Can a Baby be Validly Baptised with Beer?

Canterbury Tales asks the question:

In July of AD 1241, a pressing matter was presented to Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227-1241). The minds of Christendom were perplexed with a complicated theological problem: Would an infant baptized with beer be validly baptized?

Surprisingly, the question made it all the way to the Pope.

From the papal letter Cum sicut ex to Archbishop Sigurdof of Norway on July 8, 1241, Pope Gregory IX wrote the following:

Since as we have learned from your report, it sometimes happens because of the scarcity of water, that infants of your lands [Norway] are baptized in beer, we reply to you in the tenor of those present that, since according to evangelical doctrine it is necessary “to be reborn from water and the Holy Spirit” [John 3:5] they are not to be considered rightly baptized who are baptized in beer.

So there you have it. Although beer is mostly water, it doesn’t qualify as proper matter for the sacrament. Save the Pale Ale for the baptismal reception…

 

Priests to Face East at Ordinariate Masses

Good!

From the Tablet:

Masses celebrated by priests in the ordinariate are likely to be ad orientem, according to one of its leaders. While the liturgy for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has yet to be approved by the Holy See, Mgr Andrew Burnham said the Congregation for Divine Worship “is likely to commend eastward celebration, when the dynamic of the building suggests it”. Mgr Burnham also said that it may also recommend kneeling at mention of the Incarnation during the Creed.