To be reluctant to be a Godparent to a child about to be adopted

[LoveMyPiano]

I have previously posted about the situation with my neighbour/friend (younger than my own daughter), who - after a lengthy process - is about to lose her daughter, after the baby has spent nearly 7 months in Foster Care (starting after her birth). Earlier this month, a Final Order was made by the Court and she will be placed with an adoptive family, in the next month or so I think.

A concession (amongst others that have been made) is that she can be Christened (not sure how that will work wrt to her name after adoption), and, at the last minute (...) I have been asked to be Godmother.

In view of the adoption proceess, I am not really sure of how my being Gp would work, or have any relevance whatsoever in her future life. I AM prepared to do it for my "friend", as I feel so very very sad for her, and she does need all the support she can get.

But I am not sure of the wisom of it, and how that is affeced also by her being Roman Catholic (and I am pretty much agnostic, Methodiist at a push and Buddhist by preference.... not that ANY of that will come into it); I would hate to just pay lip service to it - but really do wish that I had not been asked.

(My daughter's Godparents have been 100% hands off, I am sorry to say.)

I would welcome any thoughts, suggestions, opinions....
(Oh yes, it so last minute that the Christening [Baptism?] is on Sunday...) Help?

Hear 👂 not here. Very sad situation, I imagine she is also going to need someone for support. If you decline she may feel she cannot turn to you.

@PatriotCanes

If it is a Catholic baptism, only confirmed Catholics can be godparents. Other people can be listed as "Christian witnesses" underneath, but there needs to be at least one confirmed Catholic. Not that any priest asked to see a confirmation certificate but they are usually quite strict.

Not the case in all Catholic Churches.

Dd was baptised in a Catholic Church. Dh was Catholic. I was C if E - none of us are religious at all now, but this was 19 years ago and 'the done thing' still.

She has 4 godparents. One was a non practicing Catholic, two were non practising C of E and one had no religion. It wasn't an issue at all. No one asked for any 'proof' or even discussed their religious beliefs.

If your name is on the official baptism record as a godparent you may find that your friends daughter has every right to look you up when she is 18.

Also in adoption cases it is quite possible for a child to have two baptisms. It happens. It does not prevent her name being changed or make her easier to find later on, if that is what is in your friends mind.

You will have to promise some fundamental Christian beliefs if you become a godmother however briefly.

I would do it. What a sad situation.
You sound like a very kind person.

I would explain that you can't, as you don't meet the requirements. However, you are very honoured to be asked and perhaps between the two of you, you both know the special role you have in the baby's identity and infancy.

All of my children's godparents have been lip service except my best mate, sister and husbands cousins wife. I have three boys but none of the men even see them. Looking back the whole thing was a pointless farce in respect of godparents tbh. If I had another child I would only do it for the child and try to convince the church of three woman godparents.

So on that basis lipservce to your friend isnt that unusual

OP I am a church minister. Pastorally there is no question, as an act of kindness this is the right thing to do - your friend in an act of faith wanting her child to be baptised, and you, wishing to support her in that.

I really hope you're able to do this tomorrow and that you have a peace about the whole thing.

So many pp’s on her have no idea about Catholicism.

"It’s not so much that a priest wouldn’t want to allow it, it’s just that as you can’t be ‘rebaptised’, the child and adoptive parents would need to use the original baptismal certificate etc with the child’s birth name and the birth mother’s name etc —generally after the adoption certificate (which functions as a birth certificate) is issued, all admin relating to the child’s birth identity is decoupled from their new one (NHS stuff, for instance)."

Sorry - I can't seem to quote properly.....

This is something that worries me, or my friend - as I do fear that she is being a wee bit "controlling" for the future as well. IF the only future communication is Letterbox - which I undertand does not include identities - then the child is not to know who her birth parent are - and yet that information will be available due to this Baptism?

Thank you for all replies; I am more confused than ever! I will respond more when I am back from a wee trip to find a nice book of poetry

I am not a Catholic but I am godmother to a child baptised in the Catholic church. The poster saying you have to be Catholic to be a godmother in the Catholic church is wrong.

If the adoption is imminent, the adoptive parents will have been chosen. Won't the birth mother be told what their religion is? Years ago, adoptions were mostly organised by the church and often only allowed within the same church as the birth mother e.g. Catholic, CofE or non confirmist.

@Stookeen It’s not so much that a priest wouldn’t want to allow it, it’s just that as you can’t be ‘rebaptised’, the child and adoptive parents would need to use the original baptismal certificate etc with the child’s birth name and the birth mother’s name etc —generally after the adoption certificate (which functions as a birth certificate) is issued, all admin relating to the child’s birth identity is decoupled from their new one (NHS stuff, for instance).

My point was that priests will have faced this before or they will be able to speak to other priests for advice. Issuing a new Baptism certificate would seem an obvious solution, either the new parish priest having the original Baptism confirmed could provide a new certificate. They do reissue Baptism certificates, we were in the process of moving when DD was Baptised and when she was going to make her First Holy Communion the new parish needed to see the certificate, we then realised we had never received it.

I phoned the parish priest from our old parish, he was new I'd never met him, he checked the records and wrote out a new certificate. I can't see why that couldn't be done for an adopted child, they know the Baptism has happened, the certificate is just an administrative thing.

Back when I was Baptised you didn't get a fancy certificate so my "certificate" is a bit of paper, probably cut from an A4 sheet, with my name, date and priests name.

Catholics don't believe in rebaptism, once you are a Christian you can't redo the spiritual bit, but the reality is that it happens. Anyone can do a Baptism, I remember the nuns at primary school teaching us how to do it "in case of emergency" and the mind boggles at why a 9 year old would suddenly need to do it. I'm the product of a mixed marriage, my gran would tell stories of others in my position being taken for a walk or even taken to have nappies changed and one grandmother then claiming the child for their church as they had done the Baptism. The complications of a mixed marriage in Northern Ireland but I'm sure it can happen elsewhere.

I would do it. Obviously she sees this as the last thing she can do for her baby and I would support her in this as a friend.
What an incredibly heartbreaking situation.

[quote ancientgran]**@Stookeen* It’s not so much that a priest wouldn’t want to allow it, it’s just that as you can’t be ‘rebaptised’, the child and adoptive parents would need to use the original baptismal certificate etc with the child’s birth name and the birth mother’s name etc —generally after the adoption certificate (which functions as a birth certificate) is issued, all admin relating to the child’s birth identity is decoupled from their new one (NHS stuff, for instance).*

My point was that priests will have faced this before or they will be able to speak to other priests for advice. Issuing a new Baptism certificate would seem an obvious solution, either the new parish priest having the original Baptism confirmed could provide a new certificate. They do reissue Baptism certificates, we were in the process of moving when DD was Baptised and when she was going to make her First Holy Communion the new parish needed to see the certificate, we then realised we had never received it.

I phoned the parish priest from our old parish, he was new I'd never met him, he checked the records and wrote out a new certificate. I can't see why that couldn't be done for an adopted child, they know the Baptism has happened, the certificate is just an administrative thing.

Back when I was Baptised you didn't get a fancy certificate so my "certificate" is a bit of paper, probably cut from an A4 sheet, with my name, date and priests name.

Catholics don't believe in rebaptism, once you are a Christian you can't redo the spiritual bit, but the reality is that it happens. Anyone can do a Baptism, I remember the nuns at primary school teaching us how to do it "in case of emergency" and the mind boggles at why a 9 year old would suddenly need to do it. I'm the product of a mixed marriage, my gran would tell stories of others in my position being taken for a walk or even taken to have nappies changed and one grandmother then claiming the child for their church as they had done the Baptism. The complications of a mixed marriage in Northern Ireland but I'm sure it can happen elsewhere.[/quote]
The ‘emergency’ is in case there’s an unbaptised baby in danger of death, in which case a lay person can do it — my father was once asked in a neonatal unit in the 70s when he was repairing a scales! — and yes, I pretty sure either my devout mother or MIL probably surreptitiously baptised my DS when he was a baby because DH and I didn’t.

The point about the baptismal cert is not that there’s any issue with issuing a new one in as such from a priest’s POV, it’s that there’s a paper trail potentially linking back to the baby’s birth family — and from what the OP says, they’re a security risk.

I too am a godparent to two children who were baptized in a Catholic Church and I am C of E . Nobody ever asked me what religion I was, they did presume I was Christian though.
In one case both the godfather and I were non Catholic. I have been told that, certainly in Ireland, the norm is just two godparents. There are certainly some untruths on this thread!

“This is something that worries me, or my friend - as I do fear that she is being a wee bit "controlling" for the future as well. IF the only future communication is Letterbox - which I undertand does not include identities - then the child is not to know who her birth parent are - and yet that information will be available due to this Baptism?”

How would a child search through baptism records though. In reality children are much more likely to find birth parents via social media when they are a teen than they are through baptism records. Birth families aren’t meant be completely untraceable either (save for rare exceptions when there is high risk) hence children have life story work and letter box contact. I’d imagine the life story and letterbox would provide more clues to who a birth parent is than some random baptism record the majority of children would never think about….the child would only know there was a baptism if their adoptive parents told them too.

@Stookeen I understand why we have emergency Baptisms, my puzzlement is why 9 year old need to learn about it, rehearse it and plan to be on the look out for such an emergency. I wonder how many 9 year olds do actually do an emergency Baptism.

@Whatinthelord

“This is something that worries me, or my friend - as I do fear that she is being a wee bit "controlling" for the future as well. IF the only future communication is Letterbox - which I undertand does not include identities - then the child is not to know who her birth parent are - and yet that information will be available due to this Baptism?”

How would a child search through baptism records though. In reality children are much more likely to find birth parents via social media when they are a teen than they are through baptism records. Birth families aren’t meant be completely untraceable either (save for rare exceptions when there is high risk) hence children have life story work and letter box contact. I’d imagine the life story and letterbox would provide more clues to who a birth parent is than some random baptism record the majority of children would never think about….the child would only know there was a baptism if their adoptive parents told them too.

Well, in part it’s going to depend on whether the birth mother plans to hand over the baptismal certificate at a goodbye meeting (if there is one) so that the adoptive parents eventually receive it (assuming the baby isn’t in an early permanence setting).

And I’m not suggesting a child would be searching baptismal records for evidence of their birth parents, only that, if the birth family as considered dangerous, as the OP suggests, and the adoptive parents have asked for the baptismal certificate to be reissued in their child’s new name, a random in a parish office with no training on sensitivities surrounding adopted children isn’t necessarily going to think twice about giving out information to someone who phones up pretending to be the adoptive parents and says they just want to check something about the new cert.

It might sound paranoid, but the two young adopted children I know best atm, can’t be photographed in school plays etc or in any situation that might make its way into the public domain, because members of their birth families are considered likely to be a threat. I do also know situations where continued contact with birth family works. And one unpleasant situation where a late-teenage overseas adoptee was conned out of money by an ‘intermediary’ while searching for her birth parents.

It may of course be that the OP’s friend is just doing this for herself, as a way of saying goodbye to her baby.

@Stookeen

How would the birth parent know what parish to call for the records. In high risk cases children are usually moved to another area of the country.

Also op suggested it wasn’t safe for the child to remain in the care of the birth parent not that the birth parent present a risk of taking the child. Very few parents are a risk of abducting their child after adoption and if they are social care manage that carefully.

Anyhow it’s all irrelevant. It’s social cares job to ensure a safe adoption, not the ops. Social care have allowed the baptism so obviously it’s not viewed as a risk by the people assessing the risk and planning the adoption.

I have never heard of a birth child traced via baptism records. I honestly do t believe it’s a risk at all. Certainly not more of a risk than the multitude of other ways you can trace people online.

[quote Whatinthelord]@Stookeen

How would the birth parent know what parish to call for the records. In high risk cases children are usually moved to another area of the country.

Also op suggested it wasn’t safe for the child to remain in the care of the birth parent not that the birth parent present a risk of taking the child. Very few parents are a risk of abducting their child after adoption and if they are social care manage that carefully.

Anyhow it’s all irrelevant. It’s social cares job to ensure a safe adoption, not the ops. Social care have allowed the baptism so obviously it’s not viewed as a risk by the people assessing the risk and planning the adoption.

I have never heard of a birth child traced via baptism records. I honestly do t believe it’s a risk at all. Certainly not more of a risk than the multitude of other ways you can trace people online.[/quote]
The birth mother in this case is the one organising and presumably attending the baptism, so of course she knows which parish...?

I haven't suggested the birth mother is likely to try to trace her child, but if, as the OP suggests, there are members of her family, or the birth father's family, who are considered dangerous enough, or at risk of being in touch with such, for the baby not to be placed with any family members as kinship carers via an SGO or similar almost always the first port of call for a baby who cannot live with birth parents, rather than adoption then there are potentially other people who also know where the baptism will take place, and hence the location of the record. An investigation where I now live into Catholic parish records being subject to GDPR has exposed some incredibly lax attitudes to information storage.

Let me add, I don't think being traced by birth family via a baptismal record is at all likely -- I was responding to a poster above who seemed to think that the only potential issue was what would need to happen if the adoptive family changed the baby's name and needed the original cert to prove baptism for first communion or school entry. My only point is that this is a potential linkage of the baby's birth and adoptive names.

But having been close to adoptive families who need to explain, sometimes repeatedly, to schools that no, X can't go in the class photo or the nativity play one that's going in the local paper -- and who have been on the receiving ends of some careless information breaches (including one where the solicitor handling a non-molestation order accidentally revealed to the abusive ex the address of the refuge the woman seeking the order was living at), I'm not naive enough to think it's impossible for sensitive information to be accessed.

But as you say, not the OP's problem. I hope she is able to support her friend in coming to terms with the final loss of her baby.

I am not a Catholic but I am godmother to a child baptised in the Catholic church. The poster saying you have to be Catholic to be a godmother in the Catholic church is wrong.

I am the mother of 4 baptised Catholics and I can assure you that although we call all of our children's "godparents" godparents; only the confirmed Catholics are listed as godparents in the parish register, the others are listed as Christian Witnesses. There was no other way to do so, we also had to undertake a lengthy baptism preparation course each time which laid this out as part of it. The godparents wouldn't know that as they have not seen the register. Perhaps other priests are less strict, but I saw many disappointed parents on those courses who could not have their preferred godparents.

@PatriotCanes

I am not a Catholic but I am godmother to a child baptised in the Catholic church. The poster saying you have to be Catholic to be a godmother in the Catholic church is wrong.

I am the mother of 4 baptised Catholics and I can assure you that although we call all of our children's "godparents" godparents; only the confirmed Catholics are listed as godparents in the parish register, the others are listed as Christian Witnesses. There was no other way to do so, we also had to undertake a lengthy baptism preparation course each time which laid this out as part of it. The godparents wouldn't know that as they have not seen the register. Perhaps other priests are less strict, but I saw many disappointed parents on those courses who could not have their preferred godparents.

I've also got 4 baptised children and no priest has even asked if the godparents are Catholic and I've never had to go on a preparation course. My children were baptised in two different parishes by 4 different priests and their godparents are all listed as godparents even though they aren't all Catholic, in fact one of my children doesn't even have one Catholic godparent.

When my nephew was christened in C of E , BIL was asked to be Godfather. vicar asked if all godparents were christened . BIL wasn’t but vicar offered to baptise him first and then the baby with him as GF. It was very lovely!