One movement that holds to baptismal regeneration is the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma clearly represents the RCC: “Baptism is that Sacrament in which man being washed with water in the name of the Three Divine Persons is spiritually reborn …. Faith, as it is not the effective cause of justification … need not be present. The faith which infants lack is ... replaced by the faith of the Church. The formula ‘ex opere operato’ asserts, negatively that the sacramental grace is not conferred by reason of the subjective activity of the recipient, and positively, that the sacramental grace is caused by the validly operated sacramental sign.” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 971-972). The Latin phrase “ex opera operato” means “by work performed” which means grace is conferred by the sacrament of baptism.
Mark 16:16 cannot be used to teach baptismal regeneration: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” The second part of the verse negates baptismal regeneration being taught in the first part because of the omission of baptism as a basis for condemnation. “The verse is simply talking about general cases without making a pedantic qualification for the unusual case of someone who believers and is not baptized” (Grudem, 981).
Neither can Acts 2:38 be used to teach water baptism saves. The eis is not purposive or causative as baptismal regenerationalists would teach. “It is equally true that it may say that baptism is not for the purpose of the forgiveness of sins but because of forgiveness (that had already taken place at repentance). Eis is clearly used with this meaning in Matthew 12:41---‘they repented at (on the basis of, or because of) the preaching of Jonah.’ It certainly cannot mean in that verse that they repented with a view to the preaching of Jonah” (Ryrie, 337).