Justification for women’s ordination “lies not in emancipation but in baptism”, argues expert John Wijngaards
Pope Francis has personally baptised the two-year-old conjoined twin girls from the Central African Republic who were separated in June in a delicate and pioneering operation at the Vatican-run Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital.
Baptisms administered with an arbitrarily modified formula are not valid, and those for whom “baptism” was celebrated in this way must be baptized “in forma absoluta” – that is, unconditionally – by repeating the rite according to the liturgical norms stipulated by the Church.