Quote from: praesul 10/7/2022, 12:49:22 PM
Thank you for the response epiphany.
From my research I do not think that the statement that Father Feeney was excommunicated "for heresy" is supported by the official docuмents on record.
Father Feeney's excommunication is docuмented in the AAS (February 16, 1953) Vol. XXXXV, Page 100. It indicates he was excommunicated ipso facto for not appearing in front of the tribunal of the Holy Office. Thus, according to the official record, canonical penalties are being rendered for disobedience rather than for "heresy".
This is not the first time that I have encountered the assertion that Father Feeney was excommunicated "for heresy" as you posted. It seems that this assertion is part of a wider information war that was clearly (and still is) waged to sway the hearts and minds of people who are trying to seek the truth of the matter. Another fact that has impacted my perceptions on this chunk of history is that the infiltrator modernist prelates that were in charge in the Holy Office at that time broke the protocols of secrecy and leaked highly sensitive internal correspondence related to this matter with the anti-Christ secular press. Then, the secular press in a coordinated fashion used this leaked correspondence and hammered home the narrative that "the doctrine of Father Feeney" on salvation was declared heretical by the Pope. This was false, but here we are with many people in 2022 continuing to recycle this false notion.
It seems to me that the teaching that water baptism is necessary for salvation is not a creation of a Catholic priest named Leonard Feeney. It is the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ that was upheld by the Deposit of Faith.
It seems to me that it doesn't matter.
Fr. Feeney was stripped of his priestly faculties in 1949 and excommunicated in 1953 (before Vatican II). The excommunication was not lifted until 1972 (after Vatican II).
Clearly the Church says that there is more than one form of baptism.
for scriptural examples of baptism of desire, see Acts 10:44–48; cf. Luke 23:42–43 and Luke 12:50.
Likewise, in the thirteenth century, and in response to the question whether a man can be saved without baptism, Thomas Aquinas replied: “I answer that the sacrament of baptism may be wanting to someone in two ways. First, both in reality and in desire; as is the case with those who neither are baptized nor wish to be baptized; which clearly indicates contempt of the sacrament in regard to those who have the use of free will. Consequently, those to whom baptism is wanting thus cannot obtain salvation; since neither sacramentally nor mentally are they incorporated in Christ, through whom alone can salvation be obtained.
“Secondly, the sacrament of baptism may be wanting to anyone in reality but not in desire; for instance, when a man wishes to be baptized but by some ill chance he is forestalled by death before receiving baptism. And such a man can obtain salvation without being actually baptized, on account of his desire for baptism, which desire is the outcome of faith that works by charity, whereby God, whose power is not tied to the visible sacraments, sanctifies man inwardly. Hence Ambrose says of Valentinian, who died while yet a catechumen, ‘I lost him whom I was to regenerate, but he did not lose the grace he prayed for’” (Summa Theologia III:68:2, cf. III:66:11–12).
Trent also states: “Justification . . . is not merely remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man through the voluntary reception of the grace and gifts, whereby an unrighteous man becomes a righteous man, and from being an enemy [of God] becomes a friend, that he may be ‘an heir according to the hope of life everlasting’ [Titus 3:7]” (Decree on Justification7).
Also the Baltimore Catechism.
There sould be no question to one and all that baptism of blood is also a legit form of baptism.
Those who do not believe in three forms of baptism are, like Fr. Feeney, not Catholic.