Why is this topic discussed ad nauseum? What difference does it make in your own life with God?
Are you a theologian? Are you an ordinary minister of baptism (ie, a priest)? Why do people get so hung up on this topic that absolutely nothing else defines whether one is Catholic or not except whether or not they believe in baptism of desire?
I'm genuinely asking... as a priest, it boggles my mind at the obsession with this topic amongst a certain subculture of trads..
It does fatigue one, yet it is important to some of us who adhere to the dogma EENS, because a BOD reduces the thrice defined dogma to an altogether meaningless formula.
There is a compelling argument there.
Think about this little snip from Fr. Feeney regarding a dead presumed recipient of a BOD.....
"Were he to be revivified immediately after death – were he to come to life again – he would not be allowed to receive Holy Eucharist or any of the other Sacraments until he was baptized by water. Now, if he can get into the Church Triumphant without Baptism of Water, it is strange that he cannot get into the Church Militant without it."And there's the "unforeseen accidental death".......
Catholics who are faithful to the teachings of Holy Mother the Church embrace the fact that
"there is no one about to die in the state of justification whom God cannot secure Baptism for, and indeed, Baptism of Water. The schemes concerning salvation, I leave to the sceptics. The clear truths of salvation, I am preaching to you." - as Fr. Feeney so eloquently states it.