GODPARENT

godparent.Eccles. law. A person, usu. a close family friend or relative, who accepts a parent’s

invitation to assume part of the responsibility for the religious education of a newly baptized child.

• Often, too, there is an un-derstanding that the godparent would help support and rear the child if

the parents were to die or become inca-pacitated. The spiritual parent–child relationship creates a

canonical impediment to marriage. — Also termed (more specifically) godmother; godfather; (in

eccles. law) sponsor. [Blacks Law 8^th]