All theologians teach that publicly known heretics, that is, those who belong to a heterodox sect through public profession, or those who refuse the infallible teaching authority of the Church, are excluded from the body of the Church, even if their heresy is only material heresy.

b. Public heretics (and a fortiori, apostates) are not members of the Church.  They are not members because they separate themselves from the unity of Catholic faith and from the external profession of that faith. Obviously, therefore, they lack one of three factors—baptism, profession of the same faith, union with the hierarchy—pointed out by Pius XII as requisite for membership in the Church. The same pontiff has explicitly pointed out that, unlike other sins, heresy, schism, and apostasy automatically sever a man from the Church. "For not every sin, however grave and enormous it be, is such as to sever a man automatically from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy" (MCC 30; italics ours).
     By the term public heretics at this point we mean all who externally deny a truth (for example Mary's Divine Maternity), or several truths of divine and Catholic faith, regardless of whether the one denying does so ignorantly and innocently (a merely material heretic), or willfully and guiltily (a formal heretic). It is certain that public, formal heretics are severed from the Church membership. It is the more common opinion that public, material heretics are likewise excluded from membership. Theological reasoning for this opinion is quite strong: if public material heretics remained members of the Church, the visibility and unity of Christ's Church would perish. If these purely material heretics were considered members of the Catholic Church in the strict sense of the term, how would one ever locate the "Catholic Church"? How would the Church be one body? How would it profess one faith? Where would be its visibility? Where its unity? For these and other reasons we find it difficult to see any intrinsic probability to the opinion which would allow for public heretics, in good faith, remaining members of the Church.  

- A person has been an atheist all his life, and on his deathbed, repents and prays intensely for mercy, rejecting Satan, and asks a friend to go find a priest. The friend leaves, finds one, and returns. But it's too late. Can the person still be saved ? By his Desire to convert to Catholicism ?

- If the answer is yes, and assuming that priest was Fr Feeney, would Fr Feeney have believed the person could possibly have been saved by virtue of the desire to convert ?

So Fr Feeney took John 3:5 literally ? If yes, that, and the fact he was not required to retract his position, leaves the door open to take either position ?