In my LONG experience with defenders of baptism of desire, I have come to the conclusion that I can safely say that 99% of those that defend BOD are really defending their belief that people in any and all religions can be saved without any real desire to be baptized or to be a Catholic, and without belief in the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity.

Finally some of these misguided people attempt to persuade themselves and others that men are not saved only in the Catholic religion, but that even heretics may attain eternal life.

Not without it and not without desire for it. You should not fall for bad translations.

Nonsense:

1) The entire praxis of the Church, particularly in Her missionary apostolates testifies to the contrary (e.g., in the oft-cited example of Archbishop Lefebvre to the catechumen who feared going to hell if he dies before the Archbishop returned).  Lefebvre did not make up his response out of thin air.  It is what the Church has been practicing in the field for 2000 years.

2) You would also negate the dogmatic teaching of Trent (in voto) and the very reality of baptism of desire, which practically every saint and council to discuss the matter has reaffirmed (or was Trent in error, and the unanimity of theologians in error, and all the popes who taught baptism of desire in their magisterial capacity in error, etc?).

He's not a member of the Church, but he would be justified by implicit baptism of desire (i.e., to become a member of the Church).

You are attacking the council you think you are defending.

In other words, God considers those who but know Him imperfectly, through no fault of their own, but who desire to do all they understand to be their obligations, and would certainly have offered to pay for gas had they had the chance to do so, "hijackers?"

By this line of thinking, you degrade God to the level of a Pharisee, who rewards and punishes on technicalities (hope you haven't made any mistakes in confession, and that the priest who you think baptized did so with proper form, matter, intent, and Orders).

Implicitly, you are forwarding some kind of theory of predestination ("If God wanted them in Heaven, he would have sent a priest to baptize them").

There was a woman who had died, and thinking that she had lived a good life, she was rather surprised to find herself in hell. She pleaded with her guardian angel to look into this matter, as there must have been a serious mistake, and get her out of hell. He asked her if she had done anything good in life. She thought and thought. Finally, she said that she had once given a huge fresh onion from her garden to a beggar so that he could make some onion soup.

Guardian Angel - Is this that onion?

Woman - Why, yes. That is the one.

Guardian Angel - Here, hold onto the onion and I will pull you out of Hell.

The woman grabs onto the onion, but others see that she is trying to escape. These would be hijackers quickly grab her legs weighing her down, pulling her down, down, down, towards the fiery pit. Drenched with sweat, she pleads with her Guardian Angel to take her up faster.  She appears to be gaining speed, only to be slowed down as others grab onto the few hijackers forming a huge pyramid underneath her.  She pleads with them to take their hands off her to no avail.

Then in utter desperation, she exclaims loudly:

Let go, it's MY onion.

A loud splash is heard as the woman falls back into the fiery pit with all those attached to her.

In her heart, she now knows why. Her own selfishness has condemned her to a life of hell.

When St. Thomas says, "Ipsum, (i.e. Deum) credere, to believe God," etc., he speaks of Catholics who have the true faith, as is evident from all that precedes, especially from q. i., art. 10., in which he says that it belongs especially to the Pope, whom Christ made the visible head of his Church, to see to the arrangement and publication of the symbol of faith. It is, therefore, to say the least, unwise for the Rev. A. Young to apply to himself and other material heretics what St. Thomas says only of the faith of Catholics; for he says expressly that those who have not the true faith cannot make an act of faith as it ought to be made, that is, in the manner determined by the true faith. And what St. Thomas means by "Ipsum credere, to believe God," he tells us in q. v., art. 3, in which he says: "The formal object of faith is the First Truth (that is, God himself) such as he is known from Holy Scripture and from the doctrine of the Church, which (doctrine) proceeds from the First Truth. Hence any one who does not adhere to the infallible and divine rule of faith-to the doctrine of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth as made known in the Holy Scripture, cannot have the habit of faith; but if he holds certain truths of faith, he holds them not by faith, but by some other reasons. But it is clear that he who adheres to the doctrine of the Church as to the infallible rule of belief, assents to all that the Church teaches; he, however, who chooses to believe some of those truths which the Church teaches, and to reject others, instead of adhering to the doctrine of the Church as the infallible rule of faith, adheres only to his own private will or judgment. "

Those articles of faith in which a heretic does not err, he does not believe in the same manner as a Catholic believes them; for a Catholic believes them by unhesitatingly adhering to the First Truth (as made known in Holy Scripture and in the doctrine of the Church), to do which he needs the help of the habit of faith; but a heretic does not hold certain articles of faith by this infallible rule, but only by his own choice and private judgment. He whose faith is not based upon the infallible and divine rule of faith, has no true faith at all; for he who does not believe God in the way determined by the true faith, does not believe God.

"We cannot believe absolutely a divine truth proposed for our belief unless we know that such a truth is proposed for our belief by an infallible and divine authority; it is only then that both the intellect and the will are infallibly directed to believe, and to adhere to the object of faith-God and his revealed truths-as the principle end of man, on account of which he assents to divine truths. As this infallible and divine authority is found only in the Catholic Church, it is evident that true acts of faith can be made only by him who adheres to this authority. (Sum. 22 q. ii. art. ii., ad 3; 3, 22, q. iv., art. 5.) As the Rev. A. Young, when a Protestant, did not, and could not, have this infallible and divine rule of faith, he did not, and could not, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas make acts of divine faith. If it is true, then, what he asserts, namely, "that his faith underwent no change when he became a Catholic," it must be true also that he is a peculiar kind of a Catholic.

That the Rev. A. Young, as long as he was a Protestant, could not make acts of divine faith in the manner determined by faith, is also evident from the doctrine of St. Alphonsus.

God begins the work of man's salvation, says St. Alphonsus, by working upon the soul inwardly and outwardly. God works upon the soul inwardly by inspiring it first with the thought of salvation. From the thought of salvation arises the desire of salvation. The desire of salvation prepares the soul to comply with the conditions of salvation. Now, the first condition of salvation is true, divine faith. The beginning of true faith, then, is the desire thereof, arising from the thought of salvation. The pious desire of faith, however, is not as yet formal faith; it is but the good thought of wishing to believe, which, as St. Augustine says, precedes belief.

The desire of salvation, inspired by Almighty God, must also be accomplished by him. So he also works upon the soul outwardly. The most usual means which he employs to work upon the soul outwardly and lead it to the possession of the true faith is to give it an opportunity to learn the truths of salvation from the Catholic Church. "Faith is from hearing," says St. Paul. He then enlightens the intellect of man to see the truths of salvation; he inclines the will to believe those truths as coming to him from God, through the divine authority of his Church, and to trust in God's faithfulness to his promises. He believes especially that God pardons the repentant sinner and receives him into his friendship on account of the merits of Jesus Christ. But in hearing the sacred Law promulgated he perceives that he is a sinner, and therefore fears the justice of God, which is provoked by his iniquities. Having been cast down by this salutary shock, a feeling of confidence in the infinite mercy of God presents itself and raises him up. He hopes that, in consideration of Christ's merits, God will pardon him. Animated by this hope, he begins to love. This love leads him to detest his sins, to repent of them, to repair them, as far as possible; it makes him resolve to keep the commandments, and to become reconciled with God by the means given by Him, that is, Baptism for unbaptized persons, and the sacrament of Penance for those Christians who have lost the grace of God.

Faith, therefore, to be truly divine and saving, must be based upon the divine Authority of God as invested in the Roman Catholic Church.

"Without a visible, infallible Head of the Church," says St. Alphonsus, "it would be impossible to have an infallible rule of faith, whereby to know with certainty what to believe and what to do. Hence he who is separated from the Church and is not obedient to her has no infallible rule of faith; he has no longer any criterion whereby he can know what he has to believe and to do. Without this divine authority of the Church, neither the principles of divine revelation nor even those of human reason have any support, because the utterances of the one as well as those of the other will then be interpreted by every one as he pleases; and then every one can deny all the truths of faith-The Most Holy Trinity, the Incarnation of Christ, heaven and hell, and whatever else he chooses to deny. I, therefore, repeat: If the divine authority of the Church and the obedience due to her are renounced, every error will be endorsed and must be tolerated in others. This undeniable argument made a Calvinist preacher renounce his errors." (Appendix to his work, Council of Trent.)

Hence St. Thomas, speaking of faith, says: "The virtue of faith consists principally in submitting our intellect and will, with the help of God's grace, to the divine authority of the true Church charged by Jesus Christ to teach us what we must believe. He who does not follow this rule of faith, has no true faith at all." The reason of this is given above by St. Alphonsus; for how could we, without the Church, know that God has revealed anything at all? How could we know what he has revealed? How could we know the meaning of his revelations? How could we know the written Word of God? How could we know the meaning of Holy Scripture? For Holy Scripture does not consist in the words, but in the sense of the words. How could we know the extent of the divine revelations? For the extent of the divine revelations is greater than that of Holy Scripture. So, without the divine authority of the Roman Catholic Church, we can hold no revealed truth on divine authority; if we hold any Catholic truths, we believe them only on human authority; and such belief is no divine faith. Acts of divine faith, therefore, consist in believing firmly what God tells us through the divine authority of his Church. All heretics, formal as well as material, are separated from this divine authority, and therefore even the acts of faith made by material heretics are by no means acts of divine faith, in spite of their inculpable ignorance of the divine authority of the Church.