In another thread someone asked; What happens to a person who is improperly baptized as an infant by a Novus Ordo priests, baptized i the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and they live their whole life as real Catholics receiving all the sacraments, and they die with no mortal sins.?
Well:
What happens to an validly baptized infant who commits a mortal sin in his first day of his age of reason and immediately dies?
What happens to a practicing Catholic who marries in the Church and gets an invalid annulment in the Novus Ordo and marries again in the Church and dies while still married to the second person?
What happens to an infant who dies on the way to be baptized?
What happens to an infant who is aborted and is baptized one second after his soul has departed from his body?
I could go on and on with such borderline examples.
All of the above examples are all in the realm of speculation, and one can speculate forever on them based on this and that (theologian, saint, personal opinion...) and that is exactly what is going on here on CI with the incessant posters on CI. It is all speculation.
All we know for sure is dogma and this is all the certainty we have. We who believe that dogma is the final word on a matter of dispute, we answer questions like this from the point of view of dogma. We, at least I, am not interested in speculation, speculation is the theologians playground, it is not THE final answer. It is the theologians playground, that is where they play. Without speculative questions, borderline cases like this, the theologians would be out of a job and these borderline cases are innumerable.
Today, regarding the salvation of these speculative borderline cases, the list has been expanded to the point that the question is asked: What happens to a person who does not believe in Christ and the Holy Trinity, does not want to be a Catholic, considers the Catholic Church a creation of Satan, but lives a religious life in his religion according to his conscience? The answer that the theologians come up with is that they will be saved by their belief in a rewarder God.
This is where we are today.