I have gotten into a sane conversation with Pax Vobis and even Stubborn today. I am very pleased about it. You also are capable of posting two or three times in a row without hurling insults. But I wonder about many who believe in no salvation apart from water and how they square it with the teachings of all the authorized theologians, Fathers, Saints, Doctors and Popes who teach to the contrary. They cannot do it. Some pretend they did not say what they said. Others resort to the whole they are not infallible deal as if them all agreeing that Original Sin can be cleansed apart from water is something we can simply reject. The absurdity of such claims is obvious. They quote a bunch of infallible statements but do no theology. It’s the height of irony, in regards to the above mentioned authorities, that they have no trust at all in the very Church outside of which they insist there is no salvation! Listening to them, you’d think there is no salvation INSIDE the Church! Based upon this rejection of all these authorities who agree, one and all, that Original Sin can be cleansed apart from water, one gets the impression that they ultimately have no Faith at all, many of them. They just adhere to a bunch of propositions behind which there is no reality. It’s just words and they adhere to the words. The reason why there is no salvation outside the Church is that the Church is the Ark of Salvation. But listening to the Feeneyites, and their aversion to the theologians, Fathers, Saints, Doctors, Trent and Popes, it seems the Ark of Salvation — outside of a few rare infallible pronouncements — is nothing but a bunch of faith-destroying dimwits who lead people to hell.
That is the impression I get with some who reject the possibility of salvation apart from water and simply quote dogma they get from the untrained lay boys in New York without understanding what the Dogmas and what the Church teaches in regards to the Dogmas, and how to understand them in regards to different individuals and circuмstances. How EENS does not contradict BOD, again unless the theologians, Fathers, Saints Doctors and Popes who disagree with the 21st century lay Feeneyites are just a bunch of professional dingbats. And this is rather scandalizing to those who want to be good Catholics and learn from the Church and accept the authoritative and infallible teachings of the Church.