[jackiesbooks]

We are hoping to adopt our 5 yr foster son in the spring. Does anyone know how baptism will work? Our parish would not allow him to attend CCD classes, since I could not get the birth parents release.

[HBV]

I don't believe CCD is a requirement for baptism---usually the parish makes the parents take a class. The official line most places seems to be that the adoption must be final, though you may see from an earlier thread about this that a lot of priests will do the baptism before finalization. I'd just call your parish and ask.

[Calebsmom]

I'm not a practicing Catholic, but my husband and children are. Is it okay to have a second Baptism once adopted? I was reading another thread about name changing, and was thinking that finding out about a Baptism with the original name of an infant would have bothered me.

Forgive me for not knowing.

[jackiesbooks]

Calebsmom -

Not sure. In my case, my 5yr old son was never baptisted.

[HOPEFULINPA]

We just had our son baptised after his adoption was final. He is 22 months. We finalized 10/5 and had the baptism the weekend after Thanksgiving. My husband and I had to attend the class.

[fostermommy]

My husband and I had our (then) 11 year old foster daughter, whom we intended to adopt, baptized. This was something that she wanted to do, and we got the permission of DSS to have it done. We did not need bio mom's permission, as I believe her rights had been terminated at that point in time. Our FD had to attend a class that had other children who'd missed baptism in it. All were around the same age. Because of our FD's situation, she was baptized in a private ceremony, not with the other kids that had been in her class. We did have to fill out a form to some kind of "keeper of records" to make sure she was not Baptized before. We were told that the church has to make VERY sure that they are not repeating a sacrament

We had our son (who came to us as a foster child) baptized as soon after his adoption as we could. He was age 4.5 at the time, and he was not required to do anything. My husband and I met privately with a priest to schedule a date.

I would recommend waiting until the adoption is final to have your fs baptized. My reasons are two-fold. First, the last name on the baptism certificate will be the same as yours. Secondly, in the case of the foster child I mentioned above, she disrupted during placement and ended up in a pychiatric hospital and then residential. The department failed us at attempted reunification with her, and she has been on the run for two years now. My parents are her Godparents, and we don't even know where she is.

I'm hoping that the adoption in your case goes through, but I would truly wait until the adoption is finalized before going ahead. I know it's hard to wait--we are waiting on finalization on our 2 year old FD, and I'm chomping at the bit to have her baptized. Good Luck!!!

[jackiesbooks]

Thanks - our priest will not let us do anything yet, so we will wait.
I have a few placements look like they were going to be adopted and it did not happen, so I am crossing myh fingers and praying.

[mumofone]

We were able to have our two sons baptized even before their adoptions finalized.

We just adopted a new daughter about 7 weeks ago, and we plan to do the same for her.

Our church has no issues with it.