If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification;-though all (the sacraments) are not ineed necessary for every individual; let him be anathema.
So the very canon most frequently wrested by the Dimondites and Feeneyites is the canon that explains that the necessity of the sacraments must be understood as a necessity in fact or in desire - that no one receives the grace of justification without the sacraments or without the desire thereof.
And then the third and most direct proof, again using the same word voto to show how baptism and justification can be received in desire, "And this translation [i.e. to the state of justification], since the promulgation of the Gospel, cannot be effected without the laver of regeneration, or the desire thereof"
This teaching is also contained in the Roman Catechism, showing the mind and intent of the Tridentine Fathers and clearly precluding all and each of the Feeneyite novelties. The Catechism clearly explains it is speaking for adults of the exact same danger of dying and going to hell that it earlier treated in the case of infants, and for those for whom the reception of the "salutary waters" of the sacrament is rendered impossible through no fault of the person. Such a person can obtain grace and justice through his desire and intention, with repentance for past sins. The Catechism thus clearly teaches this person will die justified, and unlike the children, will not go to hell, however it alertly avoids saying they will go to heaven immediately. That is because those saved by baptism of desire will in general be saved only through purgatory.
In fact, Trent teaches that penance and baptism are both necessary for salvation in the same way - which can only mean a necessity in re or in voto. The Church and subsequent Popes have already infallibly declared this teaching, taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium post Trent, to be safe and irreformable - the sacraments are necessary for justification, and therefore for salvation, in re or in voto. This is true of Baptism, the gate and foundation of the sacraments, where the grace of justification is first received, and of Penance, the "second plank after shipwreck" where the selfsame grace of justification may by God's mercy be recovered. Dimondites who obstinately insist otherwise are only Pharisaical rigorists who attack the Church's approved teaching, and only condemn themselves.
Nishant:
Trent did not teach, as you say, that
"penance and baptism are both necessary for salvation in the same way - which can only mean a necessity in re or in voto." The Decree on Penance, which compares the desire for the sacrament of Penance to the desire for the sacrament of Baptism, says that the desire for Penance can be effective for
"salvation" like the desire for Baptism can be effective for
"regeneration." The desires are not alike in ends.
The distinction between salvation and justification is again dogmatically affirmed in the canon 4 on the sacraments. While the desire for the sacrament can produce justification, the sacrament are dogmatically affirmed as necessary for salvation
The sacrament is the form and matter by definition. The authority for the belief that the desire of the sacraments can effect a state of justification is the same authority that declares that the sacraments are necessary for salvation. You, like Fr. Kramer, want to use one dogma to undermine another, to distort one truth and set it in opposition to another truth. In this very canon Fr. Kramer changed the words of the canon to make the second proposition serve as the
"reason" for the first. He also changed the canon by adding the adverb,
"morally" to modify the word
"necessary" to change the necessity to one of precept. Every heresy can be characterized as a distortion of a revealed truth leading to the denial of another truth. This is no exception.
Fr. Feeney did not argue that the conjunction
"or" in the second proposition of Canon 4 should be taken as inclusive and thus equivalent to conjunction
"and." He taught that the desire for Baptism could produce a state of justification, but held the dogmatic truth affirmed in the first proposition that the sacraments are necessary for salvation must be held as a formal object of divine and Catholic faith. When asked about the justified soul who dies without the sacrament of Baptism he simply answered that no one knows if such a soul exists and those who claim that they did where placing the laws of probability over the Providence of God.
Your claim that BOD is taught by the
"ordinary and universal magisterium post Trent" is absurd. This is the same nonsense that Fr. Kramer repeatedly affirmed. It is absurd because
"universal" refers to all times as well as all places. To simply say,
"universal.... post Trent" is an oxymoron. The Church was not founded in the 16th century. BOD never had any general support until after the time of St. Thomas. Msgr. Joseph Fenton, in his article defending the 1949 Holy Office Letter says that salvation by explicit desire did not become the general teaching of the Church until the
"time of St. Robert Bellarmine." He makes no claim that the doctrine is
de fide. If it were a teaching of the
"universal and ordinary magisterium" then Fr. Feeney would have been excommunicated for heresy. He was not nor was he required to abjure any doctrinal error for the removal of his "excommunication." All of the communities he founded continue to teach and defend what Fr. Feeney taught and defended and they are in communion with their local ordinaries.
Furthermore, it is not as if the Fathers of the Church were silent on the question. It is rejected explicitly by several of them and ultimately defended by none. The Council of Braga explicitly forbade catechumens ecclesiastical burial and this was approved by Rome. Also, the very term BOD has no established definition even after Trent. St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Alphonsus differ in important essentials in their understanding of BOD. Even "Ambrose" has said in a previous post that the 1949 Holy Office Letter censored Fr. Feeney's "rejection of the doctrine of implicit BOD" when the Letter said nothing about BOD. Any term that lacks clarity of definition cannot be a formal object of divine and Catholic faith. The meaning of the term by those who accept the 1949 Holy Office Letter, such as Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Fellay, would be called heresy by Ss. Thomas, Bellarmine and Alphonsus. Most SSPX formed priest make the same silly claim.
In the practical realm rejection of BOD has no adverse implications for any soul. If someone is "saved" by BOD he suffers no loss by others denying its possibility. On the other hand, if someone loses salvation because some BOD cleric neglected to provide the sacraments, then both will have a stiff penalty to pay for the cleric's negligence and dereliction of duty.
Which brings up the question why the matter is so important. It is because the BOD crowd ultimately seek to dissolve all dogma. You profess that the 1949 Holy Office Letter that censored Fr. Feeney's theological defense of the dogma, EENS, to be an orthodox exposition of Catholic doctrine. You have called Fr. Feeney a heretic and yet you have avoided defending the only docuмent that censors his doctrinal teaching. Fr. Feeney held the 1949 Holy Office Letter to be heretical which it most surely is.
You need to defend this Letter. Your past appeals to authority can only support a claim. It cannot prove anything unless the authority is the authority of God's revealed truth, that is, dogma. I do not believe that you or anyone else who accepts the doctrinal teaching of the 1949 Holy Office Letter can offer any principled objection to the Prayer Meeting at Assisi. That is where BOD leads. You believe like Archbishop Lefebvre that any "good willed" Hindu as a Hindu who 'has an explicit desire to do the will of a god who rewards and punishes' can be united to the Church, justified, a temple of the Holy Ghost, an heir to heaven, and obtain salvation. There is nothing more hypocritical than a BOD shill babbling about Trent while he ignores the general apostasy that he is just as responsible as any radical Modernist in causing. You end up denying that the sacraments are necessary for salvation either in re or in voto, whether explicit or implicit; denying that membership in the Church is necessary for salvation; and denying that being a subject of the Roman Pontiff is necessary for salvation. All these dogmas are cast aside for a Letter published by Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston. Absolutely no sense for proper pertinency, proportion, and weight of evidence.
Drew