CathInfo.com

See, both the Dimonds and the author of that article on catholicism.org about St. Augustine retracting bod, assert that there's a perplexing contradiction in St. Ambrose's oration on Valentinian.

But that's only due to their failure to understand that the Church Fathers clearly distinguish between the different effects of the Sacrament of Baptism, and that St. Ambrose held that they can be "washed" (remission of sins) ... we see that term throughout the quotes above ... but not "crowned".  That's why St. Ambrose elsewhere teaches that even virtuous catechumens cannot be saved, enter the Kingdom, without the Sacrament.  He's not in contradiction, but merely distinguishing the different effects of the Sacrament ... as nearly all the Church Fathers clearly do above here.

This distinction is the foundation for what I refer to in the thread title as Ladislausian soteriology.  It's kind of a middle ground that reconciles the apparent contradictions.  That there can possibly be a bod that leads to some remission of sin, concedo; that there can possibly be a bod that leads to salvation, the Kingdom, and the Beatific Vision, nego.  With regard to bob, it's possible that even they are not crowned, as St. Ambrose holds, or else I leave open the possibility that the angels could pronounce the form and render it the Sacrament ... except that Trent taught that natural water is the only proper matter for the Sacrament ... so that seems to end bod as a Sacrament speculation, and rule in favor of St. Ambrose, that they do NOT receive the Sacrament.

That is why Pope St. Simplicius taught clearly that each and every one who dies without the Sacrament even while desiring it would forfeit the "KINGDOM" ... even exactly as St. John Chrysostom taught.

It's mind-numbingly clear and puts a nail in the coffin of salvation by bod.

Lad,

If you postulate the remission of sins can be obtained by catechumens prior to the reception of the sacrament of baptism, and being that the remission of sins is not possible outside the Church, how can you not thereby include such justified souls in the bosom of the Church?

1) remission of sins by a non-member    ≠      remission of sins OUTSIDE the Church

2) remission of sins by a non-member    =   remission of sins INSIDE the Church

3) remission of sins by a non-member    ≠      INSIDE the Church of the Faithful without being one of the FAITHFUL


If 1 and 2 are true, how can number 3 not be false?

Some of the Fathers referred to baptized martyrs as having received a baptism of blood.

So, if you recall, Baptism consists of two aspects:

1) the cleansing of sins

AND

2) the entry into the Beatific Vision

So what if everyone is kind of right?

What if a Baptism of Blood effects #1 above (the cleansing of sins) but does not bring about #2.  In that case, it can said to supply SOME of the grace of Baptism, but not all, and could loosely be called a Baptism.

What if a Baptism of Desire could effect some (or perhaps all) of #1 as well.  I believe this is what St. Ambrose was saying of Valentinian, that his piety and his desire could also obtain some of this washing.

Pope Boniface VIII - 1302
Unam Sanctam
One God, One Faith, One Spiritual Authority
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/bon08/b8unam.htm

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,‘ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.

https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/one-universal-church-of-the-faithful/msg744342/#msg744342

Monsignor Fenton wrote a paper where he admitted that the term "faithful" refers only to the baptized and positively excludes catechumens.

So how then did he get around the dogmatic teaching that there's no salvation outside the Church OF THE FAITHFUL?

He claims that one can be INSIDE the Church of the Faithful without being one of the FAITHFUL.

I call this undigested hamburger ecclesiology.  Just as a hamburger enters the body but is not actually part of the body.  It's like a foreign substance in the body, a parasite that goes along for the ride to heaven.

That's how ridiculous this has become.

That is why the Church has to define EENS over and over again.  So now the Church will have to be more specific to condemn the Fentonian "interpretation" of No Salvation Outside the Church of the FAITHFUL.

This particular dogmatic definition comes THE closest to rendering BoD, BoD in the sense of SALVATION (vs. justification) heretical.  On that other thread I started about "Ladislausian soteriology" I explained that St. Amborse, for instance, believed that there's a BoD of justification vs. salvation.  Even that article from St. Benedict Center and the Dimonds feel that St. Ambrose is contradicting himself.  He's not.  He's distinguishing between justification "washing" and salvation.