Captain,
No one is trying to end run EENS. Baptism of Desire is also a dogma of the Faith and must equally be believed.
Except that now the modernists want to make membership in the Church, something vague, abstract, and invisible. Typical liberal modernist mindset where there is no absolute truths but everything is relative. As a result, those in false religions can also be saved! An absurdity that is in direct opposition to what it has been infallibly defined throughout the centuries: The Catholic dogma of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.
THE INFALLIBLE DOGMA OF EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS"There is only one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved." (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215)
"We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." (Pope Boniface VIII, in the bull, Unam Sanctam, 1302)
"The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and teaches, that none of those who are not within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but Jєωs, heretics and schismatics, can ever be partakers of eternal life, but are to go into the eternal fire 'prepared for the devil, and his angels' (Mt. 25:41)., unless before the close of their lives they shall have entered into that Church; also that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is such that the Church's sacraments avail only those abiding in that Church, and that fasts, almsdeeds, and other works of piety which play their part in the Christian combat are in her alone productive of eternal rewards; moreover, that no one, no matter what alms he may have given, not even if he were to shed his blood for Christ's sake, can be saved unless he abide in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church." (Mansi, Concilia, xxxi, 1739; Pope Eugene IV, in the bull, Cantate Domino, 1441). The implications of these pronouncements, taken together, are as follows:
1. All three of these statements are ex cathedra definitions of the Church and of the Pontiffs who made them. (
Ex cathedra means that these are infallible teachings of the Church which all persons must believe in order to be saved. These teachings are not subject to change as the popes in making these declarations of faith were guided by the Holy Ghost, Who is unchangeable.)
2. Let the reader accept the reasonable fact that the Pontiffs who pronounced these decrees were perfectly literate and fully cognizant of what they were saying. If there were any need to soften or qualify their meanings, they were quite capable of doing so. They were not regarded as heretics or fanatics at the time of their pronouncements, and have never been labeled such by the Church to this very day. It is an easy thing for the people of this "enlightened" age to fall into the modern delusion that the men of former times, especially those of the Middle Ages, were not as bright as we are, so that they sometimes said they know not what.
3. Since the aforementioned formula (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus) is a doctrine of Catholicity, it is the standard of orthodoxy on the subject of salvation; which is to say, all writers, whether they be saints and/or Doctors, of old or of late, all popes and theologians, of whatever era, and their pronouncements are reliable in their treatment of this subject, if they accept and support it. Their testimony or opinions are useless (at best), if they do not, this regardless of any other contribution they may have made to Catholic erudition. The same must be said of the works of all Catholic writers.
4. Such a dogmatic statement is not to be colored, or reduced, or altered, by reference to the Sacred Scriptures. On the contrary, it is in terms of such a statement that all the Scriptures are to be read and understood.
5.
The doctrine determines who has good will and who has bad will. Those who have bad will are in the state of sin. In rejecting God's accredited word and work, they reveal their true selves: They choose not to be among those of whom Christ spoke when he said: "I know mine, and mine know me." (Jn. 10:14). When it is responded that certain individuals do not know that what they are hearing is God's word, the reply is: What is being said demands that careful inquiry be made. If the inquiry is made with the disposition of humility, integrity, and courage, the inquirer will find that the word cannot be denied. No argument or evidence has ever been discovered which will leave the honest man free of the revealed word's imperative.
6. It is important that the reader who thinks he disagrees with the literal reading of these decrees not throw his hands up in indignation and put this paper aside. It should be obvious that the reason Catholics regard heresy with such horror and alarm is this very doctrine.
For if there is salvation outside the Church, what difference does it make whether one is in the Church or out of It, whether one is a heretic in the judgment of the Church or not? Really, if to deny this doctrine is not heresy, there is no such thing as heresy, and it would have been pointless, as well as illogical, for the Church to attach such severe censures to the denial of this or any other doctrine. 7.
This dogma rules out the possibility of simple invincible ignorance concerning the matter of salvation; those who die in ignorance of the Church as the only course of salvific grace must be adjudged to have been culpably so. In a word, they did not know because they did not want to know. From
http://www.olrl.org/doctrine/execnusa.shtml