"Pope tells grandmother not to ‘insist’ on grandchildren’s baptism"

"Writing to a grandmother distressed about her children’s lack of attention to religion for their own children, Pope Francis told her to 'accompany' them but not to insist they baptize their children.

In the inaugural edition of a new Vatican magazine, Pope Francis downplayed an Italian grandmother’s concerns about her grandchildren not receiving the Sacrament of Baptism. The Pope’s reply came in direct response to a letter from a woman named 'Oliva' and will form a regular feature in the magazine.

Oliva recounted how the youngest of her three grandchildren was 'not baptized, because her parents, who were married civilly, drifted away from the Lord during their teenage years.'

The young girl, now aged five, appears to have remained away from the Church with Oliva recounting that the girl’s parents have 'no desire' to 'seek Him [God] and make Him present in their lives.'

Such a scenario, Oliva wrote, 'is a source of great suffering for me because I know how important it is to have the Lord by our side, to pray to Him, to listen to Him and to receive His love.'

'I imagine my granddaughter without this great gift, without the Sacrament of Baptism, she is so curious about the story of Jesus with so many questions of her own. What will Jesus think of all this?' she asked.

The grandmother wrote that she continued her prayers for the young girl’s parents to return to the practice of the faith and placed her problem before the Pope, seeking his 'comfort and advice, confident that the Lord will show us the right way to help our granddaughter.'

Francis empathized with Oliva, but urged her not to insist that her grand-daughter be baptized."