http://eens123.blogspot.com/2008/12/st.html
Very interesting. Thanks for the link.
Dawn, the ONLY saint I am aware of who held to baptism of desire AFTER it was defined that water baptism is ABSOLUTELY necessary for salvation is Alphonsus.
Has it occurred to anyone that this type of thing could be allowed as a test of our faith? We know very well that the first and foremost source of Truth is God, and so we need to obey and believe the ex cathedra decrees, the dogmas above all other things.
Elizabeth, Protestant? Give me a break. There is a big difference between privately interpreting Scripture, and obeying the objective sense of ex cathedra decrees, which ARE THE FINAL INTERPRETATION of Scripture, by the highest earthly authority, the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
Dawn, what the point? Again, get serious. The point it fidelity to God and working to convert people to His true Faith, the Faith in which we are completely faithful first and foremost to His infallible Magisterium, which is spoken by Him, through the popes.
Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session 3, Chapter 4, #14: "Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding."
Pope Pius X, Lamentabile, The Errors of the Modernists, July 3, 1907, #22: "The dogmas which the Church professes as revealed are not truths fallen from heaven, but they are a kind of interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind by a laborious effort prepared for itself." - Condemned.
2 Timothy 3:16: "All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice..."
How much more so, then, the infallible decrees, which infallibly interpret Scripture for us, and as the decrees above state, are to be understood as objective truths to be believe according to how they are declared? According to their objective sense.
THIS is the Catholic Faith, and anything that runs contrary to it is a deception. Believe men or believe God, it really is THAT simple.
And these decrees are available for EVERYONE obviously. God is indeed just. He will reward those who believe Him and obey Him. Those who do not believe Him, how can they obey Him if they deny what He has commanded, by explaining it away, trying to change it as Stepanich does, or by blatantly contradicting it?