By UCA News reporter
Among those awaiting Baptism are members of other denominations seeking full communion with the Catholic Church.
SINGAPORE — Some 1,000 people are learning about the Catholic faith and are expected to be baptized at the Easter Vigil next month in the Archdiocese of Singapore, which covers the island nation.
According to a report on the archdiocesan news website, at least 842 catechumens and 165 candidates participated early this month in the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion, a ceremony that accepts their readiness for baptism.
Cardinal William Goh, Archbishop of Singapore, presided over the preparatory rite for catechumens and candidates separately on March 8 and 9.
The rite, often conducted on the first Sunday of Lent, marks significant progress in faith preparations of a catechumen — an adult who undergoes training to receive the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist).
During the rite, catechumens enroll their names and sign in a book, which lists the people the archdiocese has accepted for the sacraments of initiation.
Candidates are those who have been baptized in another Christian denomination but seek full communion with the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Goh told them to make faith personal. “The Creed of the Church, the set of beliefs that the community lives by, should become your personal conviction,” he told the March 9 ceremony for catechumens.
One of the catechumens was Queenie Ng, 42. She first believed in Christ when she was 20 and occasionally attended various Protestant churches.
“I wasn’t baptized, and I didn’t walk closely with God either,” she said.
Six years ago, Ng left her corporate job to become an embalmer. One year into her new career, the Saint Joseph Dying Aid Association, an organization that provides Catholic funeral services, engaged her to help with embalming work.
Although the funeral industry is profit-driven, “the Catholics I met at the Association were easily contented… They serve not for the money, and I wanted to be like them.”
In July, she enrolled to become a catechumen in one of the more than 30 parishes or centers in the archdiocese that offer the training.
Another person getting ready for initiation is Naresh Mahtani, a 69-year-old lawyer who describes himself as a former “free thinker.”
Although introduced to Christ as a teen and having accepted Jesus Christ as his “hero,” he “could not accept how the Church had engaged in persecution historically,” Mahtani said.
He seldom accompanied his 44-year-old wife, a practicing Catholic, for Sunday Mass.
However, professional and financial struggles prompted him to have “serious conversations with God,” which slowly convinced him to accept the faith.
Last July, Mahtani enrolled as a catechumen.
Catholics in Singapore are estimated to be 395,000, with a population of about 5.9 million.
