CathInfo.com

Lots of bizarre things about "de presbytero non baptizato".  Apart from the fact that how can you have an unbaptized priest, Innocent "asserts without hesitation that ... this priest [went to heaven]" ... continuing to call him a priest, and somehow declaring that this man went to Heaven.  I guess we should immediately canonize this priest, since we have Innocent III's authority for it.  Then he "asserts without hesitation" [that this priest is in Heaven] "based on the authority of Augustine and Ambrose".  He does not teach it, but rather "asserts" (as if he were in a debate and opining in favor of it) nor is this letter addressed to the universal Church, and does not teach it by the authority of Sts Peter and Paul, i.e. his papal teaching authority, but on the authority of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose.  So now Augustine and Ambrose have the authority to define a dogma?  Of course, he's mistaken in appealing to that authority, since St. Augustine never taught it with authority, but rather clearly indicated that it was his own speculation, and retracted it later in life, and St. Ambrose didn't teach it at all (that's a misreading of his oration on Valentinian).  In a similar letter, Innocent proclaimed that the consecration at Mass would be valid if a priest merely thought the words but did not say them out loud.

Not only does this "de presbyter non baptizato" not meet the notes of infallibility, where the Pope is teaching something with HIS Apostolic authority, the authority of St. Peter, and teaching something to the Universal Church, that must be believed.  He's leaning on the authority of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, who have no authority to define doctrine for the Church, and is clearly opining ("assert" to does not mean to teach authoritatively, but merely to argue or to opine).

Pope Innocent III


   To your inquiry we respond thus: We assert without hesitation (on the authority of the holy Fathers Augustine and Ambrose) that the priest whom you indicated (in your letter) had died without the water of baptism, because he persevered in the faith of Holy Mother the Church and in the confession of the name of Christ, was freed from original sin and attained the joy of the heavenly fatherland. Read (brother) in the eighth book of Augustine's City of God where among other things it is written, "Baptism is ministered invisibly to one whom not contempt of religion but death excludes." Read again the book also of the blessed Ambrose concerning the death of Valentinian where he says the same thing. Therefore, to questions concerning the dead, you should hold the opinions of the learned Fathers, and in your church you should join in prayers and you should have sacrifices offered to God for the priest mentioned. (Denzinger 388)

Canons on the Sacraments in General:

(Canon 4)

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 indeed necessary for every individual; let him be anathema.

8. It would be hard, believe me, to tear me away from these two pillars--I mean Augustine and Ambrose. I own to going along with them in wisdom or in error, for I too believe that a person can be saved by faith alone, through the desire to receive the sacrament, but only if such a one is forestalled by death or prevented by some other insuperable force from implementing this devout desire. Perhaps this was why the Savior, when he said: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, took care not to repeat 'whoever is not baptized', but only, whoever does not believe will be condemned, imitating strongly that faith is sometimes sufficient for salvation and that without it nothing suffices.  

You wouldn't need to twist his words to see he teaches BOD, you would just need to read the next paragraph (#13).  Here, he states that Soave thought the fathers didn't even require an implicit desire of baptism to be justified.  St. Alphonsus rejects this, then goes on to teach implicit BOD as certain.


St. Alphonsus also understood the Coucil of Trent to be teaching BOD in Session 6, Chapter 4 (St. Robert Bellarmine understood it the same way).  It's one thing to say Trent didn't teach BOD, and that this means something like "without a spoke or wheel".  It's quite another for anyone to say it so clearly doesn't teach BODr that it can't be misunderstood to be teaching it, when this would mean the two greatest Doctors of the Church after Trent misunderstood something so clear that it can't be misunderstood.

- Theologia Moralis, Lib.VI, Tract.II, Cap.I, no. 95-97