I seek help in trying to verify whether or not my girlfriend received Holy Baptism as an infant in the Roman Catholic Church. What procedure(s) exist to help track down baptismal certificates? Is there a repositry or Registrar of Records that I could approach with the request?

The specifics: I am a non-Roman Anglican. My girlfriend is an adoptee. Her adoptive family is Baptist on one side and Roman Catholic on the other side, though she was brought up as a Baptist. We have no information on her birth-parent(s). She believes she was born in or around Chicago. Being raised as a Baptist, she has not been baptized in that faith-tradition, and does not know if she was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church as an infant.

This is important because, in discussing marriage, I have time and again urged my desire/need for a Nuptial Mass (okay, so its an Anglican Mass, and b/c of _Apostolicae Curae_, Rome does not recognize that Ecclesia Anglicana retains the priesthood, but how many here have read _Saepius Officio_, the response of ++Cantaur and +Ibor to +++Leo?) and to receive communion, she must needs be a baptized Christian. If she is not indeed baptized, she will receive Baptism in a Baptist church ('course she may receive Baptism there anyway, even if she was Baptized, but that is neither here nor there right now)

Thanks for your help

Michael Jesus Mercy. Mary Help. Joseph Protect.

-- Michael Lilly (anglicanformary@yahoo.com), November 21, 2002

Answers

Hi, Michael -

I went to the Archdiocese of Chicago's web site. Here is a link to do a Sacramental Records Request. At the bottom, it says there's a $10 fee.

Hope this helps!

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), November 21, 2002.