Celine Dion's Baby Boy Is Baptized

Celine Dion and husband Rene Angelil baptized their 6-month-old son, Rene-Charles, on Wednesday in Montreal at a 40-minute private ceremony before 250 friends and members of the family — and it sounds as though the child has quite a set of pipes in him, too. “Little Rene-Charles wasn’t cut out for a big ceremony like that, because he cried quite a bit,” Michel Jasmin, a Quebec TV host and family friend, told a Canadian radio station. Apparently, though, the baby stopped wailing when his mother picked him up and held him. The service was held at a chapel adjoining the Notre Dame Basilica in Old Montreal, exactly six months after the birth of Rene-Charles, and followed the rites of the Greek Melkite Catholic Church, in keeping with the faith of the baby’s father. (Melkite Christians follow Orthodox rites but are loyal to the pope.) The Angelils arrived in limos, while their guests showed up in mini-buses, and the event attracted a crowd of curious onlookers. Montreal officials, reports Reuters, closed off streets in the city’s historic district and rolled out a blue carpet at the entrance to the church chapel. Dion, 33, is currently on a three-year sabbatical in order to be a fulltime mother. She has announced that her comeback will take place in Las Vegas in 2003.