“You” in the following are the various “baptism of desire deniers” that I have heard or read in the past. “You” does not mean one particular person on this thread!
How did Christ protect His teaching Church through the ages, if “baptism of desire deniers” like you are RIGHT? It seems to me that that your teaching implies that these APPALLING things are true:
- CHRIST allowed SO MANY saints, doctors, theologians, popes, and councils to in effect (even if not intentionally) DENY His DOGMA of “No Salvation outside the Church”, by their belief in Baptism of Desire, and to TEACH this insidious error to other Catholics through the ages.
- The combined “bungling” of these saints, doctors, theologians, popes, and councils THROUGH CENTURIES PAST managed to CONTAMINATE not only what is read by those who study doctrine closely, but also what is taught to simple Catholics (who never open Denziger’s or the Fathers of the Church).
- CHRIST left His Catholic “little ones” in the hands of those who teach what amounts to a DENIAL OF A CATHOLIC DOGMA, by letting it creep into SO MANY catechisms from the Catechism of Council of Trent to the Catechism of St. Pius X to the Catechisms used at Father Feeney’s time to the Catechism of the Catholic Church today.
- FATHER FEENEY rode in, a Catholic “knight in shining armor” to at last “rescue” the dogma “No Salvation Outside of the Church” which had been obscured or denied for centuries past by Catholic teaching on Baptism of Desire – as if Christ needed his help to restore what Christ failed to protect!
It seems that “baptism of desire deniers” think that Catholic teachers (from theologians to Popes) “fumbled” Catholic Truth through the centuries by mistakes such as these:
Greatest Catholic Teachers mistakes on “Baptism of Desire” OVER THE CENTURIES
They just “overlooked” Feeneyite reasoning; so they might now say:
Code:
[Gosh, Father Feeney, I just didn’t happen to THINK about “No Salvation Outside the Church” and “Baptism of Desire” together!],
[Thank you Father Feeney, I just didn’t NOTICE that Christ’s words on Baptism made nonsense of Baptism of Desire!]
[You are right Father Feeney, I was just being too sentimental!]
They “missed” seeing the water baptism that was really there
They “forgot” that God could bring water by a miracle
They “mistranslated” (or misinterpreted) Councils (Council of Trent) or other writing,
They wrote “equivocally” or “ambiguously” (even the Council of Trent itself, some say),
They “misunderstood” what they read elsewhere,
They “erred” in assuming a previous teaching was right,
They were “careless” or a little “liberal” in their writing (even Popes!),
They contradicted themselves or changed their minds (without pointing it out to their careless readers) or retracted past teaching
They just didn’t happen to see another Saint’s retraction of his error,
They really didn’t believe in baptism of desire after all (“of course” they agreed with the Feeneyite position, since they said that the Sacrament was necessary),
and on and on…
Oh! and of course sometimes they were just plain wrong (as. St. Thomas was when he taught that God is not bound by His sacraments); or maybe a little carelessly sentimental (at a time when a belief in Baptism of Desire couldn’t cause the trouble that it does today!)
<End Greatest Catholic Teachers mistakes on “Baptism of Desire” …>
It is TRUE to say that Catholic teachers (at least some of them) can be wrong about conclusions they make, and even that heresies can sometimes run rampant in many places. But is OUTRAGEOUS to say that in some fumbling combination they should contaminate the body of Catholic teaching with a implied denial of a defined dogma, not just at certain times, but throughout most of Catholic history.
Christ protects His living teaching Church. We must listen to Her. The teaching Church helps us to understand Catholic dogma better - not to make us “understand it in a different sense”, but to understand it more fully (it is about God’s INFINITE truths), and to explain related truths.
BELIEVE:
“No Salvation outside the Church” is True (you are a heretic if you don’t)
“Baptism of Desire” is real (you are in error against Catholic faith if you don’t)
Wait to give your verdict on their supposed incompatibility. Read the evidence for Baptism of Desire (e.g. as identified by SemperFidelis). Think – do you REALLY want to claim that YOU understand these things better than the greatest Catholic Teachers? Isn’t it possible that it is YOU who are wrong and THEY who are right?
Isn’t it possible that you are NOT reading Catholic Dogma as a Saint would?
Didn’t Christ really protect His truth “No Salvation Outside the Church” for centuries without you?