Word: baptism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Bovio Fanelli is known in his village of Riccia, Italy, as a Communist and militant atheist. When he appeared in church to be godfather at a baptism, the priest, Don Alfonso Manocchio, declared Fanelli unacceptable and refused to baptize the baby. Then and there Communist Fanelli scooped up a pitcher of holy water and poured it on the baby's head, saying: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost...
Fanelli committed a grave sin in thus performing a nonclerical baptism in the presence of a priest, said the Vatican last week. But nevertheless, he had made a new Christian. Because baptism is the only means of entry into the Christian community, canon law recognizes the validity of a baptism (according to the correct ritual formula and with the intention to baptize) by anyone-even an infidel...
...Qumran sect as the originator of Christianity, Allegro feels that it profoundly influenced the first Christians. Withdrawn into the desert from the persecution of a corrupt priesthood in Jerusalem, holding in contempt the scribes and Pharisees (whom they called "Seekers After Smooth Things"), the Qumran community practiced baptism, chastity, community of goods. They wrote the ritual of a Messianic banquet with breaking of bread and blessing of wine, which Allegro boldly suggests may prefigure the Last Supper and Christian Communion. They expected the imminent end of the world and the coming of two Messiahs-a priest and a king...
...Here is an evocative, semi-autobiographical prowl among the littered streets and crumbling tenements of Farrell's boyhood on Chicago's South Side. Tart as melting aspirin on the tongue, it lives up to its tag line, "Kilroy was here but left because the place stank." A Baptism in Italy takes a tender look at a beat-up Italian writer-revolutionary who is punchdrunk from too many rounds in a concentration camp. He rouses himself to play gracious host to a sympathetic pair of visiting Americans, and is bitterly hurt to find that they regard him just...
...Over the centuries, many groups upheld this view (as against infant baptism, which became generally accepted in Christendom), among them the 3rd century Donatists, some of the 12th century Petrobrusians and Waldensians, the 15th century Bohemian Brethren. It was not until the Reformation that the issue really became heated, with the rise in the 16th century of the Anabaptists (literally, Re-Baptizers), a collection of sects that all opposed the baptism of infants, but that also opposed, variously, oaths, military service and the holding of public office. The sects were ruthlessly put down, but some (the Mennonites and Hutterites) regained...