Who can be baptized and why infants?

Read the Catechism in a Year

Catechism in a Year: Day 171

Part Two: How We Celebrate the Christian Mysteries
- Section Two: The Seven Sacraments of the Church
-- Chapter One: The Sacraments of Initiation -- BAPTISM

Question 196: Who can be baptized, and what is required of a candidate?

Any person who is not yet baptized can be baptized. The only prerequisite for Baptism is faith, which must be professed publicly at the Baptism.

A person who turns to Christianity is not just changing a world view. He travels a path of learning (the catechumenate), in which he becomes a new man through personal conversion, but especially through the gift of Baptism. He is now a living member of the Body of Christ.

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Question 197: Why does the Church adhere to the practice of infant Baptism?

From antiquity the Church has practiced infant Baptism. There is one reason for this: before we decide on God, God has decided on us. Baptism is therefore a grace, an undeserved gift of God, who accepts us unconditionally. Believing parents who want what is best for their child want Baptism also, in which the child is freed from the influence of original sin and the power of death.

Infant Baptism presupposes that Christian parents will raise the baptized child in the faith. It is an injustice to deprive the child of Baptism out of a mistaken liberality. One cannot deprive a child of love so that he can later decide on love for himself; so too it would be an injustice if believing parents were to deprive their child of God’s grace in Baptism. Just as every person is born with the ability to speak yet must learn a language, so too every person is born with the capacity to believe but must become acquainted with the faith. At any rate, Baptism can never be imposed on anyone. If someone has received Baptism as a little child, he must “ratify” it later in life – this means he must say Yes to it, so that it becomes fruitful.

Dig Deeper: Corresponding CCC section (1246-1254) and other references here.
Recommended Reading: The History of the Catholic Church by James Hitchcock