Godparents at my church need to be baptised. What did you do?

[Speechiebaby]

Hi all,
I'm planning my daughter's christening and would like to choose my sister and my partners sister to be Godparents as they are both been very involved in my daughter's life and throughout my pregnancy. My OH's sister has not been baptised and feel that this might be hypocritical to have her as a God parent but for social reasons I feel otherwise as she is very caring and involved in my family's life and would like her to be a God parent. I understand though that the whole purpose is for a God parent is to support the child to follow the Christian faith so don't really know what to do. It states on the application form that she needs to be baptised to be a God parent is this the case at other churches? Just wondering if anyone else has been or is in this situation.

Thanks,

She’s already an aunty and has a special place in your child’s life.

She might be able to be a sponsor if she wants, but she’s telling you it’s hypocritical of her to promise to help you bring up your child as a Christian. I’d respect that.

I think it's pretty standard to insist a godparent is baptised. They have to promise to bring up the child in the Christian faith- it's rather difficult to do that if you don't follow it yourself.

She can be a sponsor - so she stands up at the font and is part of the service

It's standard for catholic baptisms. Not sure about c of e. My brothers are both my DDs' godfathers and are both catholic. I had my catholic friend as DD1's godmother and my non religious friend as DD2's. my non religious friend was asked because she is my oldest and best friend and has spent the most time with DDs and couldn't imagine anyone else doing it. I told her it was more as. 'Guide parent' role as my brothers are there for the religious stuff. She is actually christened c of e though, which I think helped, even though it was a Catholic Church. Our church is quite relaxed and modern (for catholics), so was quite relaxed about it but others have different rules so just depends on what your church requires from the godparents.

As pp have said, she can be a sponsor.

Standard in cofe for the reasons you mention. They can be sponsors but you need to pick 2 other godparents I think as well

In my church (also CofE) they are happy for non-baptised special people to stand up at the front during the ceremony and to say as many of the words as they are comfortable with, so long as at least one of the godparents is baptised. Only the baptised ones will "count" as far as the church is concerned but that doesn't stop the unbaptised ones from being considered godparents as far as you and they and your dc are concerned.

However as pp said it is more normal for godparents not to be such close relatives. Aunts and uncles are already tied with bonds of love and kinship to your baby. In my experience anyway, Godparents are usually friends who you dearly love but aren't related to.

Our Catholic Church only requires one godparent to also be catholic. If you don’t have any catholic friends/family then they can nominate a sponsor from the congregation for you. So they’re pretty lax as long as you’re ok with essentially having a random as a godparent!

Our dcs are baptised c of e and all godparents had to be baptised themselves, I'm pretty sure this is universal.

As pp have said she could be a sponsor but not a godparent.

Thank you all. It is c of e and I was intending on having my sister, SIL and 2 close friends of the family but I will just ask my SIL to be sponser as the other Godparents are all members of the parish.i will check this with the reverend at the preparation session. I will have to have a think about choosing outside of the family. Thank you for your responses I understand the process a lot more now!

Years ago I was asked to be a Godparent, I happily accepted and confirmed verbally that I'd been baptised.
Years later I discovered I wasn't! So they obviously don't check these things.

Not baptised. Have been a godparent. My friend just said I was. Are they really going to check?

I think if they are happy to baptise the child who has possibly by your use of the term partner, been born out of wedlock, there won't be too much difficulty in having a non baptised person stand as godparent, they could maybe say they believe in adult baptism and are excited to go on a journey of faith alongside the child. Practically, no one will care.

It is my husband!! I just put partner put of habit! He is not religious and it is only me and my side of the family that are.

Are you committed to a baptism? My DS had a blessing in our church as his ‘godparents’ are my BIL( he’s a vicar, so no problem there), DH’s Jewish best friend, and his wife and an atheist ( although he is baptised). It was a lovely service, and very personal to us as a family. Baptism itself wasn’t important to me, we just wanted to welcome him into our church community.