Growing up in a society like ours, every conversation has a potential to turn into a portal to new information. Our cultures and subcultures are so specific and diverse that one could learn absolutely new things about the world around us through every new interaction. And that is how I stumbled across the system of godparenthood practised among the Catholics of Kerala. My knowledge of godparents was limited to its references in Hollywood movies and a few fictional works I had read. Even then, the technicality and the nuances of the practice hadn’t held much intrigue then. But when placed in Indian reality and its regular practice in the Christian community, it definitely piqued my interest.
What one needs to understand first is the fact that there are seldom absolutely uniform practices within a religion. Even in a monotheistic religion with a singular sacred text, one would have its followers practising the same customs (that is, the motive being the same), but the actual performance of them would be different. Nations, regions, language, localities would all be factors in creating unique iterations of the same ritual/belief. So when talking about a religious practice like this, one must remember that it isn’t uniform. Godparenthood among Roman Catholics of Kerala is fundamentally linked to Baptism. Baptism is one of the seven sacraments emphasised by the Roman Catholic Church. The sacrament of Baptism can be considered to be the basis of whole Christian life as it is the gateway which gives access to other sacraments. Through baptism, the followers believe that they have been freed from sin and have been reborn as children of God.
For Catholics, infant baptism usually takes place on a Sunday morning during Mass. The baby is usually dressed in white, which symbolises purity. The sacrament of Baptism is carried out by a priest, who begins by anointing the child’s head with holy oil, making the sign of the cross. The child is a passive participant as they are usually quite young when baptism happens. They are in no position to actively take part by reciting vows or accepting holy materials. The godparents play a role here as they are the ones who carry out the actions required by the child to be done. The vows to reject the evil to pardon the child of the original sin are said by the godparents. The incapacity of the child would mean that they would have to be excluded from the religious community. The substitution by the godparents avoids that problem as they can act on behalf of the child and the child would gain entry into the community.
A godparent serves a special role for one to be baptised and should be chosen carefully and with concern for the spiritual life of the one being baptised. They are significant supporters and the ones who can first begin to reveal to their godchild the value of the Christian community. The godparents are usually the kin of either the mother or father of the child. But the choice of godparents is not arbitrary. Although the Catholic Church or even regional religious culture do not emphasise a particular set of guidelines, there are norms and traditions in place which are followed. The most common trend when it comes to selecting godparents is that the godparents of the first child are chosen from the paternal kin, especially the person in the role of head of the family and his wife. Choosing godparents for the rest of the children does not have strict traditions as this one. The godparents of the first child are their paternal grandfather and grandmother in most of the cases.
There are some norms in place for choosing godparents; the most important of them is that they should have faith. This is why senior members of the family are given a preference because they would have the experience of practising faith for longer and hence are expected to be devout followers. In its literal as well as spiritual sense, godparents are the ‘parents of the child in God’. Godparents act as spiritual guides to the godchild, moulding them in the practices of the Christian faith. Godparenthood is the way in which religion ensures that the individual receives spiritual guidance. In a sense, it can be regarded as co-parenthood where the parents along with godparents would teach the child the ways of faith and guide them through the process. However, the evolution of family from joint families to nuclear families restricted the active roles of godparents and increased the roles of parents in practice of faith. Over the years, godparenthood has transformed into more of a titular role in many cases.
Presence of godparents – who are usually the family members of the parents – during the baptism ceremony acts as a substitute for the individual who is participating in their first rite of passage in the religious context. Spiritual guidance is also the duty of the godparent. Hence, godparenthood becomes a blend of spirituality and kinship in making a distinctive convention in our society. It is a unique system which assures initiation and integration of an individual in their larger belief system through the interaction of kinship and religious structures. Practices like these make one aware that regular and common traditions of life contain in themselves a complex interplay of systems.
