Godfather and Godmother (also called Sponsors), the persons who, by presenting a child for the sacrament of baptism, which is regarded as a new spiritual birth, are reputed to contract towards the newly baptised the relation of spiritual parentage. In the Roman Catholic Church this spiritual relationship is regarded as a species of kindred (whence the name gossip, or God-sib, 'spiritually akin'), and constitutes an impediment of marriage between the sponsors upon the one hand and the baptised and the parents of the baptised on the other. Anciently, this impediment arose also between the sponsors themselves; and it still extends much further in the Eastern than in the Western Church, although in the former it can arise only from baptism, whereas in the Roman Church the candidate for confirmation also is presented by a sponsor, though usually one of the same sex.
In the Anglican Church, by whose rule two godfathers and a godmother are required at the baptism of a male, and two godmothers and a godfather at that of a female, no impediment of marriage arises from the relation of the sponsors to the baptised. The parents of the baptised are not permitted to act as sponsors in the Roman Catholic Church, one of the objects of the institution being to provide instructors in case of the death of parents; but the present rule of the Church of England, following the rubric of the American Prayer-book, does so allow.