism--and should, in an emergency. Two things are necessary for the sacrament, matter and words. The matter is water. The words are: "I baptize you [name] in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Most Protestant denominations use water and these words, although they may dispute about the need for adult conversion or total immersion.

So, I suspect that this was probably a conditional baptism, meaning that Bork was baptized IF he was not validly baptized as a baby, just to make sure.

[wideawake]

Being a "generic" Protestant, Bork may have belonged to a group which did not believe in baptizing children, preferring baptizands to wait until they had an experience of being born-again.

Perhaps Bork did not have that experience until recently.

[haole]

But some are not valid, to wit the Mormons use sort of those words, but "their Jesus" is not the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus said: " John 17:5
And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee. ". So Jesus was with the One God before time itself. The Mormons only believe in a "jesus" for our world, and that there are thousands of other "jesuses" existing elsewhere in the universe.

[Aquinasfan]

So, I suspect that this was probably a conditional baptism

That's what I was wondering. As usual, the magazine writer doesn't have a clue.