Second Vatican Council on Baptism
Infants included, and effective for regeneration
Baptism therefore establishes a sacramental bond of unity which links all who have been reborn by it.
THE POSITION
Baptism is rebirth. The decree on ecumenism calls it "a sacramental bond of unity" linking all "who have been reborn by it," including Christians outside the Catholic Church. The liturgy constitution orders the rite for infants revised so that it suits "the circumstance that those to be baptized are, in fact, infants," which assumes infant baptism continues.
12 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Met in St Peter's Basilica in four autumn sessions, opened by John XXIII and closed under Paul VI. It issued sixteen documents (four constitutions, nine decrees and three declarations) on revelation, the church, the liturgy, ecumenism, religious freedom and the church in the modern world. It set out to renew how the church teaches rather than to define new dogma, and issued no anathemas. The Catholic Church counts it the twenty-first ecumenical council. Quoted from the English translations on vatican.va; the official text is Latin.
Cite this page
"Second Vatican Council on Baptism", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/vatican-2/baptism (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/vatican-2/baptism).