Author: Maria Morrow

Citizenship confers on a person certain rights and responsibilities. As recent news has reminded us, a person’s citizenship is not primarily a matter of personal choice, nor a rational decision made by the individual. Rather, citizenship is decided at birth, without the person’s consent. Those with U.S. citizenship are granted rights, such as voting in government elections, and obligated with duties, such as following the laws. Baptism within the Catholic Church likewise confers rights and responsibilities on the person, and these often begin when the person is an infant, again, without consent. Former Irish president Mary McAleese recently made some headlines when she was quoted in the Irish Times June 23 and June 22 asserting that baptized babies are “infant conscripts who are held to lifelong obligations of obedience.” McAleese regards this as a breach of fundamental human rights: “You can’t impose, really, obligations on people who are only two weeks old and you can’t say to them at seven or eight or 14 or 19 ‘here is what you contracted, here is what you signed up to’ because the truth is they didn’t.” No doubt, if we were to apply this perspective to citizenship, we would find many people objecting that they did not choose to be citizens of a country with high poverty levels, drug problems, inadequate infrastructure, gang violence, etc. And yet we must recognize that there are restrictions applied...