Read Acts 10, especially 44-48:
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Peter had not finished these words when the Holy Spirit descended upon all who were listening to Peter’s message. The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were surprised that the gift of the Holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also, whom they could hear speaking in tongues and glorifying God. Peter put the question at that point: ‘What can stop these people who have received the Holy Spirit, even as we have, from being baptized with water?’ So he gave orders that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. After this was done, they asked him to stay with them for a few days.”
It is obvious from this passage that a) the Holy Spirit blows where He wills, and is not at the beck and call of the Church, but rather the other way around and b) that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit does not remove the necessity of baptism for entrance into the Church. Clearly, the Church has always understood this.
You might bring your catechism with you to this Bible study; if you don’t have one, get a computer with internet access. It is posted at
vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
"VI. The Necessity of Baptism
1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.” God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.
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, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.
1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.
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.
1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism."
Explicit Church teachings on this matter are indispensible in understanding it. The Biblical texts given in the Catechism are extremely useful when discussing this with non-Catholic Christians, however, as long as it is fully understood by all that we don’t do the “proof texts” game in the Catholic Church. (See Jn 3:5, Mk 16:16, and especially Mt 28:19-20.) We are not a Sola Scriptura church, but a Church with a Magesterium whose office it is to use Holy Scriptures in their entirety for the purpose of teaching. At any rate, it is abundantly clear from Acts and the Epistles that early Christians relied on the discernment of those with teaching authority, not individual interpretation of texts that didn’t even exist yet. We in the Catholic Church preserve that tradition in an unbroken line back to the Apostles, rather than the much later innovation of personal interpretation of Scriptures.
