Denver Newsroom, Sep 18, 2020 / 10:20 am
An Oklahoma City priest who discovered he was invalidly baptized as a child received that invalid sacrament from a deacon in a Texas parish, the bishop of Fort Worth said this week, while encouraging others baptized by the same deacon to contact their pastors to address the situation.
The bishop urged clerics to contact diocesan offices if they had ever deviated from an approved baptismal formula, and apologized to all Catholics affected by the invalid celebration of sacraments.
"Last week, the bishop of another diocese informed me that one of his priests, while watching a video, discovered that he had been invalidly baptized as an infant by Deacon Philip Webb, a permanent deacon ordained for the Diocese of Dallas, but assigned at that time to Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Carrollton, Texas, in the Diocese of Fort Worth," Bishop Michael Olson wrote in a letter to Catholics Sept. 18.
The diocese confirmed to CNA that the priest was Fr. Zachary Boazman of Oklahoma City, who was "subsequently baptized, confirmed, given first Holy Communion, ordained a deacon, and ordained a priest."