Lad,

You're slavishly following the Dimonds here, as if it's settled.

I'm asserting that St. Dismas was in "paradise" with Our Lord "this day," the day he hung on the Cross next to Christ, as Scripture says.

Haydock:

As for St. Dismas, we do not not know if he was baptized, and St. Augustine in his Retractions said, "Formerly I said that the Good Thief was not baptized, but I do not know this."  In between the Crucifixion and the Ascension many of the dead "came out of their graves" as we are told in Scripture, and we do not know if St. Dismas was baptized or not.  I certainly think St. Joseph was both baptized and confirmed, because, as St. Francis de Sales says, St. Joseph was assumed into heaven at the Ascension, both body and soul.   

It is settled. Everybody knows Christ was the first to enter Heaven, after three Days.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent: "...before His death and Resurrection Heaven was closed against every child of Adam."

Having explained these things, the pastor should next proceed to teach that Christ the Lord descended into hell,
in order that having despoiled the demons, He might liberate from prison those holy Fathers and the other just
souls, and might bring them into heaven with Himself. This He accomplished in an admirable and most glorious
manner; for His august presence at once shed a celestial lustre upon the captives and filled them with
inconceivable joy and delight. He also imparted to them that supreme happiness which consists in the vision of
God, thus verifying His promise to the thief on the cross: This day thou shalt be with me in paradise.

This deliverance of the just was long before predicted by Osee in these words: O death, I will be thy death; O
hell, I will be thy bite; ' and also by the Prophet Zachary: Thou also by the blood of thy testament hast sent forth
thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water; and lastly, the same is expressed by the Apostle in these words:
Despoiling the principalities and powers, he hath exposed them confidently in open show, triumphing over them
in himself.

But the better to understand the efficacy of this mystery we should frequently call to mind that not only the just
who were born after the coming of our Lord, but also those who preceded Him from the days of Adam, or who
shall be born until the end of time, obtain their salvation through the benefit of His Passion. Wherefore before
His death and Resurrection heaven was closed against every child of Adam. The souls of the just, on their
departure from this life, were either borne to the bosom of Abraham; or, as is still the case with those who have
something to be washed away or satisfied for, were purified in the fire of purgatory.

In paradise. That is, in the happy state of rest, joy and peace everlasting. Christ was pleased by a special privilege, to reward the faith and confession of the penitent thief with a full discharge of all his sins, both as to the guilt and punishment, and to introduce him, immediately after death, into the happy society of the saints, whose limbo (that is, the place of their confinement) was now made a paradise by our Lord’s going thither. (Challoner) — The soul of the good thief was that same day with Jesus Christ, in the felicity of the saints, in Abraham’s bosom, or in heaven, where Jesus was always present by his divinity. (St. Augustine) — St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, says he entered heaven before all the patriarchs and prophets. St. Chrysostom thinks that paradise was immediately open to him, and that he entered heaven the first mankind. (Tom. v. homil. 32.)

This to me is the hottest subject, and best.  I read the book of Fr. Muller, No Salvation Outside the Church".  I am convinced, that this situation is in God's Hands.  He judges and not for me.  As we have been told by Saints, IF a catechumen dies, bury them as IF they are catholic.

I am happy with this.  I can not make judgements.  I pray for those in purgatory.  Those on earth. BOD and BOB I am not comfortable with. They require judgement.

There are to many opinions, and add those without definitions.  To me these are all works of the enemy.  It is in the Hands of God.

Let's try to look at the objective evidence and start with the Church Fathers.  Dishonest articles like those by the CMRI, publishers of "The Salvation of those Outside the Church" ignore the Patristic evidence.  Father Laisney had the mendacious temerity to claim that there was universal Patristic consensus in favor of BoD.

Hogwash.

We have about 5-6 Church Fathers explicitly reject Baptism of Desire, and several more implicitly rejecting it.

We only have 2 Patristic sources that allegedly accept it:  St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, and all subsequent BoD theory relies upon the "authority of Augustine and Ambrose".

Well of these two, St. Augustine made some youthful speculation in favor, where after saying that he had gone back and forth on the question, stated that "I find ... [in favor of BoD]".  Hardly something taught with authority as if it were received Tradition and Revealed truth.  Unfortunately for those who rely on St. Augustine, he later retracted the theory, after his anti-Donatist and anti-Pelagian days, and issued some of the strongest anti-BoD statements in history.

St. Ambrose also was on record explicitly rejecting Baptism of Desire.  What, then, of the apparent contradiction between that and his (ubiquitously-cited) Oration at the Funeral of Valentinian?  In that oration, St. Ambrose did NOT claim that Valentinian could be SAVED by his zeal / confession / desire, but stated that like unbaptized martyrs, he could be "washed but not crowned".  Crowning refers to entry into the Kingdom and Salvation.  So this too is a false authority.

Pope St. Sulpicius explicitly and dogmatically taught and "each and every one" of those "desiring Baptism" would be lost if they didn't receive the Sacrament, or, rather, that they would forfeit the Kingdom and Glory (i.e. salvation and the Beatific Vision).

Even Karl "Anonymous Christian" Rahner had the intellectual honestly (lacked by most BoD Trads) to admit that the Patristic consensus was heavily AGAINST salvation by Baptism of Desire ... despite WANTING to believe the contrary.

There are only 2 ways to discern that some dogma/doctrine has been revealed:

1) unanimous Patristic consensus

2) some truth derives implicitly and necessarily from revealed premises

We see a big fat negatory on the unanimous Patristic consensus.  In fact, the objective evidence shows the opposite.

And NO ONE has ever demonstrated how BoD derives necessarily from other revealed truths.  We get long litanies of "Yep, BoD", "Yep, BoD" and ... "Augustine and Ambrose", "Augustine and Ambrose".  That's IT, and as we see that Augustine retracted, while St. Ambrose did not teach salvation by BoD, the whole thing rests on a fallacious house of cards.  St. Thomas came closest to providing some theological proof for it, but it was really more an explanation of how it worked than a proof of its existence.  He said that the Sacraments have visible and invisible aspects to them, and that in the case of BoD, you get the invisible without the visible.  That's not true of many Sacraments, in particular, of the character Sacraments.  There's no such thing as Holy Orders of Desire (despite how much St. Therese desired to be a priest) or Confirmation of Desire.  Those are two "character" Sacraments, where the character is an essential part of the grace of the Sacrament.  Well, Baptism is also a character-conferring Sacrament.  After BoD theory, the character was trivialized into a simple non-repeatability marker, a badge of honor that some in Heaven wore while others lacked, but which had no real effect.  But the Church Fathers made it clear that this seal, this crowning, i.e. the character of Baptism was required for entry into the Kingdom and Glory (i.e. the Beatific Vision) ... even if some like St. Ambrose held that the other aspect of the Sacrament of Baptism, namely, the remission of sins, could be had by confession / desire.

So much for BoD being revealed and so much for Patristic evidence for BoD.

After the Patristic era, St. Fulgentius, disciple of St. Augustine, rejected BoD, and that was the last any mention of it appears again in Catholic authors until the pre-scholastic period.

To be continued with the Pre-Scholastics (Abelard, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard) ...

To Shrewd Operator and Plenus Venter,

If you beak the proposition out of context it indeed does not prohibit a different method of the application of Christ's merit, but again, only out of context. I will answer in two ways; first I will allow your strict adherence to the logic of the proposition and second I will defend my position via the context.


1: The BOD adherent has appealed to a strictly logical reading of a universal Catholic dogmatic proposition, so be it.

 "CANON V.-If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema." Trent.
(Everyone saved is baptized.) This is in the section of Trent concerning Baptism. The BOD adherent must claim BOD is included in this canon when the Fathers of Trent say Baptism so they avoid anathema, even though this is Trent's chapter on the sacraments.
So be it.

"CANON II.-If any one saith, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism, and, on that account, wrests, to some sort of metaphor, those words of our Lord Jesus Christ; Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost; let him be anathema." Trent. (All baptisms require true and natural water.) Here the BOD adherent must claim the Fathers of Trent excluded BOD when they say baptism in the section of Trent concerning baptism.

If everyone saved is baptized and every baptism includes water, well then the BOD adherent's position is illogical. Unless baptism doesn't mean the same thing as baptism when written three short canons later, which is illogical. Or does BOD includes water???

Thank you,
JoeZ

Traditionally Catechumens did not receive Christian burials.

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