Por que preciso batizar o meu filho quando criança? (A Resposta Católica, #4)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in numbers 1250 and following, clearly explains why the Church has the custom of baptizing children, even those who have not reached the age of reason: "Because they are born with a fallen human nature stained by original sin, children also need the new birth in Baptism, in order to be freed from the power of darkness and transferred to the realm of freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The pure gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in the Baptism of children. The Church and parents would then deprive the child of the inestimable grace of becoming a Child of God if they did not confer Baptism upon him shortly after birth." (1250)