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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.
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Q&A

Why can anyone administer baptism?

Catholic Answers Staff

Question:

I don’t understand why the faithful are allowed to baptize one another. What makes this sacrament different from the others that an ordained priest does not have to administer it?

Answer:

The ordinary ministers of baptism (in other words, the people ordinarily expected to perform baptism) are priests and deacons. Because baptism is ordinarily necessary for salvation (John 3:5; CCC 1257), in life-and-death situations in which a priest or deacon is not available, anyone—including Catholics, non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-theists—may baptize so long as they do so in the correct manner and with the correct intention (to baptize).

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