I am and was raised Catholic myself, and I still don't believe that the Catholic church uses "born again" the same way other faiths express that belief. When you say one's "soul comes alive" at Catholic baptism, surely you don't mean to suggest that one who is not baptized Catholic does not have a soul? The Nicene creed states that we "acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins." The sins are forgiven and we are redeemed through Christ, but again that suggests to me something different from being "born again."
Dear GraceCoolidge,
Well, Catholics don't usually use the words "born again," (I usually don't) but to be baptized is to be "born from above," or put differently, to be incorporated into God's family.
Baptism is about spiritual birth, about entry into the spiritual family of the Church, which is the Body of Christ.
People who are not baptized have souls, but those souls are dead, from the effects of original sin.
The reason why we acknowledge ONE baptism is because we believe that one may be validly baptized only once. Baptism creates an indelible mark on the soul. Again, this is because the one baptized is incorporated, through being "born from above" into the family of God, via the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
It is said that even the Catholic who is damned will be recognizable, in Hell, as a Catholic, as one baptized.
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