http://www.traditionalmass.org/images/articles/BaptDes-Proofed.pdf

Baptism of Desire and
Theological Principles
(2000)
by Rev. Anthony Cekada
What principles must Catholics follow to arrive at the truth?

OVER  THE  YEARS I  have  occasionally  encountered  traditionalists, both lay and clerical, who followed the teachings of the late Rev. Leonard  Feeney  and  the  St.  Benedict  Center  concerning  the axiom  “Outside  the  Church  there  is  no  salvation.”  Those  who fully embrace the Feeneyite position reject  the common Catholic teaching about baptism of desire and baptism of blood.

Catholics,  however,  are  not  free  to  reject  this  teaching,  because  it  comes  from  the  Church’s universal  ordinary  magisterium.  Pius  IX  stated  that  Catholics  are  required  to  believe  those teachings that theologians hold “belong to the faith,” and to subject  themselves  to  those  forms  of  doctrine  commonly  held  as “theological truths and conclusions.”

In  1998,  I  photocopied  material  on  baptism  of  desire  and baptism  of  blood  from  the works  of  twenty - five  pre-Vatican  II theologians  (including  two  Doctors  of  the  Church),  and  assembled it into a dossier. All, of course, teach the same doctrine.

Behind the Feeneyite rejection of this doctrine lies a rejection of the principles  that Pius IX laid down, principles that form the basis for the whole science of theology. He who rejects these criteria  rejects  the  foundations  of  Catholic  theology  and  constructs a peculiar theology of his own —
one where his own interpretation  of  papal  pronouncements  is  every  bit  as  arbitrary  and  idiosyncratic as a free-thinking Baptist’s interpretation of the Bible. It is  utterly  pointless  to  argue  with  such  a  person  over  baptism  of blood and baptism of desire, because he does not accept the only criteria on which a theological issue must be judged.