Again, I understand why you would say it is an error, and I am sympathetic to that. But, as stated in the thread on Theologians, it is a fact the Church’s approves theologians, whom Pope Pius IX teaches we are to adhere to, have, since the time of Hugh of St. Victor, Chosen to admit the single exception for catechumens, and they say that this exception is made because Christ said, no less absolutely than his requirement of baptism, “Whoever confesses me I will confess before my father.”
Now if some posit an individual who professes Christ, but dies without baptism through no fault of his own, and that such a person could not be saved, do they make Christ a liar?
I am trying to work it out, because I want to be faithful to all the Church requires all around and certainly don’t want to commit any sins of temererity in confessing the truth.
But it does strike me, we cannot extend the arguments that God would go to extraordinary means to provide people with faith to baptism. This is because faith is more necessary than baptism, because the object of baptism is the grace received, which can never be received without faith. But baptism, being merely an INSTRUMENTAL cause of grace, could be set aside in favor of another instrument.