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Three Cowboys players were baptized at the team's practice facility Tuesday.On a Tuesday afternoon, the Dallas Cowboys training room pool frequently used to rehabilitate injuries instead served as the venue for lives being transformed. Three Cowboys players – safety Kavon Frazier, linebacker Anthony Hitchens, and linebacker Justin March-Lillard – were baptized at the Cowboys practice facility by the team’s chaplain, Jonathan Evans, who posted the video to his Facebook page. As of Thursday afternoon, the two-minute clip had been viewed more than two million times. “It’s good it’s blowing up,” Frazier said. “It’s getting His name out to a lot...

Kensington Palace told The Tablet that Miss Markle is a Protestant but had not previously been baptised or confirmed. In addition, she will seek to become a British citizen, the palace said. Prince Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Prince Harry is currently fifth in line to the throne and will become sixth in line after the birth of his brother Prince William's third child next year. Ms Markle went to a Catholic school but is not a Catholic. In any case, the 2013 Succession to the Crown Act 2013 removed the law...

Baptism.  Is it required for salvation?  This is a topic that is often glossed over, but when it does come up tends to generate some of the most heated debates.  After all, a topic pertinent to whether or not someone is saved is going to cause some pretty strong friction between Believers.  As with all things, we need to discuss winsomely and lovingly and test everything with Scripture.  I've been on both sides of this debate and two things I've learned are first, baptism is a commanded ordinance and Christians need to immediately obey the command regardless of whether...

Marriage and baptism are not bourgeois rites of passage. We need to make them easierThere are plenty of things for which I thank God: good friends, the health of my children, the glorious tenth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, the fact that the Detroit Tigers will not be trading their star pitcher Justin Verlander. Another is the fact that my wife and I were never made to attend a Catholic marriage preparation course.If we had been members of a parish where the mind-numbingly dull half-year of expensive weekend retreats had been required, we would have gone through with it, obviously. Offering...

* Church of England suggests offering transgender Christians re-christenings * Move is believed to provoke a furious backlash among some traditionalists* Last year committee said rules that might stop people changing sex should be abolishedThe Church of England yesterday suggested it will offer transgender Christians ‘re-christenings’ with their new names. Vicars cannot re-baptise those who have changed sex but could use existing ‘services of welcome’ to announce a new name before God, the most senior official said. The advice is likely to be endorsed next month by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod. It will ease pressure on Archbishop of...

Thousands of New Catholics to Be Welcomed by Catholic Church in the United States at Easter Vigil April 10, 2017 WASHINGTON—A married couple in their golden years, a couple inspired by their late daughter's legacy, and a salesman who heard Jesus' call to conversion on a stranger's porch, are among the thousands who will be welcomed into the Catholic Church on Easter Vigil, April 15, in parishes across the United States. All have participated in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), a process of conversion and study in the Catholic faith for catechumens and candidates coming into full...

“The Catechism in Six Parts: The Sacrament of Holy Baptism” So far in our series on the catechism, we’ve covered the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. Tonight we come to the sacraments. We begin, fittingly enough, with the sacrament with which we begin the Christian life, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. What I want to say about Baptism I can summarize in two words: It works. It works! It is effective. It actually does something--quite a lot, really. Holy Baptism works, and it works in your life. Tonight we want to answer three questions about the Sacrament...

A bishop in Sicily has banned known mafia criminals from acting as godfathers at baptisms in churches in his diocese. Michele Pennisi, bishop of Monreale, near Palermo, said Friday he had issued a decree to that effect in a bid to challenge any notion that the bosses of organized crime have a paternalistic side to them. “The mafia has always taken the term ‘Godfather’ from the Church to give its bosses an air of religious respectability, whereas in fact the two worlds are completely incompatible,” the bishop told AFP. Pennisi’s diocese includes Corleone, a vendetta-haunted village inland from Palermo which...

The denomination lost 200,000 members in 2015.The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 200,000 members in 2015— the ninth straight year of decline for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Membership stands at 15.3 million, down from 15.5 million in 2014, according to denomination statistics released on Tuesday. Baptisms also fell by more than 10,000 to just a little more than 295,000. Baptisms are an important measure for the Nashville-based denomination because of its strong commitment to evangelism. After the numbers were announced, some denominational leaders emphasized the positive news that the number of Southern Baptist churches increased last year by...

Despite rampant social media rumors, Steven Furtick's Elevation Church did not get a water slide baptismal. The report stems from a post on the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee. Pastor Steven Furtick took the stage under a single spotlight, and after some coy banter, he reportedly announced that it was "Baptism Sunday," but that this was "not your Mama's Baptism Sunday." At this cue, a giant water slide, stretching from the balcony down to a small pool of water, was unveiled from behind a large curtain as the worship band began performing TLC's 1994 hit "Waterfalls."  The Babylon Bee claims to be "Your...

Calvinists teach that a tiny percentage of baptized Christians known as the "elect" will go to heaven. But most Christians are not Calvinists. If human meritocracy is not needed to get to heaven, shouldn't the majority of baptized Christians go to heaven?

I am letting you be among the first to know. It is true. I am leaving the Catholic Church. I want you to know that this has not been a decision made in haste or without serious and intense research and consideration. But I can no longer remain in a church that I no longer believe in. Let me explain. I will be writing more about this soon, but for now let me just say there are five main reasons why I am leaving the Catholic Church: 1. I believe the sole rule of faith for Christians has to be...

March 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- On March 16, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info. Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell: The missionaries of the 16th...

Russians and Ukrainians celebrating the Baptism of Jesus Christ (Theophany in the Orthodox Church). A popular custom includes a triple immersion in ice cold water. They cut giant cross shaped holes in the ice over lakes and rivers allowing those so desiring to take the plunge. Video at the link.

Archdiocese of Washington Jesus Does Not Go into the Water Alone; He Takes Us with Him -- A Reflection on the Baptism of the Lord Msgr. Charles Pope • January 10, 2016 • Today's feast of the Baptism of the Lord is a time to reflect not only on the Lord's baptism but on our own. In an extended sense, when Christ is baptized so are we, for we are members of His Body. As Christ enters the water, He makes holy the water that will baptize us. He enters the water and we follow. In these waters, He acquires...

"Spirit-Given Faith Greets the Savior" (Luke 1:39-56) We're coming near the end of Advent, and it's time to greet the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ--not only at Christmas, but also when he comes again. Are you ready? Are you prepared? How will you greet him? Our Gospel reading today shows us how to greet him when he comes. In faith. What does that mean, "in faith"? And where does that faith come from? We'll find that out, too, as the word of the Lord comes to us today, under the theme, "Spirit-Given Faith Greets the Savior." In the Holy...

I have read a little and did some research on baptism and if there is a need to get baptized as an adult after being baptized as a child. I looked for the Church’s standing on it and I looked for scripture written about it. My research left me with the half-baked conclusion, in the eyes of the Lord, one only needs baptized once. I was baptized as a small child without any realization of what was happening. In the 40 years to follow there were plenty of times I was lost, sinning, doing the devils deeds with the liquor...

“If the Eucharist is considered [simply] a meal we share in and that nobody can be excluded from it, then the sense of Mystery is lost”. So says Cardinal Robert Sarah, the new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, in an intervention given at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for the Studies on Marriage and the Family, at his presentation of: “The Family – a work in progress”, a compilation of essays published by Cantagalli, in view of the upcoming Synod in October. A compilation intent on stimulating a discussion which touches on...

From a reader…QUAERITUR: While discussing the ecclesial status of someone baptized by an SSPX priest (is the newly baptized person Catholic?), I had a troubling thought: what about someone who is baptized by a Catholic woman who has pretended to be ordained as a priest? Is that newly baptized person considered Catholic? I tend to think not, since these women have gone to non-Catholic bishops to simulate their ordination. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts. Thanks for all your work. Every priest has a story about a “grandmother baptizing in the bathroom sink.” Usually it’s a pious woman, motivated by sincere faith and love for...

New rules also loosen restrictions on baptism, divorce, and parents of teens. For more than a decade, the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board (IMB) disqualified candidates who spoke in tongues or who had been baptized in churches that disagreed with the convention’s view of baptism. Similar rules barred divorced people or those with teenagers from being missionaries. That changed Wednesday, when the IMB’s trustees, at the prompting of their new president David Platt, approved a new, simplified set of rules for the agency’s more than 4,800 missionaries. Missionary candidates must affirm the doctrines found in the Baptist Faith...