COMPETENTES. – These were those catechumens who, after the period of probation, gave their names to receive Baptism on Holy Saturday. They were subjected to more demanding ascetic exercises: prayers, scrutinies, exorcisms, humiliations, and instruction: traditio et redditio of the Creed, the Pater noster, the Gospels, psalms, etc.; and they were distinguished from the catechumens by more serious obligations and greater rights. They were « competentes de simul petendo atque unum aliquid appetendo » (St Augustine, Serm., 216); « ex eo, quod accepto Symbolo iam petit gratiam Dei (i. e. Baptismum), competens vocatur » (Ildefonso di Toledo, De cognitione Baptismi, 1).
BIBL.: P. De Puniet, s. V. in DACL, II, cols. 2579–2621; Ph. Oppenheim, Sacramentum regenerationis Christiane, Rome 1947, pp. 46–55; id., Commentationes ad ritum baptismalem, II, Turin 1949, pp. 49–85. Filippo Oppenheim