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Questions / The Church and the Pope

What about kids?

Church teaching

Answered on video by Ascension Presents

Video: How to Keep Your Kids Catholic (w/ Debbie Herbeck), Ascension Presents, published Feb 26, 2026. Checked 10 October 2026. Loads from YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode) only when you press play. Watch on YouTube

In short: The Church has baptized babies since forever. Grace doesn’t wait for you to be old enough to earn it. CCC 1252

The answer, in writing

Church teaching

Infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church, with explicit testimony from the second century on. CCC 1252

The faith needed for Baptism is not perfect and mature; it is a beginning that is meant to grow, inside the faith of the Church. CCC 1253

Our words

Parents don’t wait until kids can choose before feeding them or teaching them to talk. Catholics see Baptism the same way: a gift given first, grown into later.

Next step: Going to Mass with them

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Related questions

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Sources on this page

How we know · 2 Catechism paragraphs
  1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1252, 1253 (official text on vatican.va).

Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words and cites every teaching claim. Our own wording is not an official Church text. Found a mistake? Report an errorCorrections.