The Magisterium of the Church
In order to understand Baptism of Desire and Blood, Catholics must first understand what the Magisterium of the Church is, which is defined as "
the Church's divinely appointed authority to teach the truths of religion". In other words, Our Lord gave His Church the authority to teach the faithful about what is expected of them. The Magisterium of Catholic Church teaches the faithful in
two ways;
1. Solemn Magisterium: Defined as Church teaching “
which is exercised only rarely by formal and authentic definitions of councils or Popes. Its matter comprises dogmatic definitions of ecuмenical councils or Popes teaching "ex cathedra." (Definition from “A Catholic Dictionary”, 1951)
Examples of the Solemn Magisterium would be decisions of any General Councils of the Church, or certain papal encyclicals, such as that defining the Dogma of the Assumption in 1950. Note that it is only in extraordinary circuмstances that the Catholic Church teaches in this manner, which historically has been to combat heresy. For this reason it is sometimes referred to as the “extraordinary magisterium”. For examples of the Solemn Magisterium, here is a list of all solemn teaching during the first 7 centuries of the Catholic Church:
· Council of Nicaea I (325): condemned the heresy of Arius, and defined the Divinity of the Son of God and the Nicene Creed.
· Council of Constantinople I (381): condemned the heresy of Macedonius, and defined the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, confirmed and extended the Nicene Creed.
· Council of Ephesus (431): condemned the heresy of Nestorius, and defined that there was one person in Christ, and defended the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
· Council of Chalcedon (451): condemned the heresy of Eutyches (Monophysitism); declared Christ had two natures, human and divine.
· Council of Constantinople II (553): condemned, as savoring of Nestorianism, the so-called Three Chapters, the erroneous books of Theodore of Mopsuestia and the teaching of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa.
· Council of Constantinople III (680-681): declared against the Monothelites, who taught one will in Christ, by defining that Christ had two wills, human and divine.
Here we can clearly see that in the first 7 centuries of the Church, the Solemn Magisterium was not used often, and very little was solemnly defined. So at least 7 generations of Catholics lived and died during this time with very little solemn teaching by the Church. This is because the majority of what Catholics believe comes from the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church (see next).