Former President Of Ireland Claims Baptism Denies Babies Their Human Rights

The former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, has claimed baptism denies babies their human rights.

Her comments were highlighted in an article in the Irish Times with the headline: “Mary McAleese: Baptism denies babies their human rights.”

This woman is nominally Catholic, but doesn’t agree with the teaching or practice of the Catholic Church. I believe she is a canon lawyer, but somehow she was radicalized. She also says this is the real issue we need to focus on — the great injustice in the world today.

No one is Catholic by birth and the notion of ‘Baptismal promises’ is risible, writes Mary McAleese https://t.co/8WopKFeMhi

— The Irish Times (@IrishTimes) January 11, 2026

Credit: @IrishTimes/X.com

She’s not a prelate. She’s not a theologian. She’s a politician. And she says the real injustice, the real violation of human rights in our world, is not immigration, not foreign policy, not the economy, not how we treat the poor. It’s not even abortion, the wholesale slaughter of little babies, no — it’s baptism.

It’s difficult to see how one arrives at that conclusion or that obsession without demonic influence. Now, I’m not someone who says there’s a demon under every rock. We live in a world where the material and immaterial are not totally separable, nevertheless, I’m not demon-hunting all the time.

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It’s very difficult to understand how the former president of Ireland can say the great human rights violation of our time is baptizing babies. Because it is supposedly “bad.”

One could try to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you could argue that infant baptism is technically a violation of human rights because, after the Fall, humans deserve death. Sin and death pervade the world, and in our fallen nature what we deserve is death, and baptism saves us from death.

Many people have different views of baptism, but you do see it in Scripture. Our Lord says, “Let the little children come to Me.” You see baptisms of children in the book of Acts multiple times. In 1 Peter 3:21, Saint Peter essentially says baptism now saves you. There are many theological discussions about what that means exactly, but baptism is what demarcates us as Christians. Plenty of people disagree with infant baptism, but it is the traditional practice of the Catholic Church.

But setting those theological debates aside, the closest one could get to her argument is that baptism denies babies their human rights insofar as it saves them from the consequences of the Fall of man. And that’s a good thing. Isn’t that a good thing?

My last point: this woman, who says baptism violates babies’ human rights, supports abortion. She supports legally murdering babies in the womb, but not baptizing them once they are born. The only way to reach that conclusion is either to follow the perversity of liberalism to its end, or through demonic influence. I don’t see any other explanation.

And it really makes me raise an eyebrow at other Left-wing politicians.