The Court of Appeal of San Miguel stated judges cannot interfere with Church decisions on these matters.
by Massimo Introvigne
A decision by the Court of Appeal of San Miguel Chile on the controversial matter of who can and cannot serve as godparents in a Catholic baptism has been published this month.
The decision, dated February 1, 2022, concerns an Evangelical woman married to a Catholic man. The couple was asked to serve as godparents in a Catholic baptism. The parish priest explained to the woman that, as an evangelical who had not even been baptized in the Catholic faith, she could not serve as godmother. However, Canon Law at canon 874:2 allows a non-Catholic to serve in a baptism as a “witness” (without being called “godparent”) if the other godparent is a Catholic in good standing. It was thus explained to the woman that, since her husband is Catholic, he could serve as godfather and she would be called a “witness.”
However, she insisted that she wanted to be called a “godmother” and that excluding her from this position based on her religion was an act of discrimination prohibited as such by the Constitution of Chile.
The case was submitted to the Court of Appeal of San Miguel, which found that since one of the godparents’ duties is to help the parents in instructing the child in the Catholic faith, it is not unreasonable for the Catholic Church to ask that they should be Roman Catholic.
However, the Court of Appeal went one step further. It considered whether, be they reasonable or unreasonable, the rules established by the Catholic Church about baptism can be challenged in a secular court. The judges answered in the negative.
They observed that Article 19 of the Constitution of Chile, on freedom of religion, should be interpreted as including “the freedom and autonomy of religious communities to dictate their own internal regulations. Otherwise, not recognizing the particularities of each confession would imply a requirement of uniformity of all religions that would impede religious freedom.”
The judges added that what would be discriminatory would be to recognize to the Roman Catholic Church the right to determine who cannot be a godparent and deny a similar right to other religions. This is not the case, they said: “The same right to act in a similar manner can be extended to other religious organizations that validly and legally operate in our country.”
The important general principle affirmed by the Court of Appeal is that religions are free to enact their own internal rules, and that forms of exclusion that in a different context would be prohibited as discriminatory are permitted when they are part of the religious bodies’ right to organize themselves as they deem fit.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
