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Speray’s inability to present rational arguments, along with his obsession about this subject, is a clear sign of someone with an agenda … and, as such, he should be dismissed out of hand.

Drew said to Speray:

I have posted your commentary and my replies on a new CathInfo thread. I invite you to take this opportunity to defend your propositions in an open forum.
Drew
Baptism of Desire and the Fathers of Trent – The Nail in the Feeneyite Coffin

Speray replied:

Not wasting my time with you over there. You want leave and go elsewhere, so be it.

Steven Speray runs his own version of Catholicism on his blog at WordPress. I would guess from a short scanning he is a determined sedevacantist in the mold of the late Fr. Anthony Cekada. He pontificates on his blog to only those of like mind. He invites comments which are censored for the purpose of insuring he is the only authoritative and final voice. When offered to enter a public discussion on the open forum of CathInfo where he would be tasked to defend his accusations he replies, "Not wasting my time with you over there." He might have added that he was quite comfortable speculating in his little world bounded by his unfounded presuppositions that are better left undisturbed. Too much light is not appreciated.

A Catholic is free to suffer unjust persecution but he is not free to tolerate unjust persecution of others. I have been a traditional Catholic, I would guess from Speray's photo, well before he was born. I first heard of Fr. Feeney in 1972 when I asked a priest at the cathedral church why to pulpit was never used. He told me that it conveyed too much a sense of hell and damnation. I replied that that was also part of the Catholic doctrine. He said, 'Be careful, Fr. Feeney was excommunicated for teaching that'. And so began an investigation on just who Fr. Feeney was. Now it is 52 years later and, with the internet available, I am still hearing the same stupid vicious calumny.

Now faithful Catholics might appreciate this. Fr. Feeney suffers a like unjust persecution long after he died like Jesus Christ and all those who defend truth. You never hear vicious insults against the likes of excommunicated Modernist heretic Rev. George Tyrrell. He is dead, generally forgotten, and gone to his just reward although the heresy he devoted his life to is still contaminating the air we breathe, although under the altered methodology of Neo-modernism. It is Fr. Feeney they hate because it is Fr. Feeney who was the first who stood against the Neo-Modernist methodology of professing belief in dogma that has been gutted of meaning. The 1949 Holy Office Letter to Archbishop Cushing censoring Fr. Feeney is a declaration that no dogma must necessarily be taken literally. And thus ends with the likes of Fr. Cekada who said to me ten years ago, 'Baptism of Desire proves that dogma does not have to be taken literally'. 

Like the dopey priest at the cathedral, Speray calls Fr. Feeney a heretic. Since Speray is absolutely ignorant regarding the nature of dogma, he cannot possibly know what the legal definition of heresy means. Ignorance is one thing that is inexcusable at this time. We are left with willful stupidity, malice, and arrogance which are evident in his criticism of Fr. Feeney and those who admire his courage and defense of the Catholic faith.

Speray arrogates to himself the judgment that defenders of Fr. Feeney display "aggressiveness and deceptive tactics" because they say, "Baptism of desire is a heresy because it contradicts Scripture and the teaching of the Council of Trent." If Fr. Feeney called anything a "heresy" it is because it met the legal definition of heresy which is the denial of dogma. But Speray does not know what dogma is, so he cannot possible know what heresy is, and yet he does not blush to say, "There may be no greater absurdity ever concocted by a group passing themselves off as Catholic as declaring heretical a doctrine that’s emphatically taught by the very council they claim it contradicts."

"Emphatically taught"? When challenged with the actual dogmatic declarations of the Council of Trent Fr. Feeney is accused by Speray of being a heretic because he takes a "strict unreasonable interpretation" of dogma, that is, Fr. Feeney took dogma literally. So the literal meaning dogma is heresy and characterizes literal minded Catholics of doing to dogma what "Protestants do with Scripture", that is, private interpretation. So dogma, which is the Magisterium of the Church, by virtue of engaging the Church's attributes of infallibility and authority, formally defines a doctrine of Catholic faith, it CANNOT be believed literally without committing "private interpretation" and being a "Protestant"? This is nothing but a Neo-Modernist technique of destroying all dogma. It is in fact an absurd overthrow of the First Principles of the Understanding of identity, sufficient cause, sufficient reason.

In this brief post, Speray employs every Neo-Modernist technique to undermine the literal meaning of dogma. He corrupts definition, qualifies categorical propositions, denies that the infallibility is in the nature of the dogma itself but rather in its non-literal theological exposition, inverts authority, and attributes dogma as its formal and final cause to the fathers of Trent and not to God to Whom alone belongs necessarily the attributes of Infallibility and Authority.

Fr. Cekada's claim that 'Baptism of desire proves that dogma does not have to be taken literally' is the real and only purpose of this argument. Baptism of Desire defenders ultimately reject the literal meaning of every dogma touching upon what is necessary as a necessity of means for salvation. They are in the end responsible for the new ecclesiology, ecuмenism, religious liberty and the general destruction of the Church since Vatican II. They laid the theological foundation for the Prayer Meeting at Assisi and then pretend to be scandalized when it took place. When the literal meaning of dogma is rejected there is no possible defense of the Faith.

Speray will not come forward and defend the indefensible. He is an unjust, uncharitable, corrupter of Catholic truth and a calumniator of faithful Catholic priest.

Drew 

If I may,

It is seldom that you will find a Cushingite who will actually define BOD, but Speray does: "The doctrine of Baptism of desire is simply the doctrine that God can justify individuals apart from the Sacrament of Baptism in extraordinary circuмstances."

I must say, this definition is to the root of it. His position is that the Sacraments are not necessary for justification, which is of course that first prerequisite step to salvation itself. Or the word apart does not mean separate, away from, distinct.

Yes, I've pointed this out before, that, given how there's a different definition of BoD for pretty much every BoDer you'll find, BoD reduces (in all its common elements, i.e. as the greatest common factor, to use a mathematical analogy) to the proposition that "the Sacrament of Baptism is not necessary for salvation", which is heretical.  No, Speray, to hold that justification can happen "without" or "apart" from the Sacrament of Baptism is heresy.  You could argue that in a BoD scenario, the Sacrament can be efficiacious, operating as the instrumental cause of justification, through the votum, but you can't even figure that out.  That's why St. Robert Bellarmine was careful to state that individuals justified by BoD receive the Sacrament in voto (vs. in actu), but would never dare claim (heretically) that justification can happen WITHOUT or APART FROM the Sacrament, as Speray heretically claims.  In any alleged BoD scenario, the Sacrament of Baptism must continue to be operative, i.e. must continue to act as the instrumental cause of justification, as Trent clearly taught, in order for you to avoid heresy on the matter, and avoid also the heresy of a Pelagian ex opere operantis justification.

Not only this, but his definition exposes yet again what an idiot Speray is, since Father Feeney did believe that God does justify (it's not a question of "can" because God "can" do anything) apart from actual reception of the Sacrament of Baptism (yet another very sloppily articulated part of the definition).  Father Feeney believed in justification without actual reception of the Sacrament of Baptism, i.e. via votum, so Speray is fighting strawmen and windmills.  Father Feeney merely believed that such individuals can be justified (as per his reading of Trent) but not saved.  So THAT is the position that Speray needs to prove is heretical before spouting off on how Father Feeney is a heretic.  This moron doesn't even know the propositions he's supposed to be addressing.  It was actually a pro-BoD individual here on CI who pointed me to the fact (as also written up by "Cardinal" Avery Dulles) that some post-Tridentine theologians actually held to a distinction between justification and salvation.  Melchior Cano, for instance, held that infidels could be justified but not saved.  If Father Feeney was a heretic, then so was Melchior Cano (and yet the Church has never declared him such).