Ladislaus said:

To say that sanctifying grace somehow justifies (and can even exist) apart from the free-grace unmerited application of Christ's merits by Baptism contradicts the Council of Trent's decree on justification.  You're almost implying that people can earn justification by getting into a state of sanctification--which is PRECISELY why I reject BoB and BoD.

Those who have studied BoD and BoB in depth do not say that sanctifying grace exists independently of the sacrament of baptism.  They believe the desire for the sacrament of baptism -- or the desire to do everything that God wills, for those who believe in an extremely loose version of baptism of desire -- is what applies Christ's merits to them ( the unbaptized ) and gives them sanctifying grace, whereby they have charity, and thus justification and the remission of sins.  

In my opinion, sanctifying grace is only given to catechumens, or those who explicitly desire to join the Church, and then only at the moment of their deaths if they happen to die before baptism.  Otherwise baptism would be an empty ritual.  

I would gladly be right there with you, Ladislaus, in being against baptism of desire, if only to slam the door shut on this expanding, sloppy concept of EENS that is one of our modern plagues.  The problem is that this means those invalidly baptized, or baptized by priests without the proper intention, cannot be saved, which doesn't sit well with me.  

Granted, that may be sentimental.  What is more to the point is that denying baptism of desire would also deny baptism of blood which goes back to Tertullian and has its roots in the teachings of the Fathers.  Many of the Fathers who were extremely strict on baptism's necessity allowed for baptism of blood.  The idea of a catechumen fervently professing Christ who is killed and goes to hell is injurious to the faith, in my opinion.  Would God really want catechumens to stay silent and not preach Christ when challenged, in case they might be killed?  You can say "Well, maybe this catechumen would one day have become a heretic so God allowed him to be killed out of mercy."  Okay -- but how would it look to other Catholics to see a priest condemning someone to hell who died for the name of Christ while a catechumen in the Catholic Church?  

Denying baptism of blood creates all kinds of impious scenarios of this sort, and of course God would have accounted for all these contingencies beforehand.  He did this, in my opinion, by truly giving Himself the ability to save someone without water baptism.  

And if there is baptism of blood, that means water baptism is not always necessary.  So those who say that baptism of desire began with Augustine, has no link to the Apostles and is a tradition of men are wrong.  It began with Tertullian in the form of baptism of blood, and has just as much of a link to the Apostles as the Immaculate Conception, which was never expressly stated in Scripture.  On the contrary, lines like "All men have sinned" were used against the Immaculate Conception for a long time.  

I personally am absolutely convicted that there is a baptism of desire, and if I were Pope I'd make it dogma straightaway that anyone who expresses a specific will to join the Catholic Church may, not will, be saved despite not attaining water baptism.  I would then forbid anyone to speculate beyond that under pain of automatic excommunication.  The 1917 Code of Canon Law that contains harmful laws would be revoked, and catechumens who die before baptism would go back to being buried in unconsecrated ground, as they were not made actual members of the visible Church.  

Also, it would be made clear, against St. Thomas, that baptism of desire and blood remit all sins.  I think this would solve most of the confusion, as BoD has been very poorly explained in the past.  St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus were flat-out wrong that baptism of desire would only partially remit sins.  It has all the effects of baptism without being a sacrament.  I can't believe people haven't noticed this obvious error before.

Ladislaus said:

That was my point to Caminus precisely, which he summarily dismissed, that since infants have not reached the age of reason, BoB would have to work ex opere operato, i.e. would have to be a sacrament, which it's not.  Only adults can form the dispositions required for Baptism and, therefore, receive BoD and BoB (even IF you believe in these)."

Agreed.  1 out of 3 ain't bad!  

It may be harsh, but I do not think there can be baptism of blood for infants, and from what I can tell it's borderline heretical.  If people say that there can be baptism of blood for babies, we are in danger of sentimentalizing abortion itself, of reducing its pure evil.  

No one can be killed "for Christ" the way that the Holy Innocents were.  There will never again be another historical situation where babies are slaughtered in case one of them might be the Savior.  Even if the Antichrist goes around slaughtering babies like Herod they will be killed for Satan, not for Christ.  And if we're going to say that babies who are being killed for Satan are ransomed by Christ, then you are saying that aborted fetuses can be saved.  This in turn diminishes the evil of abortion!

No one is taking me up on my stories about witches, probably because you are all heretics who don't believe in witches ( I'm joking, but the Malleus Maleficarum does say that it's heresy not to believe in witches ).  Witches preyed on babies.  I have read that one of the prime professions for witches was midwifery.  There was one famous case of a woman who perforated the skulls of infants with a needle as soon as they were born -- 40 of them -- as sacrifices to Satan.  Then I guess she would say they died naturally.  The connection to abortion here is undeniable.  Satan has a vested interest in killing babies -- if they could be saved by baptism of blood, all of his "work" would be for naught.

From the general tenor of the medieval mindset as I understand it, it was a commonly accepted fact that unbaptized babies had no chance to make it, even if they were killed.  And during the Renaissance, St. Pius V personally had the concept of "vicarious baptism of desire," that a mother could desire baptism for her baby, removed from one of Cardinal Cajetan's books.

P.S.  Naturally, I have drawn a connection between my story of midwife-witches and "Allocution to Midwives," which I see as a sort of triumphal blast of the devil having attained to what the world believed was the See of Peter, but since I am already hoarding space in this thread, I'll leave it for later.

Just got a note from CM, so let me smuggle it in:

CM said:

"I just wanted to point out to Mike that Tertullian is one of those men who held BoB to be a SECOND baptism after that if water.

Tertullian, AD 203 said:
We have indeed, likewise, a second font, (itself withal one with the former,) of blood, to wit; concerning which the Lord said, "I have to be baptized with a baptism," just as John has written; that he might be baptized by the water, glorified by the blood; to make us, in like manner, called by water, chosen by blood.

It would appear then that St. Cyprian is the earliest to teach BoB for catechumens.  That means I don't have much greater antiquity than St. Augustine on my side, as I'd thought.  But just because something isn't universally accepted or understood by 300 AD or even 1500 AD doesn't mean it doesn't have a link to the Apostles.  I refer again to the Immaculate Conception.  

You ignored the absurdity you posited.  What you claim would not be "mercy," rather, it would be incoherence with the whole of revelation.  So, you wish to think, contrary to the explicit testimony of Scripture, that Abraham and Moses, for example, were NOT justified, in fact, they lived and died in a state of mortal sin.

Very interestingly, the distinction you make, that people can be justified (have the theological virtues) and yet not be able to enter heaven backs up Father Feeney's distinction between justification and salvation.

They remained in a state of Original Sin, which is different than actual mortal sin.  When they were finally justified upon Our Lord's descent into hell, I'm sure that God imputed to them their good deeds as if they had been freed from Original Sin.  So St. Paul spoke of Abraham's faith being "reckoned" or "reputed" to him as righteousness/justification.  Jesus said that St. John the Baptist was the greatest man ever born of woman but less than the least in the Kingdom of God.

 

Protestats said that baptizing babies is foolish because they cannot choose baptism out of free will.  They agree with Catholics that adults must voluntarily choose baptism.  Protestants have never, to my knowledge, said anything about baptism being effective for adults who unwillingly receive it.  

Therefore this cannot be in response to a Protestant error, as Catholics and Prots are in harmony on this point.

Trent wasn't limiting the notion of "voluntary" to simply giving consent or doing it freely, but was referring to a cooperation between grace and free will in the entire process of justification, including cooperating with the Holy Spirit in becoming properly disposed to Baptism.

http://www.saintsworks.net/books/St.%20Alphonsus%20Maria%20de%20Liguori%20-%20Complete%20Works%20-%209%20-%20Victories%20of%20the%20Martyrs.pdf

Look on page 291.

No one can be killed "for Christ" the way that the Holy Innocents were.  There will never again be another historical situation where babies are slaughtered in case one of them might be the Savior.  Even if the Antichrist goes around slaughtering babies like Herod they will be killed for Satan, not for Christ.

By this strange rationale, no one at all could be a martyr.  No one dies for the faith because the executioner "thinks they are the Savior."  If the death of anyone, young or old, is brought about (material cause) by the hatred of the Faith, they die a martyr and receive immediately the Beatific Vision after death given that they have received the most perfect form of baptism, laying down their life for the love of Jesus Christ.  That is the entire Gospel in summary.  

You know, I think all these silly opinions denying BoD/BoB stem ultimately from a misunderstanding of the sacraments themselves.  Some people seem to think that the sacraments are made for God, not man.  The necessity of the sacraments themselves is perversely turned towards God Himself as if He is constrained by His own law.  

It began with Tertullian in the form of baptism of blood, and has just as much of a link to the Apostles as the Immaculate Conception, which was never expressly stated in Scripture.  On the contrary, lines like "All men have sinned" were used against the Immaculate Conception for a long time.

I personally am absolutely convicted that there is a baptism of desire, and if I were Pope I'd make it dogma straightaway that anyone who expresses a specific will to join the Catholic Church may, not will, be saved despite not attaining water baptism.  I would then forbid anyone to speculate beyond that under pain of automatic excommunication.

Thank God, then, that you're not the Pope  .

You cannot make dogma something that has not been revealed.  Something can be revealed in two ways:  1) directly revealed by Christ to the Apostles or 2) implicitly contained in other revealed dogmas.

So the Immaculate Conception was an example of the latter by the way (at least in terms of the Church's ability to discern it as having been revealed).

Now here's where the Church Fathers fit in.  If we see a unanimous consensus among the Church Fathers, it points to the fact that it was revealed to the Apostles.  If all the Fathers scattered across the world essentially believed the same thing, you could reasonably trace it back to their common roots, i.e. to Christ and the Apostles.  Remember that communication was not instantaneous back then.  Other than that, the Church Fathers were not inspired or infallible.  So the fact that about a half dozen Fathers held BoB as supplying for Baptism falls short of demonstrating that this was revealed.  And the fact that there are only about half a dozen almost suggests the opposite, that it was NOT revealed.

So that leaves us with deriving BoB implicitly from some other revealed dogma.  I have seen nothing to demonstrate this either.

So I don't think that Church will ever define BoB or BoD as dogma.  At most She'll leave it as an opinion that  may be held, or She could condemn it as error or heresy if in fact She comes to the awareness that it contradicts other dogma regarding the necessity of Baptism.  Or else, if She determines that speculation regarding BoB has in fact undermined EENS, she could simply declare it unlawful to speculate beyond the fact that Baptism is necessary for salvation.