This question is to Last Trad: Last Trad said he did not believe in Baptism of Desire, even of the catechumen. He believes therefore that BOD neither exists nor justifies. I'm asking him, in this thread, how he reconciles his opinion, with Catholic commentaries on Sacred Scripture. Do any support his opinion?

I take just one post-Resurrection example, that of Cornelius the centurion in Acts 10. There are other examples that BOD at least justifies, but this will do. Some will say BOD justified before the Resurrection of Christ, but not after, but there is no Scriptural basis for saying that, and this counter-example disproves it. If Cornelius received justification by Baptism of Desire, BOD exists and the Dimonds who deny BOD are wrong on Trent.

1. St. Augustine: "I do not hesitate to place the Catholic catechumen, who is burning with the love of God, before the baptized heretic... The centurion Cornelius, before Baptism, was better than Simon [Magus], who had been baptized. For Cornelius, even before Baptism, was filled with the Holy Ghost, while Simon, after Baptism, was puffed up with an unclean spirit" (De Bapt. C. Donat., IV 21). http://traditionalcatholic.net/Tradition/Information/Baptism_of_Desire.html

2. St. Thomas: "So also before Baptism Cornelius and others like him receive grace and virtues through their faith in Christ and their desire for Baptism, implicit or explicit: but afterwards when baptized, they receive a yet greater fulness of grace and virtues. Hence in Psalm 22:2, "He hath brought me up on the water of refreshment," a gloss says: "He has brought us up by an increase of virtue and good deeds in Baptism." https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4069.htm

3. Peter Lombard: "But that there is invisible sanctification in some without the visible sacrament, Augustine clearly teaches, saying in his commentary on Leviticus, "Invisible sanctification exists and benefits some without visible sacraments; but visible sanctification, which comes from the visible sacraments, can be present, but cannot benefit without the invisible. However the visible sacrament is not for that reason to be despised, because the one who despises it, cannot be invisibly sanctified. Hence Cornelius and those with him were baptized, although already sanctified by the holy Spirit. Nor is the visible sanctification to be judged superfluous, because the invisible preceded it. Therefore the invisible sanctification without the visible can exist and benefit; but the visible which is caused by the sacrament only, is not able to benefit without the invisible, since therein is its whole utility" https://ia802308.us.archive.org/10/items/SourcesOfBaptismOfBloodBaptismOfDesire/BobBodfinal_usTrade6x9-Anonymous.pdf

4. Fr. Haydock: "Such may be the grace of God occasionally towards men, and such their great charity and contrition, that they may have remission, justification, and sanctification, before the external sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and penance be received; as we see in this example: where, at Peter's preaching, they all received the Holy Ghost before any sacrament." https://www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/ntcomment105.shtml

5: Archbishop Kenrich: "The primacy of the spirit is nowhere more plainly expressed than when Cornelius, a Roman centurion, is received into the Church. Note the sequence of events:

"While Peter was yet speaking these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. And the faithful of the circuмcision, who came with Peter, were astonished, for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also.... And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" (Act. 10:44-48).

Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick (1796-1863), points out in this regard that: " Cornelius and his family received the Holy Ghost whilst Peter was yet speaking to them, before they were baptized. (Acts 10, 44) Others may receive grace in like manner, and be justified before the actual reception of the sacrament, the grace whereof they may receive by anticipation, God accepting the desire of their heart, and subsequently in its reception conferring more abundant grace. This may particularly happen in regard to such as are snatched out of life before they can receive the sacrament. The believer, whilst preparing for its reception, may suddenly feel the approach of death, when no minister of God or other person is at hand to make the sacred ablution. Relatives, under the influence of strong prejudices, may refuse to the dying man the opportunity of receiving the sanctifying rite. In such circuмstances his faith, desire, and love will no doubt obtain for him from the divine goodness the grace which he earnestly implores. This sentiment is not at all inconsistent with the belief of the necessity of Baptism for all who have it in their power to receive it, and of its efficacy, whereby grace is imparted to the worthy receiver." (The Catholic Doctrine on Justification, Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick, page 133-134) See: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/currenterrors/bapdesire.htm

6: Rev. Joseph Pohle: "The anonymous author of the treatise De Rebaptismate, which was composed about 256 against the practice championed by St. Cyprian (Gennad, De Vir. Illustr., c. 27), calls attention to the fact that the centurion Cornelius and his family were justified without the Sacrament (Acts 10:44), and adds: "No doubt men can be baptized without water, in the Holy Ghost, as you observe that these were baptized, before they were baptized with water, . . . since they received the grace of the New Covenant before the bath, which they reached later” (Migne, P. L., III. 1889)"

7. Council of Orange: "According to the Catholic Faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema. We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God, but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward, so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him. We must therefore most evidently believe that the praiseworthy faith of the thief whom the Lord called to his home in paradise, and of Cornelius the centurion, to whom the angel of the Lord was sent, and of Zacchaeus, who was worthy to receive the Lord himself, was not a natural endowment but a gift of God's kindness." https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/orange.txt

There are many others, but this will do for now. If I recall correctly, St. Alphonsus and St. Robert also teach the same. I will look it up later on.

Please explain, Last Trad, if you disagree with these sources, why you do so, and cite some Catholic commentary interpreting Acts 10 as you do.

Others please do not respond to this thread. Or at least wait until he has answered before you do. You can ask me questions on another thread.

God Bless.

Yes, I know you won't answer others' questions, but you want your own questions answered. A discussion doesn't work that way: if you want others to answer your questions, you must do the same when they ask you questions. I already answered your questions n times. You haven't answered mine. Presumably because you can't, or you don't want to, for some reason. 

Saint Augustine Against Julian

https://archive.org/details/fathersofthechur013910mbp/page/n281

The Fathers of The Church, A New Translation, Volume 35

Introduction, page XI:

St. Augustine wrote this work in the closing years of a life busied with three great controversies--Manichaeism, Donatism, Pelagianism, the last ending with the Contra Julianum and the Opus imperfectum contra Julianum.

Page 258:

Chapter 4
 
(. . .)
 
Of the number of the elect and predestined, even those who have led the very worst kind of life are led to repentance through the goodness of God, through whose patience they were not taken from this life in the commission of crimes; in order to show them and their co-heirs the depth of evil from which the grace of God delivers man. Not one of. them perishes, regardless of his age at death; never be it said that a man predestined to life would be permitted to end his life without the sacrament of the mєdιαtor. Because of these men, our Lord says: 'This is the will of him who sent me, the Father, that I should lose nothing of what he has given me.'11 The other mortals, not of this number, who are of the same mass as these, but have been made vessels of wrath, are born for their advantage. God creates none of them rashly or fortuitously, and He also knows what good may be made from them, since He works good in the very gift of human nature in them, and through them He adorns the order of the present world. He leads none of them to the wholesome and spiritual repentance by which a man in Christ is reconciled to God, whether His patience in their regard be more generous or not unequal. Therefore, though all men, of the same mass of perdition and condemnation, unrepentant according to the hardness of their heart, treasure up wrath to themselves on the day of wrath when each will be repaid according to his works, God through His merciful goodness leads some of them to repentance, and according to his judgment does not lead others. Our Lord says He has the power to lead and draw men: 'No men can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.'12
 
(. . .)
 
11 John 6.59.
12 John 6.44.

@Trad123, I have no objection to St. Augustine's position, especially as formulated by SBC in an article I cited earlier. It could be called the Augustinian position after St. Augustine. (1) St. Augustine admits BOD justifies. (2) Those who die in Sanctifying Grace will be saved. (3) He believes those who receive justification by BOD will also receive Water Baptism. That's fine, and it's not the position of the Dimonds which I'm arguing against in this thread. Do you believe BOD at least justifies? or do you deny BOD?

To your second quote, Baptism of Desire indeed does not make a man a member of the Body of the Church, nor does it obtain full remission of all temporal punishment. It does incorporate a person into the Soul of the Church, however, and obtains the grace of justification. It does not make Baptism superfluous.

To your second quote, Baptism of Desire indeed does not make a man a member of the Body of the Church, nor does it obtain full remission of all temporal punishment.

It does incorporate a person into the Soul of the Church, however, and obtains the grace of justification. It does not make Baptism superfluous.

Fourth Lateran Council: 1215

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecuм12-2.htm

Constitutions  

1. Confession of Faith

(. . .)

There is indeed one universal church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved. . .

Mystici Corporis

The Mystical Body of Christ, the Church

Pope Pius XII - 1943

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius12/p12mysti.htm

10.

(. . .)

Indeed no true and perfect human society can be conceived which is not governed by some supreme authority. Christ therefore must have given to His Church a supreme authority to which all Christians must render obedience. For this reason, as the unity of the faith is of necessity required for the unity of the church, inasmuch as it is the body of the faithful, so also for this same unity, inasmuch as the Church is a divinely constituted society, unity of government, which effects and involves unity of communion, is necessary jure divino. “The unity of the Church is manifested in the mutual connection or communication of its members, and likewise in the relation of all the members of the Church to one head” (St. Thomas, 2a 2ae, 9, xxxix., a. I). From this it is easy to see that men can fall away from the unity of the Church by schism, as well as by heresy. “We think that this difference exists between heresy and schism” (writes St. Jerome): “heresy has no perfect dogmatic teaching, whereas schism, through some Episcopal dissent, also separates from the Church” (S. Hieronymus, Comment. in Epist. ad Titum, cap. iii., v. 1011). In which judgment St. John Chrysostom concurs: “I say and protest (he writes) that it is as wrong to divide the Church as to fall into heresy” (Hom. xi., in Epist. ad Ephes., n. 5). Wherefore as no heresy can ever be justifiable, so in like manner there can be no justification for schism. “There is nothing more grievous than the sacrilege of schism….there can be no just necessity for destroying the unity of the Church” (S. Augustinus, Contra Epistolam Parmeniani, lib. ii., cap. ii., n. 25).

22. Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.

59. What We have said concerning the “mystical Head” would indeed be incomplete if We were not at least briefly to touch on this saying of the same Apostle: “Christ is the Head of the Church: he is the Savior of his Body.” For in these words we have the final reason why the Body of the Church is given the name of Christ, namely, that Christ is the Divine Savior of this Body. The Samaritans were right in proclaiming Him “Savior of the world”; for indeed He most certainly is to be called the “Savior of all men,” even though we must add with Paul: “especially of the faithful, since, before all others, He has purchased with His Blood His members who constitute the Church.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Summa Thelogica
First Part
Question 21.
Article 1.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5021.htm#article1'

I answer that, When a man enters the Church by Baptism, he is admitted to two things, viz. the body of the faithful and the participation of the sacraments: and this latter presupposes the former, since the faithful are united together in the participation of the sacraments.

St. Ambrose

On Baptism:  A Catechetical Instruction

http://www.lectionarycentral.com/trinity12/Ambrose.html

1.

(. . .)


I shall now begin to instruct you on the sacrament you have received; of whose nature it was not fitting to speak to you before this: for in the Christian what comes first is faith.  And at Rome for this reason those who have been baptized are called the faithful (fideles).

St. Leo the Great

Sermon 26

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360326.htm

II. Christians are essentially participators in the nativity of Christ

Although, therefore, that infancy, which the majesty of God's Son did not disdain, reached mature manhood by the growth of years and, when the triumph of His passion and resurrection was completed, all the actions of humility which were undertaken for us ceased, yet today's festival renews for us the holy childhood of Jesus born of the Virgin Mary: and in adoring the birth of our Saviour, we find we are celebrating the commencement of our own life. For the birth of Christ is the source of life for Christian folk, and the birthday of the Head is the birthday of the body. Although every individual that is called has his own order, and all the sons of the Church are separated from one another by intervals of time, yet as the entire body of the faithful being born in the font of baptism is crucified with Christ in His passion, raised again in His resurrection, and placed at the Father's right hand in His ascension, so with Him are they born in this nativity. For any believer in whatever part of the world that is re-born in Christ, quits the old paths of his original nature and passes into a new man by being re-born; and no longer is he reckoned of his earthly father's stock but among the seed of the Saviour, Who became the Son of man in order that we might have the power to be the sons of God.

St. Cyril

Catechetical Lecture 5

Of Faith

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310105.htm

1. How great a dignity the Lord bestows on you in transferring you from the order of Catechumens to that of the Faithful, the Apostle Paul shows, when he affirms, God is faithful, by Whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:9 For since God is called Faithful, thou also in receiving this title receive a great dignity. For as God is called Good, and Just, and Almighty, and Maker of the Universe, so is He also called Faithful. Consider therefore to what a dignity you are rising, seeing you are to become partaker of a title of God.

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 25 on the Gospel of John

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240125.htm

3.

(. . .)

What advantages it to be bound by the ties of earthly family, if we are not joined by those of the spiritual? What profits nearness of kin on earth, if we are to be strangers in heaven? For the Catechumen is a stranger to the Faithful. He has not the same Head, he has not the same Father, he has not the same City, nor Food, nor Raiment, nor Table, nor House, but all are different; all are on earth to the former, to the latter all are in heaven. One has Christ for his King; the other, sin and the devil; the food of one is Christ, of the other, that meat which decays and perishes; one has worms' work for his raiment, the other the Lord of angels; heaven is the city of one, earth of the other. Since then we have nothing in common, in what, tell me, shall we hold communion? Did we remove the same pangs, did we come forth from the same womb? This has nothing to do with that most perfect relationship. Let us then give diligence that we may become citizens of the city which is above. How long do we tarry over the border, when we ought to reclaim our ancient country? We risk no common danger; for if it should come to pass, (which God forbid!) that through the sudden arrival of death we depart hence uninitiated, though we have ten thousand virtues, our portion will be no other than hell, and the venomous worm, and fire unquenchable, and bonds indissoluble.

You cite St. Thomas and Pope Ven. Pius XII. St. Thomas, everyone knows, taught BOD. Pope Pius XII also taught that Trent taught BOD, himself taught it in an Encyclical Letter, and approved the Holy Office Letter giving the Church's understanding of EENS dogma.

"In His infinite mercy God has willed that the effects, necessary for one to be saved, of those helps to salvation which are directed toward man's final end, not by intrinsic necessity, but only by divine institution, can also be obtained in certain circuмstances when those helps are used only in desire and longing. This we see clearly stated in the Sacred Council of Trent, both in reference to the sacrament of regeneration and in reference to the sacrament of penance (<Denzinger>, nn. 797, 807) ...These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, <On the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ> (AAS, Vol. 35, an. 1943, p. 193 ff.). For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are actually incorporated into the Church as members, and those who are united to the Church only by desire ... 

Toward the end of this same encyclical letter, when most affectionately inviting to unity those who do not belong to the body of the Catholic Church, he mentions those who "are related to the Mystical Body of the Redeemer by a certain unconscious yearning and desire," and these he by no means excludes from eternal salvation, but on the other hand states that they are in a condition "in which they cannot be sure of their salvation" since "they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church" (AAS, 1. c., p. 243)."

From: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/letter-to-the-archbishop-of-boston-2076

St. Robert Bellarmine explains that Catechumens, who as yet lack supernatural charity, do not belong to the Church, neither externally nor internally. If they have supernatural charity or contrition, they belong to the Church inwardly, but not externally.

"·     St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church (16^th century): De Sacramento Baptismi, cap. 6: “...among the ancients this proposition was not so certain at first as later on: that perfect conversion and repentance is rightly called the Baptism of Desire and supplies for Baptism of water, at least in case of necessity”....."it is certainly to be believed that true conversion supplies for Baptism of water when it is not from contempt but through necessity that persons die without Baptism of water.”

The Church Militant (De Ecclesia Militante), c. 3: "I answer therefore that, when it is said outside the Church no one is saved, it must be understood of those who belong to her neither in actual fact nor in desire [desiderio], as theologians commonly speak on baptism. Because the catechumens are in the Church, though not in actual fact, yet at least in resolution [voto], therefore they can be saved."

From: http://www.baptismofdesire.com/

Regarding St. Gregory nαzιanzen, see this CE Article: "It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that when the baptism of water becomes a physical or moral impossibility, eternal life may be obtained by the baptism of desire or the baptism of blood.

The baptism of desire

The baptism of desire (baptismus flaminis) is a perfect contrition of heart, and every act of perfect charity or pure love of God which contains, at least implicitly, a desire (votum) of baptism. The Latin word flamen is used because Flamen is a name for the Holy Ghost, Whose special office it is to move the heart to love God and to conceive penitence for sin. The "baptism of the Holy Ghost" is a term employed in the third century by the anonymous author of the book "De Rebaptismate". The efficacy of this baptism of desire to supply the place of the baptism of water, as to its principal effect, is proved from the words of Christ. After He had declared the necessity of baptism (John 3), He promised justifying grace for acts of charity or perfect contrition (John 14): "He that loveth Me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him and will manifest myself to him." And again: "If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him." Since these texts declare that justifying grace is bestowed on account of acts of perfect charity or contrition, it is evident that these acts supply the place of baptism as to its principal effect, the remission of sins. This doctrine is set forth clearly by the Council of Trent. In the fourteenth session (cap. iv) the council teaches that contrition is sometimes perfected by charity, and reconciles man to God, before the Sacrament of Penance is received. In the fourth chapter of the sixth session, in speaking of the necessity of baptism, it says that men can not obtain original justice "except by the washing of regeneration or its desire" (voto). The same doctrine is taught by Pope Innocent III (cap. Debitum, iv, De Bapt.), and the contrary propositions are condemned by Popes Pius V and Gregory XII, in proscribing the 31st and 33rd propositions of Baius.

We have already alluded to the funeral oration pronounced by St. Ambrose over the Emperor Valentinian II, a catechumen. The doctrine of the baptism of desire is here clearly set forth. St. Ambrose asks: "Did he not obtain the grace which he desired? Did he not obtain what he asked for? Certainly he obtained it because he asked for it." St. Augustine (On Baptism, Against the Donatists, IV.22) and St. Bernard (Ep. lxxvii, ad H. de S. Victore) likewise discourse in the same sense concerning the baptism of desire. If it be said that this doctrine contradicts the universal law of baptism made by Christ (John 3), the answer is that the lawgiver has made an exception (John 14) in favor of those who have the baptism of desire. Neither would it be a consequence of this doctrine that a person justified by the baptism of desire would thereby be dispensed from seeking after the baptism of water when the latter became a possibility. For, as has already been explained the [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588235294118)]baptismus flaminis contains the votum of receiving the baptismus aquæ. It is [/color]true that some of the Fathers of the Church arraign severely those who content themselves with the desire of receiving the sacrament of regeneration, but they are speaking of catechumens who of their own accord delay the reception of baptism from unpraiseworthy motives. Finally, it is to be noted that only adults are capable of receiving the baptism of desire." https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02258b.htm

The topic of this thread was not about any of this anyway, but only about that one question on Cornelius which I asked Last Trad.

Here is my question to you, Trad123: "the position of the Dimonds which I'm arguing against in this thread. Do you believe BOD at least justifies? or do you deny BOD?" The claim of the Dimonds is incompatible with Scripture and the Catholic commentaries on it.

Pope Pius XII also taught that Trent taught BOD, himself taught it in an Encyclical Letter, and approved the Holy Office Letter giving the Church's understanding of EENS dogma.


https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/letter-to-the-archbishop-of-boston-2076


Letter to the Archbishop of Boston


"In His infinite mercy God has willed that the effects, necessary for one to be saved, of those helps to salvation which are directed toward man's final end, not by intrinsic necessity, but only by divine institution, can also be obtained in certain circuмstances when those helps are used only in desire and longing. This we see clearly stated in the Sacred Council of Trent, both in reference to the sacrament of regeneration and in reference to the sacrament of penance (<Denzinger>, nn. 797, 807) ...These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, <On the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ> (AAS, Vol. 35, an. 1943, p. 193 ff.). For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are actually incorporated into the Church as members, and those who are united to the Church only by desire ...

Toward the end of this same encyclical letter, when most affectionately inviting to unity those who do not belong to the body of the Catholic Church, he mentions those who "are related to the Mystical Body of the Redeemer by a certain unconscious yearning and desire," and these he by no means excludes from eternal salvation, but on the other hand states that they are in a condition "in which they cannot be sure of their salvation" since "they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church" (AAS, 1. c., p. 243)."

Father Feeney and the Truth About Salvation: A Critique of His Critics

by Br. Robert Mary, MICM Tertiary


https://www.scribd.com/docuмent/27991101/Father-Feeney-and-the-Truth-About-Salvation-A-Critique-of-His-Critics-by-Brother-Robert-Mary-MICM



Chapter 9, Contiuned

C. The Requirements for Salvation

(. . .)

But Father Laisney is committed to judging Father Feeney and his disciples for"pertinacity in an error against a dogma of the Faith." He claims that "baptism of desire" is a dogma because it has been taught constantly by the Fathers, so he admonishes us that we must "hold fast to the doctrine of the Fathers." We simply disagree with his claim. And, if it is not, in fact, a constant teaching of the Fathers,he has misled many Catholics and has rashly misjudged Father Feeney and his disciples.


Page 4: Salvation cannot be attained by one with the use of his reason, without God
revealing and man believing this Truth by a supernatural virtue and an act of Faith. He
does not have to know everything explicitly, but he has to believe explicitly all that he
knows of the Revelation.

Page 15: . . .it is necessary to know explicitly the essential articles of Faith, the Trinity,
the Incarnation and the Redemption, in as much as they have been revealed to the
person.


We agree! This is definitely the traditional teaching of the Church. It could not be stated more clearly. But we ask: Would it not require very flexible, twisted reasoning to claim that this teaching is reflected in the scandalous Marchetti-Selvaggiani Letter of August 8, 1949, wherein it states (in the two paragraphs most quoted by modernists and their allies) that men need to be "united" to the Church only by"desire and longing," and that "this desire need not always be explicit" because God also accepts an "implicit desire?"

How can we possibly reconcile this concept of votum implicitum with what Saint Thomas teaches us about the necessity of explicit Faith? We cannot, because the idea of "implicit desire" being sufficient for salvation is a novelty. This so-called Protocol Letter 122/49 was understood by the whole world to be a refutation of the dogma Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. The world-at-large was led to believe that Rome had spoken definitively and that Father Feeney and Saint Benedict Center were totally wrong.

This Protocol Letter set a precedent for the policy of double talk, concealment,ambiguity and subtle contradiction employed so continuously since Vatican II by thehierarchy of the Church, up to and including the Pope.

Let us repeat, for emphasis, what we have said before. The fact that the Protocol never appeared in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis shows conclusively that it is hardly an official Church teaching. Those who believe it should be official Church teaching have a definite kinship with the arch-modernist apostle of "universal salvation," Karl Rahner, S.J. It was Rahner who placed the scandalous docuмent in the prestigious and influential Enchiridion Symbolorum (Denzinger) while serving as its editor. This fact alone should be a warning to every traditional Catholic.

Father Feeney and the Truth About Salvation: A Critique of His Critics

by Br. Robert Mary, MICM Tertiary


https://www.scribd.com/docuмent/27991101/Father-Feeney-and-the-Truth-About-Salvation-A-Critique-of-His-Critics-by-Brother-Robert-Mary-MICM


Chapter 9, Continued

The Escalation of Deception: From Mystici Corporis — to the Protocol — to Vatican II

First, let us look at Mystici Corporis to see if the Protocol Letter presents accurately what the Pope said. Near the end of this encyclical, the Holy Father requests the prayers of the whole Church for the return to the Mystical Body of Christ of non-Catholics, "both those who, not yet enlightened by the truth of the gospel, are still without the fold of the Church, and those who, on account of regrettable schism, are separated from us. . . " Here is the usual, but faulty,translation of the key sentences:


We ask each and every one of them to be quick and ready to follow the interior
movements of grace, and to look to withdrawing from that state in which they cannot be
sure of their salvation. For even though unsuspectingly they are related in desire and
resolution to the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of so many
precious gifts and helps from heaven, which one can enjoy only in the Catholic Church.
May they then enter into Catholic unity, and united with us in the organic oneness of the
Body of Jesus Christ may they hasten to the one Head in the society of glorious love. . .
. We wait for them with open arms to return, not to a stranger’s house, but to their own,
their Father’s house. (emphasis ours)


Consider the first sentence. We think it very strange for the Holy Father to say that non-Catholics should "look to withdrawing from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation," as the translation would have us believe. The Pope appears to imply two things that are just not so: first, that non-Catholics have an outside chance of gaining salvation where they are; and second, that Catholics can be sure of their salvation. Neither of these implications has ever been a teaching of the Church. In fact, the proposition that Catholics can be sure even of their justification was condemned by the Council of Trent. (Decree on Justification, Chapter IX)

But this is a weak, misleading translation. The original Latin reads: ". . . ab eo statuse eripere studeant, in quo de sempiterna cuiusque propria salute securi esse nonpossunt;" Translated correctly, the Pope asks that non-Catholics be. . .


. . . zealous and eager to tear themselves out of that state in which it is not possible for
them to be without fear regarding their eternal salvation.


The adjective securi means "free from care, unconcerned, fearless." So, we see that the urgent request of the Pope that they "tear themselves out of " their periloussituation has been minimized to "look to withdrawing from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation."

Now, the second sentence: notice the phrase printed in italics. There is a deliberate mistranslation here which completely alters the obvious meaning of the Holy Father’s request. The Latin reads:

. . . quandoquidem, etiamsi inscio quodam desiderio ac voto ad mysticuм Redemptoris
Corpus ordinentur, . . .


The abused word is ordinentur. The book, A Latin-English Dictionary of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Roy J. Deferrari, gives us the following meanings for the Latin verb ordino: "Ordino, are, avi, atum — (1) to order, to set in order, to arrange, to adjust,to dispose, (2) to ordain, . . . "

Since the Pope uses the subjunctive mood to express a contingency or uncertainty,not a fact, the translation should read:


For, even though they may be disposed toward (or ordained toward) the mystic Body of
the Redeemer by a certain unknowing desire and resolution,. . .


In other words, the only thing this "certain unknowing desire and resolution" (inscioquodam desiderio ac voto) may be doing for these non-Catholics is setting them in order for entrance into, or return to, the Church.

In no way does the Pope say, as fact, that they are "related" to the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, much less "united" to It.

Xavier, Our Lord said, in no uncertain terms, "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God".

I don't understand why you do not believe Him. I don't understand why you are not content as you're supposed to be, that because He made the requirement, He will provide the sacrament to all who sincerely desire it - using the very same Providence He used for you and me and all the sacramentally baptized till the end of the world. 

After knowing that God made the sacrament a requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God, consider that God is displeased with you for saying over and over - and over and over - and over and over and over that the sacrament is not a requirement. For the good of your soul, please seriously consider this.