On Sponsors & Godparents

Baptism  |  Confirmation  |  Sponsors & Godparents

Please Note If you have been asked to be a Godparent or Confirmation Sponsor, please call the office  to set up a short meeting with one of our priests to obtain your Letter of Eligibility/ Sponsorship Letter.

Before you ask someone to be a Godparent or sponsor, or before accepting this honor, please read  BELOW:

GODPARENT GUIDELINES

Being a Godparent for Baptism is a both a great honor and a great responsibility. To be a Godparent means that the person will serve as a companion, guide, model and witness to the Catholic Faith. Because of the beautiful but serious nature of the role of Godparent, the following policy, flowing from the Church’s universal law, is to be observed. 
 

1. Ideally there should be two Godparents (one male, one female) and both Godparents should be Catholic.  However, only one Godparent is necessary, but that Godparent must be a practicing Catholic.

ALL CATHOLIC GODPARENTS MUST FULFILL 
​ALL  OF THE FOLLOWING:

• Be a baptized, practicing Catholic (a practicing Catholic is one who attends Mass regularly and is sincerely devoted to his or her faith in Christ and his Church.)
• Be at least 16 years of age.
• Has received the Sacrament of Confirmation.
• If married, the marriage must have been witnessed by a Catholic Priest or Deacon, according to the laws and teaching of the Catholic Church and/or the Bishop having granted any required dispensation.
• Cannot be either the father or the mother of the person to be baptized or confirmed.
• Cannot be under any canonical penalty whether imposed or declared.

The above requirements must be certified by a signed letter, called a Sponsorship Letter, containing the parish seal, from the pastor/parish of the prospective Godparent. If the godparent is a registered member of Holy Angels Parish, he or she will need to call the office and set up a time to meet with one of our priests before a sponsorship letter can be given. A baptismal or confirmation certificate is not sufficient.
 
Please note the following:

• A person baptized in a non-Catholic Christian church, may serve only as a Christian witness to a Baptism together with the Catholic Godparent.  He or she is not a Godparent, but a Christian Witness.  This person must submit a certificate of baptism from the church in which he/she was baptized.  A non-baptized person may not act as a Christian Witness.

 

• A baptized Catholic, who has left the Catholic Church and joined another ecclesial community, OR who has fallen away from the practice of the faith, OR who is not married validly in the Church can be neither a Godparent nor a Christian witness.

 
Godparent paperwork must be received in the Holy Angels Parish Office two weeks in advance of the celebration of the sacrament or the celebration of the sacrament may be postponed.
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