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CHAPTER X.


On the increase of Justification received.


Having, therefore, been thus justified, and made the friends and domestics of God, advancing from virtue to virtue, they are renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day; that is, by mortifying the members of their own flesh, and by presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, they, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified, as it is written; He that is just, let him be justified still; and again, Be not afraid to be justified even to death; and also, Do you see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. And this increase of justification holy Church begs, when she prays, “Give unto us, O Lord, increase of faith, hope, and charity.


CANON XXIV.-If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.

"Father Feeney was of the theological opinion that the sacrament of Baptism is provided by God’s providence for all the elect since promulgation of the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood.

. . .

Father Feeney held, as a matter of theological opinion, that those whose names are written in the Book of Life will die with the sacrament. That is to say, all of the elect who die in the Christian dispensation (since Pentecost) will depart this life having first received the sacrament of Baptism. In the words of Saint Augustine: “Perish the thought that a person predestined to eternal life could be allowed to end this life without the sacrament of the mediator.”


https://catholicism.org/my-preface-to-father-leonard-feeneys-bread-of-life.html

So LEF's thesis is that if one perseveres in grace, God will provide baptism before death. God can do that, after all. IAAD proposes a hypothesis: what if someone dies without baptism immediately after being justified? But it is precisely LEF's position that God will not allow that to happen. Where is the lack of logic in that position? It can't be refuted by a contrary hypothesis; hypothesis A excludes hypothesis B; the objection is a wash. Do I agree with LEF's position? I do not, any more than IAAD. But this position has nothing whatever to do with the proposition of Baius.

It should be noted that the LEF thesis has never been condemned ex cathedra (infallibly). It is disproved by the constant teaching of the Church. It is a question of contingent facts and of the free operation of Divine Power; namely, that God has actually permitted some justified persons to die without baptism, and yet be saved. THAT is clear from tradition, not from any a priori argument. At any rate, LEF's position is wrong, it can and should be condemned, I think, but in fact, it has not been. Formally, it possibly remains in the realm of arguable, but wrong, opinions, just like the innovatory and laxist implicit denial of Extra Ecclesiam by certain theologians, originating with the Spanish Dominican school of the 16th century, before the Council of Trent. Should both these opinions, the latter long tolerated (like Gallicanism and the Dominican opposition to the Immaculate Conception), be condemned? I think so, I hope so, I pray so, but that will be up to a future (valid) Pope.

In contrast to LEF's erroneous opinion, which did not even enter into his suppression, you have the archbishop of Boston and various priests openly and explicitly denying a defined dogma of the Faith, something as to which IAAD continues to keep a perfect silence. I wonder why.

It's another source of cheap amusement (nothing to with this blog, maybe) that even Wikipedia gets my point exactly right: LEF was persecuted (my word, of course) for his preaching No Salvation Outside the Church. I invite all to read it. There are, of course, points in the article that I would take issue with, but on several of the facts it's surprisingly (to me) accurate. No, I didn't ghost-write it or edit it either. Most amusing of all, a Jєωιѕн publication (The Jєωιѕн Week) gets it right too: "Richard Cardinal Cushing excommunicated a priest, Leonard Feeney, in 1953, for preaching that all non-Catholics would go to Hell." (This, by the way, is our moderator's expressed position as well, so why not admit that LEF was right on this point? Would that somehow weaken his, IAAD's, own position somehow?)

As a sad postscript to this affair, a writer in a leading American Catholic magazine a few years later (I think Commonweal, but perhaps it was America magazine), a layman if that improves things, actually referred to the dogma Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, a truth for which our Divine Savior poured out His Blood to bring to us, as "this medieval nonsense." Well, words fail.

The moderator has wondered just what I have been getting at. My aim is simply the truth, no matter which side it falls on. Only God's side is all truth. St. Augustine said, in regard to the Donatists (an early schismatic group), and the principle is of general application: to heal what is diseased, and not to harm what is healthy. A doctor of the soul acts no differently from a doctor of the body. There is a terrible scandal in mixing up in one immoderate attack not only on LEF, but on the Dimonds and similar "Feeneyites," what they get wrong, what they get right, and what is debatable. St. Augustine also said, "In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity." (necessary things=dogmas; doubtful things=opinions not yet determined)

A.M.D.G.

https://introiboadaltaredei2.blogspot.com/2023/11/gen-z-feeneyites.html

In answer to our third question, therefore, we shall say that, according to the majority of the Fathers and Doctors, baptism of the Holy Spirit, without the actual reception of Baptism of water, can be sufficient for salvation if the following five conditions are fulfilled:


First, that person must have the Catholic Faith. (We have already proved that no one can be saved without the Catholic Faith, and that not even the Sacrament of Baptism can be profitable for salvation if the subject who receives it does not confess the Catholic Faith.)


Second, he must have an explicit will or desire to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. For example, St. Bernard says that he must have an “entire yearning for the sacrament of Jesus.”


Third, he must have perfect charity. For St. Robert Bellarmine says that only “perfect conversion can be called baptism of the Spirit, and this includes true contrition and charity. ” 87 St. Augustine says that he must have “faith and conversion of the heart. ” 88 St. Thomas says that, as in the case of the Sacrament of Penance, so also in the Sacrament of Baptism, if sanctifying grace is to be received previous to the Sacrament, a perfect act of charity is necessary, for “if an adult is not perfectly disposed before baptism to obtain remission of his sins, he obtains this remission by the power of baptism, in the very act of being baptized. ” 89 St. Bernard says that “right faith, God-fearing hope, and sincere charity” must be present. 90


Fourth, he must have an explicit will to join the Catholic Church , — for, as we have shown, not even actual Baptism is profitable for salvation if it is received outside the Catholic Church (except for babies) and without an explicit will to join the Church. Much less, therefore, does baptism in voto profit for salvation if it does not include an explicit will to join the Catholic Church.


Fifth, he must be dying and, although yearning for the Baptism of Water, is unable to receive it because of an absolute impossibility, not because of a contempt for it. Thus, St. Augustine says that baptism of the Spirit, or perfect conversion to God, “may indeed be found when Baptism has not yet been received, but never when it has been despised. For it should never in any way be called a conversion of the heart to God when the sacrament of God has been despised. ” 91 In the same way St. Bernard says that, since the time of the promulgation of the Gospel, “whoever refuses now to be baptized, after the remedy of baptism has been made accessible to all everywhere, adds of his own accord a sin of pride to the general original stain, carrying within himself a double cause of the most just damnation, if he happens to leave the body in the same state.” 92 Also, St. Thomas says, “It is necessary, in order that a man might enter into the kingdom of God, that he approach the baptism of water actually (in re), as it is in all those who are baptized; or in voto, as it is in the martyrs and the catechumens who were hindered by death before they could fulfill their intent (votum); or in figure, as in the ancient Fathers,” — that is, in those before Christ. 93


Now that we have shown in what sense a person who has the desire for baptism can be saved, let us enumerate again Father Donnelly’s three doctrines which we listed at the beginning of Part III, namely, (1) that a person can be said to have desire for Baptism while being totally ignorant of the Catholic Faith and ignorant of the Baptism of water; (2) that a person can be said to have a desire for Baptism while knowing the Catholic Church and the Catholic Faith and refusing both; (3) that a person can be said to have a desire for Baptism while knowing the Baptism of water and refusing it. From the evidence we have presented, it must be clear that these doctrines are erroneous and cannot be held.


https://catholicism.org/rptal-part3.html

"It is evident, both from Bellarmine and Billuart, that no one can be saved unless he belongs to the visible communion of the Church, either actually or virtually, and also that the salvation of catechumens can be asserted only because they do so belong; that is, because they are in the vestibule, for the purpose of entering, – have already entered in their will and proximate disposition. St. Thomas teaches with regard to these, in case they have faith working by love, that all they lack is the reception of the visible sacrament in re; but if they are prevented by death from receiving it in re before the Church is ready to administer it, that God supplies the defect, accepts the will for the deed, and reputes them to be baptized. If the defect is supplied, and God reputes them to be baptized, they are so in effect, have in effect received the visible sacrament, are truly members of the external communion of the Church, and therefore are saved in it, not out of it (Summa, 3, Q.68, a.2, corp. ad 2. Et ad 3.)… …Bellarmine, Billuart, Perrone, etc., in speaking of persons as belonging to the soul and not to the body, mean, it is evident, not persons who in no sense belong to the body, but simply those who, though they in effect belong to it, do not belong to it in the full and strict sense of the word, because they have not received the visible sacrament in re. All they teach is simply that persons may be saved who have not received the visible sacrament in re; but they by no means teach that persons can be saved without having received the visible sacrament at all. There is no difference between their view and ours, for we have never contended for anything more than this; only we think, that, in these times especially, when the tendency is to depreciate the external, it is more proper to speak of them simply as belonging to the soul, for the fact the most important to be insisted on is, not that it is impossible to be saved without receiving the visible sacrament in re, but that it is impossible to be saved without receiving the visible sacrament at least in voto et proxima dispositione."

. . .

The apparent exception alleged turns out, therefore, to be no real exception at all; for the persons excepted are still members of the body of the Church in effect, as the authorities referred to labor to prove. They are persons who have renounced their infidel and heretical societies, and have found and explicitly recognized the Church. Their approach to the Church is explicit, not constructive, to be inferred only from a certain vague and indefinite longing for truth and unity in general, predicable in fact, we should suppose, of nearly all men; for no man ever clings to falsehood and division, believing them to be such. Their desire for truth and unity is explicit. Their faith is the Catholic faith; the unity they will is Catholic unity ; the Church at whose door they knock is the Catholic Church; the sacrament they solicit, they solicit from the hands of her legitimate priest. They are in effect Catholics, and though not re et proprie in the Church, nobody ever dreams of so understanding the article, out of the Church no one can be saved, as to exclude them from salvation. These being in effect members of the external communion, the distinction between the soul and the body of the Church does not at all affect the assumption of the Brothers Walenburch, "out of external communion with the true Church of Jesus Christ there is no salvation. "

Brownson, Orestes. “The Great Question.” Brownson’s Quarterly Review. Oct. 1847. Found in: Brownson, Henry F. The Works of Orestes A. Brownson: Collected and Arranged. Vol.V. (pp.562-563). Detroit: Thorndike Nourse, Publisher, 1884.