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Matthew 5:37
But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil.

John 3:5

Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Mark 16:16

He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.


What is so difficult to understand?

I knew that someone would throw this first passage out there. You're misconstruing me. (There used to be an old column in the Angelus "Si Si No No". I'm not unfamiliar with it.). You are interpreting scripture yourself to back up your own beliefs instead of listening to what the church says.

Firstly, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas expound on the meaning of Matthew 5:37. Our Lord tells the apostles that they must be perfectly honest in all their speech. If something is yes, you explain it as yes, if something is no, you explain it as no. It had to do with the taking of OATHS in the time of the Jews. Our Lord was trying to teach them that they should not take oaths because their speech should be truthful all the time. Oaths become unnecessary. Think, 8th commandment. Never telling lies, never bearing false witness. Never speaking with a forked tongue intending to deceive or bend the truth to our own whims.

Now, if you don't know the answer to something, you have to say "I dont know" and not proclaim to be the judge without the authority. Instead of saying "I swear that..!" and then making a bold statement.

Ill give an example. If someone asked you: "Is such and such (a deceased person) saved?" The answer is of course "yes" or "no" but only God knows the truth of it. I may THINK I know the answer. "I saw them die what I think was a bad death so I assume that they are damned." Very bad -we are judging the subjective person as well as the objective matter and going beyond our powers. We must say, "I saw them in such and such sins, I dont suppose they died a good death, but let's pray for them. Perhaps they made peace with God." Charity and humility need to come in there. I do not know if they are saved or damned so I must say "I dont know."

Remember that the Protestants were condemned for interpreting scripture according to their own thoughts and preaching it to others as if it were truth.

On the other question - can someone desire the true Baptism in Christ and be saved? The church says "yes", but the circuмstances matter. Not a straight yes answer applicable to every case. Who am I to say "no, no, the Church got it wrong, I have the correct answer from my armchair." You see, you need a balanced head and proper authority to judge such things. You cannot be too wishy washy nor too extreme. It's called prudence. (And yes, the pre-Vatican II church and the good councils say yes on there being BOW BOB BOD). The modern church misinterprets it to "All! al!" as they reinterpret everything in the religion of modernism. It doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater and reject it all. This is what I mean by extremism.

There are saints on the calendar from centuries ago who died because they were catechumens. They didnt make it to the font, but they died for Christ. "He that shall lose his life for me shall find it." Mt. 10-39. (I take this explanation from an 1899 catechism book. Im not interpreting the scripture for myself. Credit to an old Cathinfo post found in the library. See attached.)

So, yes, the fact that the SACRAMENT of Baptism is necessary for salvation, that's dogma.

Now, the non-heretical articulations of BoD, those which don't say stuff like how you can be saved WITHOUT the Sacrament, or that there are "substitutes" for the Sacrament ... the few non-heretical formulations you have out there, such as that of St. Robert Bellarmine where Catechumens can be saved not without the Sacrament, but, rather, receiving it "in voto".

Even in BoD, they have to claim that the Sacrament was the CAUSE of justification / salvation, the instrumental cause, as Trent teaches about it.  That's what "necessary" (by necessity of means) indicates, i.e. that there was a CAUSA SINE QUA NON (a cause without which it could not take place).

In other words, they have to say that it was the Sacrament that profitted them unto salvation ... except Florence rules this out, stating clearly that for those who are not in the BODY of the Church, the Sacraments cannot profit them unto salvation, and one does not become united to the body of the Church (i.e. in the unity of the body of the Church) until the Sacrament of Baptism.

See, this actually undercuts even Msgr. Fenton's desperation attempt to claim that those saved by BoD can be IN the Body even if they are not OF the Body.  Well, the expression "in the unity of" precludes MERELY being IN the Body (and not part of it) but requires being UNITED to it, which only happens during the Sacrament of Baptism.

Were it not for the fact that the condemnation is not explicit, and requires a bit of reasoning, Florence render BoD heretical.

We await the restoration of the Church to put the final condemnation on this error.

Now, I believe that God permitted this error to go uncondemned and to fester because ... VATICAN II COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT BOD.  Without "BoD", there's absolutely nothing that would have permitted people to circuмvent EENS dogma and to invent the new ecclesiology which is foundational to all the Vatican II errors.

But God wanted this crisis to happen as a test of faith ... and, sadly, many are failing the test, even among Trad Catholics.

Now, God will not damn those who in good faith believe the Church taught BoD, and it's not been condemned with sufficient clarity ... but Vatican II had to happen for a broader reason.

See, before Vatican II, Catholics didn't really have to exercise their faith.  They could "identify" the Church ... as long as they were literate, and could read the sign above the door that said "Catholic Church", and the only "marks" of the Church they needed was the sign marking the location of the any given Catholic Church building.

But now that the Conciliar Church has eclipsed and usurped the True Church, that doesn't work, so people need to actually "work", i.e. exercise their faith, to find the True Church, looking for the actual Marks of the Church.  Those with weak, little, or no faith just lazily say "hey, there's a guy in white cassock, so that's the Church".