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.
