Another thing comes to mind: historically, heresies tend to have a heresiarch, or sect, as one of the main disseminators of the error. In the case of BoD, there doesn't appear to be an individual or group that is responsible for disseminating the error, as you find with many of the larger heresies, such as Lutheranism or Arianism. Yet, according to the claims of "Feeneyites" and "Dimondites", this particular error is one of the most widespread in Church history.

Who is it that we can look to as the root of this error, if it is to be considered as true heresy? Given that Lad has pointed out that there are varying definitions of Baptism of Desire and Blood, there is almost an impossibility in tracking the beginning of the error to an individual or group. One could point to misunderstandings of Ss. Augustine and Ambrose; yet another the liberties taken by theologians in writing the Tridentine Catechism; or even the musings of Ss. Thomas, Alphonsus, and Bellarmine on the issue. Or do we pin it solely on the Modernists, even though it has pre-dated them by at least a century or more?

I believe getting to the root of it will help us to understand why it is to widespread today. As it is a very subtle error, to such a degree that those teaching it honestly believe it to be Catholic teaching.

Liberalism is undoubtedly at the center of this, sure, as the Archbishop states. I have my own suspicions that it may have emerged from the neo-Thomistic/scholastic movement of the 19th to 20th century. As we see this same idea of an invincible ignorance BoD emerge in the writings of Garrigou-Lagrange. And it would make sense, given that St. Thomas proposed the catechumenate variation of BoD prior to Trent, with Ss. Alphonsus and Bellarmine, both Thomists, continuing the same theory. And this includes those scholastic theologians who wrote BoB/BoD into the catechism.

Yet, as lesser philosophies, like Cartesianism and Kantianism, served to undermine Scholastic thought; this BoD theory was "buried" for a few centuries. Only to re-emerge alongside the neo-Scholastic movement in the 19th century, this time tainted with the growing religious indifferentism of the time; resulting in this new idea that the may consist of not just those in visible communion, but those outside of such, as virtually all trad clerics hold today.

I came across a quote from Fr. Faber in his Spiritual Conferences which shows that this idea was present in the mid-19th century as well:
Not to mention Pope Pius IX's reference to the error in Singulari Quidem, circa 1856; right around the same time.


What we do not have is an individual, group, or sect from which it originates before that era. Leading me to add those within the neo-Scholastics as a possible root of the widespread error today.

I very much agree. This is why I've been so bothered by this issue as of late. As it is clearly an error, and we have every obligation to correct Catholics, but no authority whatsoever to condemn them as formal heretics. Hence why I keep reiterating there being no formal condemnation from the Church in the 500 years since Trent where the theory became more widespread.

Without an explicit condemnation literally naming the errors, it seems likely that theologians will once again opine what the declaration *really* means and we'll be no further ahead than we are now.

Sess. 3, ch. 4. 14. Hence, too,that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

Has there ever been an error so widespread and uncondemned for so long?

Honestly, not that I've seen, no. Maybe an error will linger for a few decades or more before being specifically condemned by some Bishop. And that's after some wicked prelate begins disseminating it to undermine a dogma. But, in this case, it has been present for centuries alongside Catholic teaching with virtually no specific condemnation from the proper authority, namely, Rome. And it also doesn't seek to deny a dogma outright, as other heresies do, forcing an authoritative definition; but merely expounds upon one (baptism) under the realm of theological speculation. One cannot say Trent defined baptism for this purpose. As Trent was purely there as the official "reform" of the Church in answer to the Protestants.

Which is why I have to question whether it even is an error in its Thomistic/Alphonsian form. That's three doctors teaching the same thing over the course of 400 years? With no authoritative correction until some parish priest points it out in the 1940s-50s? Not even a murmur of other learned theologians on the matter from the 13th to 20th centuries? That's absolutely unheard of.

No, this is either something birthed from the neo-Scholastic movement, or, perhaps we, Fr. Feeney and the Dimonds are wrong and those teaching the possibility are right.

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.




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.

The good thing is that Vatican I specifically condemned any such interpretations of definitions.

Sess. 3, ch. 4. 14. Hence, too,that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.