Unless, you are prepared to call St. Amrose, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine heretics?
St. Augustine, 391: “When we shall have come into His [God’s] sight, we shall behold the equity of God’s justice. Then no one will say:… ‘Why was this man led by God’s direction to be baptized, while that man, though he lived properly as a catechumen, was killed in a sudden disaster, and was not baptized?’ Look for rewards, and you will find nothing except punishments.”
St. Augustine: “However much progress the catechumen should make,
he still carries the load of his iniquity: nor is it removed from him unless he comes to Baptism.”
St. Augustine: “If you wish to be a Catholic, do not venture to believe, to say, or to teach that ‘
they whom the Lord has predestinated for baptism can be snatched away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined.’ There is in such a dogma more power than I can tell assigned to chances in opposition to the power of God, by the occurrence of which casualties that which He has predestinated is not permitted to come to pass.
It is hardly necessary to spend time or earnest words in cautioning the man who takes up with this error against the absolute vortex of confusion into which it will absorb him, when I shall sufficiently meet the case if I briefly warn the prudent man who is ready to receive correction against the threatening mischief.” (On the Soul and Its Origin 3, 13)
St. Ambrose, De mysteriis, 390-391 A.D.:
“You have read, therefore, that the three witnesses in Baptism are one: water, blood, and the spirit; and if you withdraw any one of these, the Sacrament of Baptism is not valid. For what is water without the cross of Christ? A common element without any sacramental effect. Nor on the other hand is there any mystery of regeneration without water: for ‘unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’ [John 3:5]
Even a catechumen believes in the cross of the Lord Jesus, by which also he is signed; but, unless he be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive the remission of sins nor be recipient of the gift of spiritual grace.”
St. Ambrose, The Duties of Clergy, 391 A.D.:
“The Church was redeemed at the price of Christ’s blood. Jew or Greek, it makes no difference; but if he has believed he must circuмcise himself from his sins so that he can be saved;...
for no one ascends into the kingdom of heaven except through the Sacrament of Baptism.” St. Ambrose, The Duties of Clergy, 391 A.D.:
“Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’
No one excepted: not the infant, not the one prevented by some necessity.”