From Book:
Is Feeneyism Catholic by Fr. Laisney SSPX
On page 47, Fr. Laisney quotes the dogmatic definition from the Council of
Florence:
“Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can
often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the Devil and adopted among the sons of God, it advises that Holy Baptism ought not be deferred for forty or eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people…”
A number of things are significant about Fr. Laisney’s treatment of this dogmatic definition. First is the fact that Fr. Laisney makes it a special point to note that Florence only mentioned children in this passage. He concludes that while there is no other remedy for children other than the Sacrament of Baptism, therefore there is another remedy for original sin for adults (baptism of desire). He tries to bolster this position by pointing
out that the above passage from Florence is a quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas, who (in the docuмent quoted) goes on to teach that there is another remedy for adults.
The problem for Fr. Laisney is that
the Council of Florence did not incorporate St. Thomas’s paragraph on there being another remedy for adults (Summa Theologica, Pt. III, Q. 68, A. 3), but stopped the quotation from him after stating that there is no other remedy for infants.This fact should make Fr. Laisney think. Why did the Holy Ghost only allow Pope Eugene IV and the Council of Florence to incorporate the passage from St. Thomas on infants, and not his teaching in the very next paragraph on baptism of desire?
Why didn’t God allow the Council to simply continue with the quotation only one more short paragraph, which would have made it clear once and for all that baptism of desire is a teaching of the Church? It’s obvious that the Holy Ghost wanted St. Thomas’s teaching on the Sacrament of Baptism being the only remedy for infants in the
Council, and that He did not want St. Thomas’s teaching that baptism of desire is another remedy for adults in the Council. This is why the one paragraph appears and the other does not.
So-called Baptism of desire in all of it's variants mentioned in the 1949 letter(explicit baptism of desire, implicit baptism of desire, Implicit faith for the invincible ignorant) has never once been defined in any dogmatic decree.
Curiously, whenever a dogmatic decree is coming close to even maybe mentioning it, it stops shy of ever saying that it is an alternative to the sacrament of baptism which " ‘unless we are born again of water and
the Spirit, we cannot,’ as the Truth says, ‘enter into the
kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5].
Pope Eugene IV, The Council of Florence, “Exultate Deo,” Nov.
22, 1439, ex cathedra: “Holy baptism, which is the gateway to
the spiritual life, holds the first place among all the
sacraments; through it we are made members of Christ and of
the body of the Church. And since death entered the universe
through the first man, ‘unless we are born again of water and
the Spirit, we cannot,’ as the Truth says, ‘enter into the
kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]. The matter of this sacrament is
real and natural water.”
Here's the only example at Trent that mentions this "desire", notice how it does not say that it is an alternative anywhere in in Trent, and indeed it contradicts the very thought in the same quote itself by saying “unless we are born again of water and
the Spirit, we cannot,” as the Truth says, ‘enter into the
kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]:
Council of Trent
Session VI (Jan. 13, 1547)
Decree on Justification
Chapter IV.
A description is introduced of the Justification of the impious, and of the Manner thereof under the law of grace.
By which words, a description of the Justification of the impious is indicated, as being a translation, from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God, through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour. And this translation, since the promulgation of the Gospel, cannot be effected, without the laver of regeneration, or the
desire thereof,
as it is written; unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.From the Catholic Encyclopedia 1907 by William Fanning:
"The same doctrine (baptism of desire) is taught by Pope Innocent III (cap. Debitum, iv, De Bapt.), and the contrary propositions are condemned by Popes Pius V and Gregory XII, in proscribing the 31st and 33rd propositions of Baius.
Pope Innocent III (
cap. Debitum, iv, De Bapt.), letter to the Bishop of Metz, Aug. 28, 1206:
“We respond that, since there should be a distinction between the one baptizing and the one baptized, as is clearly gathered from the words of the Lord, when he says to the Apostles: ‘Go, baptize all nations in the name etc.,” the Jew mentioned must be baptized again by another, that it may be shown that he who is baptized is one person, and he who baptizes another...If, however, such a one had died immediately, he would have rushed to his heavenly home without delay because of the faith of
the sacrament, although not because of the sacrament of faith.”
This obscure letter to a bishop has no magisterial authority whatsoever. If BOD was a doctrine, how come this is the only docuмent the author can come up with (one letter from 1206!)?
Indeed Pope Innocent III had every chance to infallible define any other exceptions to the constant tradition in the Fathers that the Gospel message of "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" is to be taken absolutely.
Yet he didn't mention any when he declared infallible:Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, Constitution 1, 1215, ex cathedra:
“There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which
nobody at all is saved, in which Jesus Christ is both priest and sacrifice.”
Topic: Why is BOD Left Out of All Dogmatic Decrees? (Read 8625 times)