Council of Trent on Baptism
Infants included, and effective for regeneration
are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins
THE POSITION
Canon 4 of the Fifth Session's decree on original sin condemns anyone who denies that newborn infants, even of baptized parents, are to be baptized. They are baptized truly for the remission of sins, "that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation." The Sixth Session names baptism the instrumental cause of justification.
12 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Met in twenty-five sessions over three periods, at Trento in northern Italy except for two sessions held at Bologna in 1547. Called by Paul III and closed under Pius IV. It answered the Reformation point by point: Scripture and tradition, the canon, original sin, justification and the seven sacraments. From the Sixth Session on, each subject is set out in chapters and then in canons ending "let him be anathema." The Catholic Church counts it the nineteenth ecumenical council; the Orthodox and Protestant churches do not count it as ecumenical. Read here in J. Waterworth's 1848 translation.
Cite this page
"Council of Trent on Baptism", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/trent/baptism (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/trent/baptism).