Talk:Godparent

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There is no legal status for godparents in the event of the parents dying —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.137.209.203 (talk • contribs) 21 December 2003

The Chinese notion of "godparent"?
An expert on the subject should be recruited. For more (unverifiable but useful for finding good sources) information, see http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=10065 --68.161.148.47 (talk) 03:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

hmmm... so there is no legal meaning to the term god sister...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.173.84 (talk) 11:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Pinyin for hanzi, anyone? --91.152.90.62 (talk) 09:10, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Dubious: "Willing" your children into foster care
The vast majority of modern courts may consider the parents' wishes in the care of their children if they die or are otherwise unable to care for them, but will not be bound by any will, trust or otherwise. In short, you can't "will" your kids to anyone. 68.101.143.168 (talk) 08:07, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. Also the sentence has no source. I think perhaps we should delete it and look for something to support the rest of the paragraph.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 08:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * This now done.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 21:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Which country are you talking about? There are hundreds of jurisdictions in this world. Be careful not to impose the views of your own nations/cultures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.143.59.94 (talk) 10:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You are arguing with a statement that was deleted. As indicated above.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 10:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Edited part on Orthodox godparents
I just edited the part on Orthodox baptism which says that "Like Western-Roman Catholicism, some parts of the church, including the Archdiocese of North America, allow members of other churches to be witnesses at baptism, but they have no formal role, for example, at the child's wedding when they mature."

I felt that this could be misleading. All Orthodox Churches maintain that only Orthodox may sponsor or witness (in the sense of being a godparent). The reference was: 'On the Spiritual Life in the Church, Encyclical Letter, Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, 1988. However, the only thing referring to witnessing and baptism is in a paragraph speaking of the importance of the sacraments and, in no way, talks of the idea of non-Orthodox Christians being witnesses/sponsors/godparents. Furthermore, this was the Orthodox Church in America, not the "Archdiocese of North America." There are several different Archdioceses of North America. The Orthodox Church in America's official stance, like other Orthodox Churches is that only Orthodox may be godparents. Reference: http://oca.org/PDF/official/clergyguidelines.pdf page 12

I sincerely apologize if this is the incorrect way to do things. I am not a normal editor on Wikipedia but I wanted to fix that issue.

Change of dating system
As I have pointed out in my edit summaries there is a procedure for those wishing to change an established dating system atWP:era, which states:


 * Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era". Briefly state why the style is inappropriate for the article in question. Having a personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change.

Just reverting again is not within this procedure. Please follow this if you wish to argue for a change.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 08:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I've already given my reason for changing it (its ties to Christianity make AD preferable). You, on the other hand, have not provided a single reason keeping it  Hot Stop  09:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Even under WP:BRD, once it was reverted you should have come here, but there is even a guideline to which you were pointed. It was not incumbent on me to give reasons if you did not follow the guidelines. Putting that aside now we have the beginnings of a dialogue lets deal with the issues. This article is not just about Christian godparenthood, but deals with other religions. The guidelines at WP:ERA state that "CE and BCE are common in some scholarly and religious writing", so clearly the fact that it is religious in origin is not a sufficient reason for change.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 09:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It has been a week and there has been no effective justification for the change, and clearly no consensus. I am reverting to the status quo anti under BRD and ERA.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 07:16, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Secular tradition of godparents?
Hi. To me it is obvious that godparents and similar kinship relations (I myself have what I could consider a godbrother) is also a secular tradition. It is unfortunate that this page doesn't reflect that - while it is of course tricky to document an informal secular tradition like that. I personally highly value secular traditions and deligitimizing them in comparison to religious traditions has for instance enabled someone to seed weird doubt in the Joi Ito page, regarding him being the godson of Tim Leary. "a close non-traditional family-like relationship, an idea said to have been conceived by Leary for a few of his friends" - I highly doubt Leary invented secular godparenthood. Not a big issue, but it would be so cool if we could move toward a fair representation of secular tradition in general and on this topic specifically. Thanks. -- CarlJohanSveningsson (talk) 10:47, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it is fine to include this, but, as with everything on Wikipedia, it needs reliable sources to back it up. If you can find those then it will be a valuable addition.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 14:39, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The relationship described above is almost identical to the legal definition of godparent under Washington, DC's law: see "Relative Placement for Foster Care and Guardianship", Citation Ann. Code Sub-sec 4-251.01; 4-1301.02


 * Related note: I come from a secular background, and I've always understood "godparent" to mean stand-by guardianship; I only learned that it has a religious significance after reading this article. I think this article should talk about the stand-by guardianship aspect of the godparent relationship.  Does anyone have a reference for that? 140.180.189.49 (talk) 04:07, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

A secular tradition of god parents is much seen in movies & television, with the idea that in the case of the death of the parents, the god parent will take over parenting duties. Regardless of whether this tradition is incarnated in law, or is even largely mythical, it certainly has a strong cultural tradition. Pity that it is not explored in the article. The religious tradition may still be alive for many people, but the contemporary cultural tradition is certainly not exclusively religious in nature.

2A01:E35:2E06:77B0:7947:21DA:D9C6:230D (talk) 17:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I will have to find some sources on this, because the page being solely related to Christianity is plain wrong, as concurred by several commenters above. Thanks, will see what I can do about it :-) CarlJohanSveningsson (talk) 12:23, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I added something minimal with two sources on "guideparents" (one also referring to the secular use of godparent), but there must be more around. Sigur (talk) 22:55, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Literal and celebrity godparents
This article could mention that folks in Hollywood have - or, at the very least, Jake Gyllenhaal has - literal and celebrity godparents. Citing this The Daily Telegraph interview: "So let's get it on the record: is he saying he is open to persuasion? 'No, I am not open to persuasion myself, but the idea of homosexuality is acceptable to me. I grew up in a city where half the people I know are gay. Both of my godfathers are gay.' Paul Newman is gay! He laughs again. 'No, he's my celebrity godfather.' What's a celebrity godfather? 'That's the godfather that the media give you. He's a close friend of my family. He taught me to drive. I have literal godfathers and celebrity godfathers.' I see. And Jamie Lee Curtis, is she a celebrity godmother or a literal godmother? 'Both. That's why it is confusing growing up in Hollywood.'" --82.136.210.153 (talk) 15:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The fact that Jake Gyllenhall thinks this and says it in an interview in a newspaper doesn't reach the level of notability needed.. It would need to be in some sort of academic article or study.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 16:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Image captions
As of the current revision as of this writing, the captions on the top two images in the article do not go with the images. The images are, respectively, File:Stained glass window depicting Episcopal baptism.JPG with a caption talking about "As members of a Lutheran church...", and File:Baptism.JPG (which the image description says is a picture of a Roman Catholic priest) captioned "Detail from the "Baptism Window" at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee, showing godparents from the mid-20th century." Obviously, the second caption was meant to go on the first image. I will move that caption and adjust the other caption. -sche (talk) 02:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

What is the role of God parent and why are they important?
What is the role of a godparent and why are they important? 2A02:C7F:50AE:9700:3009:234C:D9F3:B02C (talk) 14:52, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

transgender Catholic godparents
The Vatican recently stated that transgender Catholics can be godparents; the paragraph stating that they cannot is no longer accurate. See, e.g., NYT: Vatican Says Transgender People Can Be Baptized and Become Godparents 2601:19B:4B82:7C90:55A8:2582:559A:ACD2 (talk) 06:57, 14 November 2023 (UTC)