The hunt is on for unknown thousands of people assumed to have been baptized with an invalid formula, and the priest responsible has taken a new calling from God to rectify the situation.
The Diocese of Phoenix made the shocking announcement on Jan. 14, revealing that nearly three decades of baptism by the Rev. Andres Arango were invalid.
Fr. Andres Arango used the formula, “WE baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The key phrase in question is the use of “We baptize” in place of “I baptize”.
The issue with using “We” is that it is not the community that baptizes a person, rather, it is Christ, and Christ alone, who presides at all of the sacraments, and so it is Christ Jesus who baptizes.
The priest’s assignments stretch back to 1995, complicating the situation for the church.
Arango’s posts include time at four churches spread across the Phoenix metro area, as well as time in schools and parishes overseas.
The full impact of the priest’s mistake is unknown, but he is working alongside the church to resolve the situation for everyone involved.
“It saddens me to learn that I have performed invalid baptisms throughout my ministry as a priest by regularly using an incorrect formula,” Arango wrote. “I deeply regret my error and how this has affected numerous people in your parish and elsewhere.”
Jeeeez!!!
Another crack in the disguise of religious “sanity”!
It’s actually, underneath its normal exterior, a pathological mass psychosis. An obsessive compulsive disorder!
To seriously think that one’s fate - heaven or hell - is determined by the mis-speaking of one word in a formula spoken at baptism, exposes religious faith as nothing more than the superstitious belief in the power of magic incantations!
Yes, that’s what it is. Precisely.
It’s just silly and laughable now. But to think there was a time when he would have been killed (probably in some gruesome and agonizing way) by the Church for his unforgivable mistake!
They believe that unbaptized people cannot go to heaven. So in their understanding, thousands of people who missed being validly baptized because of this heavy sinner’s mistake and thought they were “saved” and destined for an eternity in the bosom of Jesus, are now irredeemably forever in hell.
Yes, he better start saying alot of hail Mary’s!!