Can only those who are baptised reach heaven?

[HJodouin]

Can those who have not had a physical baptism with water still be saved and gain heaven? Doesn’t God know their heart and mind and they could still be saved without the physical baptism?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Baltimore Catechism:

Q. 644. How many kinds of Baptism are there?

A. There are three kinds of Baptism: Baptism of water, of desire, and of blood.

Baptism by water is what we normally understand when we say, “baptism.” We normally mean the pouring of water and the invocation of the Trinity.

Baptism by blood means that an individual was martyred before he or she could receive baptism of water. For example, someone was in RCIA preparing for baptism when anti-Christian militants take over the town. These militants then execute those who refuse to renounce their faith in Christ. Even though the candidate for baptism never actually received water baptism, his martyrdom is considered a baptism by blood.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

**1258 **The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood…brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.

Baptism of desire is used to describe those who desired water baptism but died before they were able to receive it. This includes all those who explicitly desired water baptism (e.g. an RCIA candidate who was hit by a bus crossing the street before the Easter Vigil) but also all those who would have desired water baptism had they not been invincibly ignorant of the true faith.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

**1260 **“Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.” Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

So the answer is yes, baptism is required but there is more to baptism than water baptism.