Sharon Jones is the RCIA director for St. Andrew's Parish. In her years of involvement with the RCIA process, she has seen how powerful the experience of baptism is for the adults who have been initiated at St. Andrew's. She also knows that the Church has a long and venerable tradition (repeated even at the Council of Trent, when it would have been convenient to omit it) that adult baptism is "normative." On the basis of her experience incorporating adults into the Church, Sharon highly values this teaching tradition. She will be having a baby in a few weeks, and of course she wants this child to be raised in the Church. She also wants her child to learn to love God. As a Catholic, Sharon believes this would be fostered by having an active experience of faith and of God's power in the sacraments.
Sharon was considering postponing the baptism of her child until the child is old enough to have some remembrance of it and some choice in the matter (say, age 6 or 7). However, she has raised the idea with her pastor, Fr. John Casey, who mentioned that church law stipulated that Catholic parents are responsible for having a child baptized at the "earliest possible opportunity" after her/his birth. Fr. Casey was convinced that this meant Sharon's child ought to be baptized within a few weeks after she/he is born; certainly six or seven years was not soon enough.
Do you agree with Fr. Casey that the child must be baptized within a few weeks? Or is it acceptable to pursue Sharon's solution of waiting until the child reaches the age of reason? Are there other options you can find that might be acceptable under the existing norms? What criteria would you use for making this kind of decision?