Are there involuntary Catholics?
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I was just reading [this answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/53866/35508) which stated that a person could be Catholic without having gone through confirmation:
Catholics recommend that this is done to infants. 1
If that is the case, that a Catholic baptism alone makes a person a Catholic, and if they are generally baptized as such as infants, it would stand to reason that there would be many people who may be technically considered Catholic by no choice or even memory of their own. Is that actually the case?
So, if a person were baptized Catholic as an infant, for instance, perhaps lost his parents or was adopted, and then later grew up not knowing this, if this fact were somehow brought to his attention and those of the Catholic assembly, would they be considered Catholic, up to such point that the person intentionally renounced this?
As a follow up question, if this is actually the case, are there some people who the Catholic Church believes to somehow have a better standing with God, from childhood, through no thought or action of their own? If it's not up to the child, and if it does bestow some favor, then would there be any reason not to try to force every child into this if the opportunity arises? If not, is it withheld to punish the child for the sake of the parents' choices?
**Citation:**
1. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1250.htm
Asked by DKing
(772 rep)
Jun 19, 2017, 08:20 PM
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