Suffer the Children to Come

Well, I guess the infants can go to hell with the parents in Canada. Another aspect of the Cardinal Ouelett crying Victim! in Senate testimony yesterday is that the Roman Catholic church won't baptize a child if two dads or two moms are to be the signators on the certificate.

The Ottawa Citizen reports this absurd aspect. The article quotes the mitered one:

"If I take the example of the ceremony of baptism, according to our canon law, we cannot accept the signatures of two fathers or two mothers as parents of an infant," Cardinal Ouellet told the committee. "With a law that makes these unions official, situations of this will multiply and this threatens to disturb not just the use of our territory, but also our archives and other aspects of the life of our communities."

Senator Marcel Prud'homme (a Catholic) objected to punishing the children this way. Later in the day, a Conference of Catholic Bishops official hedged a bit and said that if one of the parents did not insist on signing the certificate the priest had the option of performing the baptism. (Do we call that marginalization?)

The Senate committee, with the Conservatives objecting, reported C-38 to the whole Senate for passage with no amendments. It should pass before the Tour de France is over and become law the same day.