But see those who are opening the door to the possibility of that One Catechumen supposedly dying without the Sacrament of Baptism (but still obtaining Salvation) this would then lead automatically to the idea that anyone could potentially skip past the Visible Sacrament, because there’s an invisible option available too.
Not necessarily. I think that this opinion that you articulated is the reason that the Dimond brothers have gone to the extreme of rejecting BoD as heretical. In point of fact, several canonized Doctors of the Church believed in BoD for those who had EXPLICIT Catholic faith, and some like St. Robert Bellarmine further restricted it to formal catechumens only. So it is not true that in their case they believed it could automatically apply to "anyone". Until some Jesuits started dabbling with ways to undermine EENS in the 16th century, the notion of BoD was almost universally understood to apply only to FORMAL CATECHUMENS. At worst, it applied to those who explicitly held the Catholic faith, and the only thing missing for them to be fully Catholic was the Sacrament itself, i.e. they had all the dispositions listed by Trent as required for justification through Baptism.
But with a couple layers of "implicit" this and "implicit" that, presto chango, and you have BoD basically applying to cannibalistic animists who practice human sacrifice in the jungle. I believe that St. Alphonsus fell a bit victim to the "implicit" garbage himself, giving it more credibility than it ever deserved.
But we have to be careful and not overreact, basically declaring these Doctors of the Church to be heretics, as the Dimonds basically do in so many words, and declaring even those who believe in BoD for catechumens only to be heretics. Since the Church has CLEARLY tolerated and at times perhaps even slightly favored the opinion, it would be schismatic to declare those who hold it to be outside the Church. Recall that there can be schism not only in refusing communion with the Pope, but also in refusing communion with others whom the Church considers Catholic. So the Dimonds make a grave error here, but most Feeneyites do not. So that is the grounds on which I objected to Papa Pius' OP.
Notice, I say that Church tolerated and may arguably have even slightly favored this opinion at times, but it has NEVER BEEN TAUGHT Magisterially. Nor CAN the Church define such a thing, because there's ZERO EVIDENCE that it was revealed. There are three ways in which something can be know as having been revealed.
1) explicitly in Sacred Scripture -- there's nothing there in Scripture (quite the contrary)
2) universally held as a matter of faith by the Fathers -- we had only one Father tentatively hold it, for a time, whereas 5 or 6 explicitly rejected it, and the rest are silent on the matter. So it fails this test. Note: some proponents of BoD (like Fr. Laisney and Fr. Pfeiffer) openly LIE and claim that BoD was held unanimously by the Church Fathers. Even Karl "αnσnymσus Christian" Rahner, who would have loved nothing more than to find evidence for BoD in the fathers, lamented that not only is there no "domatic consensus" in favor of BoD among the Church Fathers, but the evidence suggests that they rejected it entirely. For all his faults, Rahner at least tried to be intellectually honest, unlike many proponents of BoD.
3) it implicitly and necessarily derives from other revealed truths -- another fail for BoD, since no one has ever produced a syllogism that does this. 90% of the argument in its favor derive from the St. Robert Bellarmine "reasoning" of "it would seem too harsh" (a very mistaken theological pseudo-argument from St. Robert).
So St. Alphonsus made a very serious error in declaring BoD to be
de fide.
For those who claim that the Church defined this at Trent, produce immєdιαtely from the Magisterium a theological definition of BoD. If we are required to believe something "of faith" then we must have been told by the Church WHAT we must believe about it. Otherwise, we're merely paying lip service to some vague concept of BoD, and BoD reduces to the proposition that "the Sacrament of Baptism if NOT necessary for salvation," ... and we know that to be heretical. At best, Trent mentioned it in passing, saying that the desire for Baptism was necessary in order to be justified by it. It never taught that the desire could be a SUBSTITUTE for receiving the Sacrament. BoDers pretend that this passing reference is tantamount to there being a Canon in Trent declaring: "If anyone does not believe that the desire for Baptism suffices for justification on its own without the actual reception of the Sacrament, let him be anathema." That's preposterous. But there IS a CANON that rejects the notion that the Sacrament can justify without the desire to receive it ... hmmm ... which is precisely all Trent is saying in this infamous passage. Yes, St. Alphonsus, who interpreted it otherwise, got this wrong. I have a great reverence for St. Alphonsus, but he was not God, and I have no problem calling him out for this mistake. In fact, being the great saint that he is, he is probably thanking me right now for doing so and helping to neutralize what he now knows to be an error. Theologians have gone through and found several DOZEN errors in the works of St. Thomas. These men, while great Doctors, were not God, and could make mistakes, and often disagreed fiercely with one another. BoDers pretend that by citing St. Thomas the case is magically closed ... but then they conveniently ignore St. Thomas when he teaches that explicit faith in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are necessary for salvation.
At best, one could argue that BoD is OBJECTIVELY heretical, but never that those who hold it can be formal heretics. So, for instance, the opinion of St. Thomas regarding the Immaculate Conception was objectively heretical, but since it hadn't been defined yet by the Church he was clearly not a heretic for holding it. Similarly, even if you hold BoD to be heretical, since the Church has not defined it to be heretical, we can't declare those who believe in it to be outside the Church.
Now, much more clearly heretical is the notion of "implicit faith" being salvific. There's a huge amount of evidence that this was rejected universally by the Church for the first 1600 years. But even these I cannot hold to be formal heretics, since the Church ... tragically ... allowed this opinion to be taught for some time. That was a terrible mistake (along with the Church not weighing in against Molinism ... a related problem) ... but this was allowed by God as the root of this time of trial that we live in now. Vatican II could never have happened had the Church rejected implicit faith theory right out of the gate. Now, while I don't hold the proponents of this theory to be formal heretics, I do hold them to be objectively heretical and objectively harming and damaging the faith, and I will fight them tooth and nail until the Church condemns their errors once and for all.
Nevetheless, if I were a priest, for instance, I would not withhold the Sacraments from those who held this garbage, since it would not be my prerogative to do so. That power lies only with the Church.