Was My Baptism Valid?

 A small storm was touched off throughout the Catholic world today.  Archbishop Allen Vigneron (of my beloved Archdiocese of Detroit) wrote a pastoral letter informing people that a priest of his diocese was actually not technically a baptized Catholic because some liberal took liberties with the sacramental form.  As a result of this, anyone who had the sacraments administered by said liberal was asked to come forward for conditional baptism.

Naturally, this is touching off a bit of panic and worry for a lot of people.  We should remind people that a sacrament is presumed valid unless there is direct proof of its invalidity.  If you have no proof, it is presumed valid.  Even if by chance it wasn't, without actual proof, the Church presumes the sacrament is valid.  On the technicality it isn't, God is bigger than his sacraments.

Do you have a serious worry what the priest/deacon did was invalid?  Then talk to your current priest, and give him your reasoning.  If he finds it warranted, then he can give you a conditional baptism, and anything else that is needed conditionally.  If he says you are fine, you are fine.

If we shouldn't feel panic over the validity of our sacraments, we should feel outrage.  Contra what you will hear from many people, this kind of stuff did happen quite a lot from the 70's to roughly the 2000's.  "Quite a lot" is a relative term.  Even once out of 100 or one out of 1,000 is "quite a lot" when you consider the number of baptisms.  Even if the odds it happened to you are extremely low.  Shame on those clerics.  If they did not repent, then their souls were/are certainly in danger.  Shame on the bishops who no doubt received complaints and looked the other way, being derelict in their duty to ensure the sacraments were provided to the faithful.  Shame on Rome for letting it get that out of hand.  

Yet do not despair.  Your sacraments were almost certainly valid, and if they were not, that can be corrected.  Just don't try to play armchair theologian in determining the status.  While it is overrated, this really is something we should just leave to the experts.