Sedevacantism

[Luke65]

You’re missing the critical part, which is Eugene’s words ‘those who are outside the Catholic Church’ and ‘unless they be joined to the Church’.

Exactly. And yes, that harmonizes well with “invincible ignorance” - the Holy Spirit doesn’t err.

As for Ratzinger’s statement - it was not made when He was Pope, so is NOT ex cathedra.

Right…

“But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:32)

I don’t know what you are exactly trying to say here but:
Catechism of the Council of Trent, Baptism made obligatory after Christ’s Resurrection, p. 171: “Holy writers are unanimous in saying that after the Resurrection of our Lord, when He gave His Apostles the command to go and teach all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the law of Baptism became obligatory on all who were to be saved.

Right, and as long as you don’t add the word “Water” before “Baptism” you’re not a heretic.

One is joined to the Church only through sacramental Water Baptism

Oops!

The Dogmas are the interpretations of the Revelation of God. There can be no further interpretation of them. Where would it stop if there were. Who would interpret those interpretations and so on.
The Dogmas are to be believed as they are written.

Perhaps you should study the history of the doctrine that resulted in “Transubstantiation”.

Your modern church teachers teach that they can be saved even if they have heard of church.

Is VCI the “modern church teachers” you speak of?

First Vatican Council
SESSION 3
Chapter 3
15. Consequently,
• the situation of those, who
o by the heavenly gift of faith
• have embraced the catholic truth,
• is by no means the same as that of those who,
o led by human opinions,
• follow a false religion;
• for those who have accepted the faith under the guidance of the church can never have any just cause for changing this faith or for calling it into question.

Why? Because Catholics “receive the Holy Spirit” at Confirmation, so they have less excuse than anybody else. While our separated brethren are drinking the bitter water of that fallen star. Lord have mercy. (Btw, this means that you are in more danger than they are.)

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-13)

"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

"But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:9-16)

Grumblers.

 

[jim28]

Jim, you miss the point. I’m not saying that Jesus converts the evil at death only that He welcomes the virtuous into the universal Church. I’m not speaking of who is saved from sin. The sinful have already made their choice. I am speaking of the good and virtuous, who will not be rejected from His fold.

I will stand by Jesus words to the death!
I am sometimes sad that there is sometimes less emphasis placed on Jesus’ words than should be placed on the words of the saviour of the human race who is God’s Son, who is God as well as human. Jesus is the source of salvation and the foundation of the Church. Can we call ourself Christians if we don’t accept the words of Jesus the Christ?

I did not miss your point. I said your point was wrong. Jesus offers the means of Salvation to the good and virtuous before they die.

Matthew 28:19‐20‐ “And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying:
All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going,
therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; Teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you…”

Mark 16:15‐16‐ “And he (Jesus) said to them: Go ye into the
whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth
not shall be condemned.”

John 3:5- “Jesus answered: Amen, amen, I say to thee,** unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.**”

 

[jim28]

Remember, the Gospel was not spread across the entire world the second Jesus rose from the dead - even today there are tribes of people who have yet to be contacted by the outside world. And in the first centuries, knowledge of the Truth was limited to a rather small geographic area. How does your theory mesh with these facts? Did these people lose all hope of salvation simply because their ancestors weren’t born in the (now) Middle East?

There is a lot of evidence that some of the apostles, right after the great commission, were supernaturally taken to the americas and all parts of the earth to preach and baptize to the ignorant.

I’m sorry, but the Church’s interpretation of Tradition seem much more internally consistent than the private interpretation offered here. Yes, it has always been taught that there is no salvation outside the Church, but our understanding of this has matured at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Remember, no one says that the invincibly ignorant will be saved, only that they can be.

Give me one INFALLIBLE statement that says the invincibly ignorant will be saved. I don’t think you will find one because the Holy Spirit does not protect lies.

 

[Dauphin]

So I’m a Sedevacantist (no hate comments please, I’m just doing what I believe is right) and some of the quotes I’ve come across are…

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra: “The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that **all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire **which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives…”13

Joseph Ratzinger, Zenit News story, Sept. 5, 2000: “[W]e are in agreement that **a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved…”**9

Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, 2000, pp. 150-151: “This is another of the paradoxes that the New Testament sets before us. On the one hand, their [the Jews] No to Christ brings the Israelites into conflict with the subsequent acts of God, but at the same time we know that they are assured of the faithfulness of God. They are not excluded from salvation, but they serve in a particular way, and thereby they stand within the patience of God, in which we, too, place our trust.”

What do you all think?

It is absolutely sickening that the Pope’s words would be trimmed and taken out of context in order to make them look heretical. This is the full quote:

""We are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved, if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is not blameworthy, to preclude it. "

This is the Church’s teaching. The innocently ignorant can be saved through a baptism of desire. It does not in any way contradict Cantate Domino (which I happen to have quoted in my signature) .

 

[Walden]

There is a lot of evidence that some of the apostles, right after the great commission, were supernaturally taken to the americas and all parts of the earth to preach and baptize to the ignorant.

…wow…

Would you happen to have any of that “evidence” handy?

 

[Dauphin]

I don’t know what you are exactly trying to say here but:
Catechism of the Council of Trent, Baptism made obligatory after Christ’s Resurrection, p. 171: “Holy writers are unanimous in saying that after the Resurrection of our Lord, when He gave His Apostles the command to go and teach all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the law of Baptism became obligatory on all who were to be saved.

If there’s anything graver than heresy, it’s what you’ve just done. You’ve quoted a document of the Church in opposition to her own teaching. You’re trying to make a mockery of her.

Here is the fourth Canon from the 7th session of the Council of Trent:

If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification;-though all (the sacraments) are not indeed necessary for every individual; let him be anathema.

Baptism of Desire is a teaching of the Church which demands the full submission of faith. Sacramental baptism is a necessity of precept (if you know of it, you must receive it), but not a necessity of means (it is possible to receive the grace of baptism through desire or blood).

If you fail to submit to this teaching, you’ll most certainly be damned.

 

[jim28]

Your assertion doesn’t make sense. God does NOT only make the means of salvation available to those who ‘deserve it’ (by the way, NOONE ‘deserves’ the means of salvation!). It is self-evident that His offer of the means of salvation is independent of one’s ‘dessert’ of them, or even of one’s ‘good will’. After all, He offered Jesus to the whole nation of Israel, not just the deserving among them.

Jesus wills all men to be saved but not all men will be saved. I guess you can’t admit that Jesus knows the hearts of men.
He does, and he will make sure that anyone who is truly of good will, will hear the Word and have the means available to be Baptized before they die.

God is nothing if not consistent. If He desires the salvation of all, even the undeserving and unwilling, and makes the means of salvation available to a lot of undeserving and unwilling people (and He does!), then consistency dictates that He makes the means of salvation available to all. Any other course of action would be un-God-like in its arbitrariness and capriciousness.

Just because some bad people who happen to live where the Gospel is prominently preached, doesn’t mean all bad people will get to hear it preached.

When you, or Feeney, or anyone else, decides that Eugene, in saying ‘the Catholic Church’, meant ‘the earthly hierarchy and institution of the church’ and by ‘joined to’ meant ‘formally initiated into’, then you indulge in interpretation. Eugene didn’t SAY that that was what he meant by those words - YOU decided it, and the meaning you give is NOT ‘as written’, but significantly viewed through the lens of interpretation.

OK here goes. Don’t trust what I say. Here are some statements that might change your mind on who is “joined” or “formally initiated to” the Church.

Pope Julius III, Council of Trent, On the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, Sess. 14, Chap. 2, ex cathedra: “… since the
Church exercises judgment on no one who has not previously entered it by the gate of baptism. For what have I to do with those who are without (1 Cor. 5:12), says the Apostle. It is otherwise with those of the household of the faith,** whom Christ the Lord by the laver of baptism has once made ‘members of his own body’ **(1 Cor. 12:13).”

Pope Eugene IV, The Council of Florence, “Exultate Deo,” Nov.
22, 1439, ex cathedra: “Holy baptism, which is the gateway to the spiritual life, holds the first place among all the
sacraments; through it we are made members of Christ and of
the body of the Church. And since death entered the universe
through the first man, ‘unless we are born again of water and
the Spirit, we cannot,’ as the Truth says, ‘enter into the
kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]. The matter of this sacrament is
real and natural water.”

Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis (# 22), June 29, 1943: “Actually only those are to be numbered among the members of the Church who have received the laver of regeneration [water baptism] and profess the true faith.”

Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis (# 27), June 29, 1943: “He (Christ) also determined that through Baptism (cf. Jn. 3:5) those who should believe would be incorporated in the Body of the Church.”

Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei (# 43), Nov. 20, 1947: “In the same way, actually that baptism is the distinctive mark of all Christians, and serves to differentiate them from those who have not been cleansed in this purifying stream and consequently are not members of Christ”

Nothing wrong with interpretation per se. Peter makes clear that even the Scriptures themselves can only be fully understood through interpetation - he just warns against PRIVATE interpretation.

Again the Dogmas are the interpretation of God’s Revelation, and that includes Scripture. There is no more interpreting after that.

And those are both infallible ex-cathedra dogmatic writings, I suppose? Never heard either of them claimed as such. Besides which St Jerome would disagree - he describes Liberius as “conquered by the tedium of exile and *subscribing to heretical wickedness *entered Rome in triumph”. (‘Chronicle’)

No they are not infallible but I’ll take the true Popes word for it.

So you would consider Liberius not to have been a Pope if he had become heretical, eh?

Yes I would consider him not the Pope had he become a heretic. That is Catholic teaching and I am bound to believe it.

 

[jim28]

Another thought on this subject occurs to me.

If, as you believe, God in His preknowledge has made sure that all those who are going to want both knowledge of Christ and access the sacrament of baptism obtain them during their lives - then why did Christ have to ‘preach to’ (and save) those in limbo after His AND THEIR death - the ‘souls in prison’ as they are called in scripture?

This would indicate that those who lived and died before His coming weren’t bound by the Old Covenant only, but needed supernatural intervention to bring them into the ambit of the New.

Surely ‘He descended to the dead’ was part of the Creed that you didn’t just gloss over, but were taught about the ‘harrowing of Hell’ and all that, as I was?

These souls DID need to become supernaturally joined unto the New Covenant for their salvation. But apparently they DIDN’T need baptism by water - that was never part of the teaching that I can recall.

And all this happened after Christ’s death - AFTER the institution of the New Covenant, when you claim water baptism became necessary for all who would be saved!

Apparently you missed the part where it said after the Resurrection that the Law of Baptism became obligatory.

 

[mattkubes]

He does, and he will make sure that anyone who is truly of good will, will hear the Word and have the means available to be Baptized before they die.

Dauphin gave you a great document, from the Council of Trent no less, presenting the Church’s constant teaching of the Baptism of Desire…are you prepared to do the same for this? Honestly, where does this idea even come from?

You deflected my argument by saying that there is a lot of evidence for the Apostles having been supernaturally transported to the Americas, and then didn’t present any of it. I mean, the whole idea is a complete fabrication, but I still expected you to try.

Would you please grace us with the infallible document saying that all people of good will are given the extraordinary opportunity to undergo a baptism with water?

 

[jim28]

Right, and as long as you don’t add the word “Water” before “Baptism” you’re not a heretic.

Pope Eugene IV, The Council of Florence, “Exultate Deo,” Nov.
22, 1439, ex cathedra: “Holy baptism, which is the gateway to the spiritual life, holds the first place among all the
sacraments; through it we are made members of Christ and of
the body of the Church. And since death entered the universe through the first man, ‘unless we are born again of water and the Spirit, we cannot,’ as the Truth says, ‘enter into the
kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]. The matter of this sacrament is real and natural water.”

Oops!

OOPS

 

[TheDoctor]

So I’m a Sedevacanist (no hate comments please, I’m just doing what I believe is right) and some of the quotes I’ve come across are…

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra: “The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that **all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire **which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives…”13

Joseph Ratzinger, Zenit News story, Sept. 5, 2000: “[W]e are in agreement that **a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved…”**9

Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, 2000, pp. 150-151: “This is another of the paradoxes that the New Testament sets before us. On the one hand, their [the Jews] No to Christ brings the Israelites into conflict with the subsequent acts of God, but at the same time we know that they are assured of the faithfulness of God. They are not excluded from salvation, but they serve in a particular way, and thereby they stand within the patience of God, in which we, too, place our trust.”

What do you all think?

I think Jim that you have fallen into the same inconsistency as other Protestants.

Look at it like this (stay with me): The Church gave us the Bible, but there are 100’s of ways individual scripture passages or entire books can be interpreted, and a lot of that depends on trying to use a 2009 mind to understand a 100 translated mindset. Protestants all believe they can interpret it the way it suits their theology, and we know where that got us, don’t we? Catholics believe that the Church, under the protection of the Holy Spirit, is the only one who can authentically interpret the written word of God.

Now we come to Papal documents, which, just like the Bible, can be interpreted in many ways depending on your own agenda. Like the Bible though, who can you trust but the Church to authentically interpret her documents?

On this particular issue, you have both the writings of a Pope and a Catechism that clearly spell out the correct interpretation of Pope Eugene IV’s mindset.

Jim, I think that if you think you know better than the Vicar of Christ and the successors of the Apostles, there is nothing any of us will say that will change your mind or get you to take another look.

I can’t begin to fathom why you think you are right, I can only explain to you why we are.

 

[Feanor]

Thank God for our Holy Father Benedict!

 

[WhollyRoamin]

It is absolutely sickening that the Pope’s words would be trimmed and taken out of context in order to make them look heretical. This is the full quote:

""We are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved, if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is not blameworthy, to preclude it. "

This is the Church’s teaching. The innocently ignorant can be saved through a baptism of desire. It does not in any way contradict Cantate Domino (which I happen to have quoted in my signature) .

This is the most powerful explanation to the OP’s question; here, (then-) Cardinal Ratzinger demands invincible ignorance as the justification.

Further, writings before ascent to the Papacy are not good indicators of the legitimacy of the papacy-- no more than a 4th-grade Math quiz is an indicator of an astrophysicist’s capacity for astrophysics.

Do not use selective reading to judge the First See. Tsk tsk.

 

[Dauphin]

Pope Eugene IV, The Council of Florence, “Exultate Deo,” Nov.
22, 1439, ex cathedra: “Holy baptism, which is the gateway to the spiritual life, holds the first place among all the
sacraments; through it we are made members of Christ and of
the body of the Church. And since death entered the universe through the first man, ‘unless we are born again of water and the Spirit, we cannot,’ as the Truth says, ‘enter into the
kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]. The matter of this sacrament is real and natural water.”

This statement, along with the Council of Trent’s second Canon on baptism, define the matter of the sacrament, nothing else. This does not touch the possibility of the grace of baptism being conferred in an extraordinary manner outside of the sacrament to those who desire it.

Otherwise, catechumens who die cannot be saved, even though they desired baptism. To say this is to reject the Church’s perennial teaching.

 

[Dauphin]

On this particular issue, you have both the writings of a Pope and a Catechism that clearly spell out the correct interpretation of Pope Eugene IV’s mindset.

I think you have it backwards. The modern teaching of the Church needs to be interpreted in the light of Sacred Tradition.

Statements like the one in Cantate Domino cannot be “re-interpreted”. Things that the Church has always taught must be unambiguously confirmed precisely in the sense in which they were originally intended.

If a more modern teaching seems to contradict a previous teaching, we must apply the hermeneutic of continuity. We must understand the more modern teaching only in the sense in which it can be reconciled with the plain words of the old teaching.

 

[jim28]

…wow…

Would you happen to have any of that “evidence” handy?

Some from Scripture:

Acts 1:8: “[Jesus saith]… you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.”

Colossians 1:23‐ “If so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister.”

Colossians 1:4‐6: “Hearing your faith in Christ Jesus… the truth of the gospel: Which is come to you, as also it is in the whole world…”

1 Thessalonians 1:9‐ “For from you was spread abroad the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but also in every place …”

Romans 10:13‐18: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher… Faith then cometh by hearing: and by hearing the
word of Christ. But I say: Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went forth over all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole earth.”

Fathers:

St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, +180 A.D.: “For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty… Jesus Christ, the Son of God…and in the Holy Spirit… and the birth from a
Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection…Neither do the Churches among the Germans believe otherwise or have another tradition, nor do those among the Iberians, nor among the Celts, nor away in the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya,
nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But just as the sun… is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere and enlightens all men who desire to come to a knowledge of truth.”

St. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, c. +190 A.D.: “The Divine Power, moreover, radiating with an unsurpassable speed and with a readily obtainable benevolence, has filled the whole Earth with the seed of salvation… He showed Himself as the herald of truth, our Mediator and Savior…”

Tertullian, Against the Jews (+200 A.D.): “In whom else have all nations believed, if not in the Christ, who has already come? The Parthians and the Medes and the Elamites; and they who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Cappodocia; and they who dwell in Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia; sojourners in Egypt and inhabitants of the parts of Africa beyond Cyrene, Romans and foreign residents; yes, and Jews in Jerusalem, and other peoples: by this time even the various tribes of Gutlians, and the many boundaries of the Moors, and all the confines of Spain, and the various nations of Gaul; and the places of the Britons,inaccessible to the Romans, but already subjugated to Christ; and of the Sarmatians and Dacians and Germans and Scythians,*** and of the many remote tribes and provinces and islands unknown to us and which we are scarcely able to enumerate…***”

Proof that the Holy Spirit did not want the Gospel preached in certain areas:

Acts 16:6‐ “And when they had passed through Phrygia, and the country of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia.”

Acts 16:7‐ “And when they were come into Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.”

Francis Anson, Guadalupe: What Her Eyes Say, Manila: Sinag‐tila Publishers, Inc., 1994, p. 62.“The Indies represented a third of mankind; it was, therefore, theologically impossible that they would not have been evangelized by an apostle of Christ… St. Thomas (who preached supra Gangem, beyond the Ganges)… Since the
evangelization of St. Thomas was an integral part of revelation, what material signs do we have of his passage into the New World? These are the indelible marks of his [or some other apostle’s] presence: the miraculous fountains and the
amazing crosses found here and there, from Bahia in Brazil up to Gautulco, the assortment of native rites that vaguely evoked Christianity – confession, fasting… the belief in one God and creator, in a Virgin who wonderfully conceived, in the universal flood; the bold interpretation of symbols in the shape of a cross in the temples and manuscripts…*** Everything seems to attest to the remnants of a Christianity corrupted by time***. The omnipresent figure of one called Zume in Paraguay and Brazil, Viracocha in Peru, Bochica in Colombia, Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Cuculcan among the Mayans, is surrounded by a great number of Christian analogies.”

 

[jim28]

If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof

Baptism of Desire is a evil heresy and you will certainly be damned if you believe it and continue to preach it.

 

[jim28]

Would you please grace us with the infallible document saying that all people of good will are given the extraordinary opportunity to undergo a baptism with water?

I think the evidence in Scripture and history of miraculous Water Baptisms is enough. Couple that with the fact that Scripture and Dogmas teach that Sacramental Water Baptism is necessary for Salvation.
Anyway you don’t have any Infallible statements or historical proof to prove that people are given the chance after they die to be saved or are able to be saved if they are invincibly ignorant.

-St. Martin of Tours brought back to life a catechumen who had died so that he could baptize him.
-St. Joan of Arc brought back to life a dead infant so that she could baptize him.
-St. Peter himself, while he was chained to a pillar in the Mamertine prison in Rome, he baptized two of his guards, Processus and Martinian, with water which miraculously sprang up from the ground within hands distance from St. Peter.

None of this makes sense if Baptism was not necessary for salvation. According to everyone here, there was no need to Baptize these people because God would have understood and accepted them anyway.

History also records that St. Patrick – who himself raised over 40 people from the dead – raised a number of people from the dead specifically in order to baptize them, something which was totally unnecessary if one can be saved without baptism.
“In all, St. Patrick brought to life some forty infidels in Ireland, one of whom was King Echu… On raising him from the dead, St. Patrick instructed and baptized him, asking what he had seen of the other world. King Echu told how he had actually beheld the throne prepared for him in Heaven because of his life of being open to the grace of Almighty God, but that he was not allowed to enter precisely because he was as yet unbaptized. After receiving the sacraments… (he) died instantly and went to his reward.”

Fr. De Smet, Dec. 18, 1839: “I have often remarked that many of the children seem to await baptism before winging their flight to heaven, for they die almost immediately after receiving the sacrament.”

Fr. De Smet, Dec. 9, 1845: “… over a hundred children and eleven old people were baptized. Many of the latter [the old people], who were carried on buffalo hides, seemed only to await this grace before going to rest in the bosom of
God.”

St. Columbanus (+ 543‐615 A.D.), we
read of a similar story of God’s providence getting all good willed souls to baptism.
“[Columbanus said]: ‘My sons, today you will see an ancient Pictish chief, who has faithfully kept the precepts of the Natural Law all his life, arrive on this island; he comes to be baptized and to die.’ Immediately, a boat was seen to approach with a feeble old man seated in the prow who was recognized as chief
of one of the neighboring tribes. Two of his companions brought him before the missionary, to whose words he listened attentively. The old man asked to be baptized, and immediately thereafter breathed out his last breath and was buried on the very spot.”

I have more evidence if you need it.

 

[jim28]

This statement, along with the Council of Trent’s second Canon on baptism, define the matter of the sacrament, nothing else. This does not touch the possibility of the grace of baptism being conferred in an extraordinary manner outside of the sacrament to those who desire it.

Otherwise, catechumens who die cannot be saved, even though they desired baptism. To say this is to reject the Church’s perennial teaching.

Show me the Infallible perennial teaching where they can be saved without it.

 

[Jo_Benedict]

Sedevacantism is currently a banned topic.

Note:

**This thread is closed. Thanks to all who participated in the discussion. **