Q. 1. What is the purpose of the baptismal font?

A. 1. The purpose of the baptismal font is to provide the Sacrament of Baptism to those who wish to convert to the Catholic faith. Normally, it is a stone, metal, or wooden receptacle, usually ornamented, for holding baptismal water used in the solemn administration of the Sacrament of Baptism. According to Cannon Law, every parish church must have a baptismal font.

A basin or vase, serving as a receptacle for baptismal water in which the candidate for baptism is immersed, or over which he is washed, in the ceremony of Christian initiation. In the Church's present practice it is ordinarily a decorative stone basin, though metal or wood are used; supported on a pedestal or columns at a convenient height for receiving the water which is poured over the head of the person baptized, a form which marks the term of a development graphically illustrating the history of the mode of conferring baptism.

In the Apostolic Age, as in Jewish times (John 3:23), baptism was administered without special fonts, at the seaside or in streams or pools of water (Acts 8:38); Tertullian refers to St. Peter's baptizing in the Tiber (De bapt., iv). In later periods of evangelization, missionaries baptized in rivers as is narrated of St. Paulinus in England by Bede (Hist. Eccl., II, xiv-xvi). Indoor baptism, however, was not uncommon (Acts 9:18 ; 16:33) and, for the sake of both privacy and solemnity, came to be the rule; while reverence for the rite itself and for the water, which came in time to receive a special consecration, gave rise to the use of a special basin or font for the baptismal ceremony and, at a later period, for the preservation of the water.

Currently, the Roman Catholic Church encourages baptismal fonts that are suitable for the full immersion of an infant or child, and for at least the pouring of water over the whole body of an adult.