AboutGriff Ruby Expertise I focus on the "why" and "how" questions of the Faith and one`s need for the Church to overcome sin, live the life God wishes us, and to become what God wants us to be. I seek to provide insight and information such that you are then able to see for yourself the answer to your questions.
Experience Years of extensive research, thought, and prayerful meditation on many of the issues that trouble Catholics today, taught catechetical classes to teenagers and adults, answered many questions already.
Question I am a convert to Catholicism but was baptized in the NO church. I have no traditional mass in my country. My question is, if at some point I were to have access to a traditional church( my prayer everyday), would I need to be baptized again?
Answer My extreme apologies for the delay.
When the NO church baptized you:
Did they use the proper formula (Renita, I baptize you in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost) or say something else?
Did they use real, actual water, and which would have at least covered pretty much the forehead?
Did those immediately present and participating (you, baptizer, Godparents, any other sponsors...) have the intention of "doing what the Church does" by believing, expecting, or assuming that by doing what you were doing it would make you into a baptized person (if you were a baby at the time, what you would have thought about it then would be irrelevant, obviously)?
And I also assume that they did not have you baptize yourself or use a robot or trained chimpanzee or underage infant to do the baptizing of you.
Assuming these things are the case (and I believe I can be about 99% sure, given the sorts of things that do occur in the NO church, but not as commonly as some might think), then you would indeed be baptized. It is a Catholic teaching that heretics (or indeed practically anyone) can baptize a person validly, providing only that they use the correct form, matter, and intent. For example, the baptisms of the East Orthodox, and even many of the more "high church" Protestants have long been accepted by the Church as being valid without question. The Novus Ordo (very much on par with the Old Catholics) would also have to basically qualify, except for those rare cases in which something obviously screwy happens, such as those who might "baptize" in the "Name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier," or worse, in the "Name of Jesus," or in the "Name of the Father, the Mother, and the Child," or in the "Names of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost" or any number of other verbal deviations (it is all right to have used the word "Spirit" in place of "Ghost," or to have baptized you by immersing you in water instead of the more usual pouring of water over your forehead), or else "baptizing" you with Coca Cola, or else in once case I know of in Canada where about a thousand (or more) children were registered as "baptized" without ever having even gone through any kind of "baptizing" ceremony at all.
If you are concerned about being only 99% sure and want to make it 100% you need only check into these questions.
And of course, if it turns out that something of this sort DID take place at what, putatively, should have been your baptism, you could have just anyone (friend, relative, neighbor) do it correctly over you.
What I would like to know is what country you live in that has no traditional Mass. For unless you would refuse an "Una cum" priest it might behoove you to find some elderly "Monsignor McGeezer" type (ordained no later than about May 1968) who might be willing to do the Mass under the auspices of the Motu Proprio. I have no doubt that such a request on your part could easily catalyze some considerable community support once you draw attention to it.
But do tell me what country, for there may be some Mass, if not in your own country (and surprisingly few are actually like that), then at least in some neighboring country, where it may do to make the pilgrimage someday, even if only as a one-time life event.
