Myrna, I think you are focusing on the catechumen which St Bellarmine said would fall under BOD. I think it is clear that catechumens are in a different category for sure.
As I said, the big issue vis-a-vis ecclesiology is NOT the catechumen. You can argue that they're part of the Visible Church "imperfectly", as St. Robert Bellarmine believed, and that an imperfect membership suffices for salvation. Again, I don't believe that, but it someone else wanted to, I'd have no big issue. Where I get off the BoD wagon is where Hindus in Tibet, or Great Thumb Worshippers, who have ZERO connection to the Visible Church are somehow saved.
That's where the whole Vatican II subsistence ecclesiology comes from, where the Church "subsists" in this visible core of actual Catholics, but then extends out invisibly to include all manner of heretics, schismatics, Buddhists, and Muslims.
I'm actually willing to lay down the hatchet with regard to Catechumens as a compromise, if only some of these Traditional Catholics who believe in BoD would exclude the non-catechumens. Perhaps that would be more palatable to those who want to follow a St. Thomas or St Robert Bellarmine, or who believe that Trent taught BoD. I urge them to look at all the proofs that they normally adduce for BoD and notice:
1917 Code of Canon Law: limited to CATECHUMENS
Pope Pius XII General Audience: limited to CATECHUMENS
St. Robert Bellarmine: limited to CATECHUMENS
Pope Innocent II and II cases: involved (basically) at least CATECHUMENS (with one perplexing case involving a "priest" who had not been baptized somehow)
Patristic evidence:
. . . we have to admit . . . that the testimony of the Fathers, with regard to the possibility of salvation for someone outside the Church, is very weak. Certainly even the ancient Church knew that the grace of God can be found also outside the Church and even before Faith. But the view that such divine grace can lead man to his final salvation without leading him first into the visible Church, is something, at any rate, which met with very little approval in the ancient Church. For, with reference to the optimistic views on the salvation of catechumens as found in many of the Fathers, it must be noted that such a candidate for baptism was regarded in some sense or other as already ‘Christianus,’ and also that certain Fathers, such as Gregory nαzιanzen and Gregory of Nyssa deny altogether the justifying power of love or of the desire for baptism. Hence it will be impossible to speak of a consensus dogmaticus in the early Church regarding the possibility of salvation for the non-baptized, and especially for someone who is not even a catechumen. In fact, even St. Augustine, in his last (anti-pelagian) period, no longer maintained the possibility of a baptism by desire.
So I'd be willing to take up a compromise position of conceding the possibility of salvation for Catechumens, so that we can stop arguing incessantly about BoD and focus on the real problem, the heretical ecclesiology that results from including all manner of non-Catholics in the Church.
Our REAL battle here needs to be against the Vatican II ecclesiology and the wreckage it's causing, and BoD has been distraction from that. So if we could all agree on a BoD, or, rather, Baptism of "firm resolution" (since "desire" is a very unhelpful term), then we could join forces against the V2 ecclesiology and fight the REAL BATTLE going on here. I don't need to keep fighting with St. Thomas or St. Robert or St. Alphonsus. Once we've re-established firmly the Tridentine VISIBLE CHURCH ecclesiology, then we can revisit BoD for Catechumens at a later date.
I ask all Traditional Catholics to join forces in battling the FUNDAMENTAL ERROR behind all of the Vatican II errors.
Topic: Baptism of Desire Advocates: Is faith in the Sacrament required for BoD? (Read 8993 times)