It is that complexity associated with BOD that proves the error.  Trent spoke clearly insofar as the laver of regeneration or the desire for it were immediately contextualized by the reference to John 3:5, yet the BOD advocates will ignore this context to push their error. Or, as you've indicated, they will emphasize some opinion of two Church Fathers (Ss. Ambrose and Augustine) that could be construed in favor of BOD while ignoring 99% of the other Fathers who explicitly taught the necessity of water baptism.

Cathechisms are not, by and in themselves, the OUM. But they can express the OUM under certain conditions, and I think their discussion of BOD qualifies. I agree, for example, with this:


"Why not the NO Catechism?" Why not when it expresses the OUM?

Yes, even the NO catechism can have magisterial teachings within it, but because they are not by and in themselves the OUM, they can also contain teachings contrary to OUM. The thing is, this is denied even when faced with contrary or conflicting OUM teachings.  

It is that complexity associated with BOD that proves the error.

And the huge variation of interpretations regarding "BoD" proves that the Church never taught it.  We can't believe in an amorphous concept.  DR referred to the "core concept".  If you define "core concept" as the greatest common denominator among all the permutations of BoD, what remains is the proposition that the Sacrament of Baptism is not in fact absolutely necessary for salvation ... in other words, heresy.

And the huge variation of interpretations regarding "BoD" proves that the Church never taught it.  We can't believe in an amorphous concept.  DR referred to the "core concept".  If you define "core concept" as the greatest common denominator among all the permutations of BoD, what remains is the proposition that the Sacrament of Baptism is not in fact absolutely necessary for salvation ... in other words, heresy.

Wow..I just posted something and it just never posted!  Let's try it again:

Can I just say I love the math terms!?  I love Math.  It is so logical and universal.

I think the bolded is the critical point [and as you say the true "core concept"].  When my Jєωιѕн father died 5 years ago, I had traditional Catholics [not Novus Ordo] say to me, "Well, you never know.  He may have died with BOD".  Even then, in my grief, I thought how odd.  

So, on a practical level, this means that a Catholic can never know whether a non-Catholic [known or not known] was saved or not.   If that is the case, it calls into question, why the need for Sacramental Baptism in the first place?

I won't deny it completely because I see it in the later catechisms, but something is off. 

You're right about it being tied to emotion. It's a hard thought to realize that my Lutheran grandpa is in hell, given that he died suddenly; but that's the grave reality of the situation here. A reality which has been effectively lost on so many "Catholics" these days who have grown lukewarm and complacent with the "nice" sentiment that non-Catholics are saved. It's precisely why almost no one evangelizes.

Most of us here believe, or rather it would be better to say accept, BOD because we believe it is taught by the Church and consistent with the Gospel. I came around to that view after being a very vocal advocate for "Feeneyism" myself. And I am a strict believer in Predestination and align myself with the most vigorous and strictest of the Thomists in that regard: God saves whom HE wills and how He wills, and NOTHING can prevent Him from doing it.

You are talking about Pelagian heretics who want to embrace non-Catholics and non-Christians in heaven. It may likely turn out that neither they, nor those who reject or don't know Christ (who won't be there), will be there.

You say the Magisterium doesn't teach it. That's your issue. I have come to accept that it does.

Yes, indeed, my chief contention is with the Pelagian heretics (who apply a distorted notion of BoD in such a way as to attack and undermine EENS dogma).  I don't have a big quarrel with those who hold the more narrowly understand version ... just a disagreement.  As I said, I do not believe that the BoD speculation, if limited to catechumens, for instance, undermines EENS because, as even Rahner admitted, for the Church Fathers who may have countenanced a BoD, it was limited to catechumens, whom they considered already to be in a sense within the visible Church.  He had the intellectual honesty to admit that the Fathers would never countenance BoD being applied to anyone who was not visibly united to the Church.  St. Robert held the exact same view.  And there's zero support in the Magisterium for this Pelagian anti-EENS "version" of BoD.  Yet the Pelagian BoDers hide behind St. Robert, St. Thomas, the Church Fathers as if these latter by simply supporting a notion of BoD also backed their perversion of it.  Thus my discussion about the "core concept" of BoD needing to be strictly defined to exclude such abuse.

I disagree that the Magisterium (other than the opinion of Innocent about the unbaptized priest) has taught that there's a BoD that suffices for salvation and for entering the Kingdom.  Trent says justification, and Pope St. Sulpicius explicitly states that everyone of those desiring Baptism would forfeit the Kingdom were they not to receive the Sacrament before departing this life.  I believe there's some KIND of "BoD" (and, as you know, I hate the term, as the term itself is used to water down (pun intended) the strength of the votum so that it could be more liberally applied even to infidels ... and I also object to characterizing it as if it were a separate Baptism, rather than a mode of RECEIVING the ONE baptism we profess in the creed).  Thus St. Robert said that they received Baptism in voto).  And of course that phrase Baptism of Desire appears nowhere in the Magisterium.  I think it's entirely UNclear WHAT it is that we are to believe about it; otherwise there would not be so many variations on what it means and how it works.

So the testimony of the Magisterium for a BoD that can result in salvation without the Sacrament is incredibly thin ... limited really to a letter by Pope Innocent II that is arguably even Magisterium, vs. his opinion as a private Doctor, and which is not protected by infallibility as it fails to meet the notes thereof.  I believe that his opinion was in error (and it contradicts St. Alphonsus in one respect) ... just as in another letter to a bishop Innocent also erroneously opined that the consecration at Mass would be valid if a priest merely thought the words of consecration.

So that's the Magisterium proper.  But you then extend the Magisterium to the teaching of theologians and even catechisms (even local ones).  I do not believe Catechism of Trent teaches BoD, but like Trent itself, falls short of that.  You assert that this constitutes a virtually unananimous teaching of the OUM.  I disagree entirely.  Consensus of opinion among theologians (for a certain period in Church history) does NOT constitute a teaching of the OUM.  Also, on a side note, the OUM is considered infallible (per VI) when it proposes some truth to be "divinely revealed".  But the majority of theologians (as surveyed by Father Cekada) do not hold BoD to be de fide.  Similarly, there's a difference between a virtually-unanimous consensus of the Church Fathers and what's known as a dogmatic consensus.  It's one thing if the Fathers simply HAPPEN to agree on something, but in order to be a dogmatic consensus, the agreement has to be BECAUSE it was received from the Apostles.  And discerning between the two can be tricky and ultimately rests with the Church.  We had theologians virtually unanimous in the erroneous teaching of St. Augustine for about 700 years until it was corrected by the Church.  They simply happened to agree, because they followed Augustine, but it turns out that the ultimate roots of this teaching were not to be found in the Deposit of Revelation, but merely with Augustine's own personal authority.

Now, one of the criteria generally applied to discern an authoritative teaching of the OUM is that it's something that  has been believed everywhere, by all, and at all times.  We see, however, that the majority of Church Fathers rejected the concept of BoD, and then when the subject resurfaced several hundred years later (after near total silence about it in Catholic sources) among the pre-scholastic, it was as a disputed question.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, discernment of truths that may be defined via the OUM can be so tricky as to be practically impossible to do so in a definitive manner.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm

And while for subsequent ages down to our own day it continues to be theoretically true that the Church may, by the exercise of this ordinary teaching authority arrive at a final and infallible decision regarding doctrinal questions, it is true at the same time that in practice it may be impossible to prove conclusively that such unanimity as may exist has a strictly definitive value in any particular case, unless it has been embodied in a decree of an ecuмenical council, or in the ex cathedra teaching of the pope, or, at least, in some definite formula such as the Athanasian Creed. Hence, for practical purposes and in so far as the special question of infallibility is concerned, we may neglect the so called magisterium ordinarium ("ordinary magisterium") and confine our attention to ecuмenical councils and the pope.

This is true also of the "dogmatic consensus" of the Church Fathers for a lot of matters.  Similar to the OUM, if all the Church Fathers are unanimous that some teaching was handed down from the Apostles, then that's evidence for its having been part of the Deposit of Revelation.  But what if they don't clearly say that but just happen to agree on some point.  Maybe it's due to Apostolic authority (and being in the Deposit) or perhaps there's some other root cause (one Church Father made a theological conclusion and the others ended up agreeing with it.  As we have seen, MOST Church Fathers rejected BoD ... which makes it very likely that it was not in fact revealed, but represents theological speculation on the part of some of them.  I'm sure you've read where St. Augustine initially floated the notion of BoD, where he said that after having gone back and forth (considering it over and over again), "I find that ..."  He was not teaching this with some kind of authority or claiming that it was a truth received from the Apostles.  And he later retracted this.  But then after it resurfaced as a disputed question, both St. Bernard and Pope Innocent went with it based on the "authority of Augustine."  Yet St. Augustine did not teach this with authority, not real teaching authority.  Perhaps they used the term loosely in the sense of St. Augustine being an authority due to his stature and due to the respect they had for him.  In other circles where the issue was debated, it was known as "the Augustinian opinion".

There's simply no evidence that BoD is revealed and is therefore definable as de fide, but it very clearly appears to fall into the category of theological speculation.

In any case, you appeal to the Magisterium and to the OUM.  But then you think that an Ecuмenical Council (which has much greater authority than Ordinary Magisterium) can err.  You cite pre-V2 catechisms as if they were authoritative, but then ignore the authority of the NO Catechism of the Catholic Church.  You assert that the practically-universal teaching of Popes, bishops, and theologians has been in error for over 60 years (where they endorse V2 and the NOM as Catholic).  So I really don't understand how you can then consistently assert the pre-V2 Magisterium that includes catechisms and theologians as authoritative while rejecting the post-V2 "Magisterium".

Sure, I get it if you believe Trent taught BoD.  I disagree, but I would understand.  But even then, Trent did not actually define BoD as positively obligatory belief.  Those truths which Trent intended to define are generally to be found in the Canons.  There's no Canon stating that "If anyone says that salvation cannot be attained by the votum for the Sacrament of Baptism alone, without the actual laver (washing with water), let him be anathema."  So this mention of votum in a lengthy expository section does not appear to meet the notes of infallibility.  One can read Trent as saying that someone is not a heretic for positing that the necessity of the Sacrament for salvation can be upheld and maintained by asserting that the votum might suffice, but there's no positive definition, as there was for Confession, that it does in fact positively suffice.  Even then, it was for "justification" while Trent was silent about "salvation" (a distinction common among the theologians of the time, some of whom, for instance, posited that infidels could be justified but not saved).  So not every word of Trent meets the notes of infallibility.  On the other hand, R&R use the assertion that none of the teachings of V2 meet the notes of infallibility to reject some of its teachings as erroneous.  So why are the non-infallible portions of Trent obligatory while the non-infallible portions of V2 not obligatory?