Quote from: Lover of Truth

If you are not afraid of truth feel free to read both of the above.

I will, and as before, I would have never discovered these articles unless you had posted them!  I have heard good things about Father Fenton, and so yes, I will read what he has to say.

Fr. Fenton was truly a great man, it is a shame that his works are still so unread. He truly but quietly withstood pressure to from modernists all around him, continuing his work, until the modernists we able to push him out.

For us here in the US, we have a great man of the Church to look up to. It shows how the faith was really flourishing here and then Vatican 2 made it take a u-turn.

In the RCIA in 2005 at a very liberal parish there was a little library of Catholic books which offered, among other things, Fr. Cogan's 'Brief Cathechism for Adults' which teaches EENS with no ifs ands or buts.  A review on Amazon says:

Antique theology. This is the Catholic Catechism before Vatican II written in the 1950's by Fr. William J. Cogan, a close friend of Senator Joe Mcarthy.

Naturally, I was interested.

Then, while researching the Cristeros online, I found an article by Gary Potter on the website of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in NH.  I think that was the first time I read that the hierarchy could and did abandon the laity. That was very disturbing, but I had to admit it made sense of what I was seeing: people who claim to be Catholic but who rejected various teachings, and the lack of shame they seemed to have. That website kept coming up in other searches, and since I had recently consecrated myself by St. Louis Marie's method, I was attracted. I read the website for about a year to look for reasons not to support them, but it was a fruitless search.

Elsewhere I read about Fr. Feeney's decision to allow married people with young children to become religious, and at first I didn't believe it, but I learned that that decision is considered regrettable by most of the MICM, as far as I know.

Being the only Catholic in my family, I could see in myself a temptation to avoid trying to convert them, and find any excuse possible.  But I did have the grace to see the temptation for what it was, Deo gratias.

How did the good thief,  St. Dismas, go to Heaven?  He was not baptised with water, as far as the Gospels tell us.

This one is the most easily refuted, and it is not ever even used by theologians as proof for Baptism of Desire. The law was not put into place until after Pentecost (official birthday of the founding of the Catholic Church), and so Dismas was along with the other souls of the just in "Abraham's bosom" as Sacred Scripture calls it.

There are two schools of thought with regards to Baptism of Desire, and they are both easy to overinterpret or underinterpret.

1) Explicit Baptism of Desire is what you had theologians teach for a very very very long time and as such can constitute as safe doctrine to be held by Catholics.

2) Implicit Baptism of Desire is more recent and could possibly be interpreted in a Catholic manner, depending on which school of thought you follow. This is the teaching that modernist's use along with "invincible ignorance" to justify universal salvation, this is the core teaching of Lumen Gentium and Vatican II. You see Religious Liberty, Ecuмenism and Collegiality would make little sense once the Dogmatic pronouncements have been reduced to a meaningless formula, "Extra Ecclesia Nulla Salus." The majority of traditionalist follow along with +Archbishop Lefebvre on this particular teaching, like with almost all other things.

It is important to note that whatever Archbishop Lefebvre thought remains the majority adopted position with respect to indult/sspx/SV'ist circles... Even the conversation about the indult or SV'ism is what the Archbishop thought about them, so that whenever he erred on something it sadly enough becomes difficult to weed out of the minds of traditionalists.

They stretch a few words of Pius IX and make a whole theology based on that. Implicit Baptism of Desire became the trend in the 20th century and really finds no precedent amongst Catholic theologians previous to that, but only heretics who have been working hard to make the formula meaningless for a long time.

You see how this works? This is the beauty of Modernism right!? They take the same words that were used before and pervert their meaning. Invincible ignorance was used specifically in the context of native savages who had never been guilty of not knowing about the Catholic religion. So that they would be judged according to the natural law, as was the teaching of St. Thomas of Aquinas. They would not be judged for something that was through no fault of their own. I must remind you that the savages could not be saved, but only had the possibility of limbo. They are not baptized members of the Church and as such could never be saved.

Then later we have some who in their zeal extended that to Protestants who "have never doubted" about their religion being the true one. This was usually something extended mostly to infants who are close to the age where they have attained reason, if they have never sinned mortally against God then they too could be saved if they were validly baptized (theological reasoning). Now if you take this just a little further, it is easy to see that pretty much any person who is erring in "good faith" can now be saved through false religions because they are not "culpable." Good faith most likely being interpreted as anyone who has natural virtues and is a "nice person." Or someone who was not presented "a strong enough case" of the Catholic Church that could overcome their "anti-Catholic bias." For example some would say (heretics of course) Ghandi was a secular saint, and he says that the "Catholic" religion is the most beautiful of all except that it has no true followers. "I love your Christ, but not your Christians." He was apparently scandalized by the lack of asceticism or "virtue" of Catholics (please the man was a sɛҳuąƖ deviant). Ghandi could have even been correct about his observation, but it matters little. Whether there are bad or good Catholics once you have heard about truth and you refuse to submit to it, then there is no such thing as "ignorance." Some even argue that "centuries" of different faith "traditions" will skew the mind of the one who hears the truth towards an anti-Catholic bias (which is internally true, but God through the conscience of each individual can overcome all of that bias), as a result if they refused to convert to truth "they too are invincibly ignorant through no fault of their own." However, how many people have been able to overcome that anti-Catholic bias over time and convert to the true religion it is simply too many to number in the long history of the Church. We are not arguing that somehow God's good providence is absent! Far from it, it might even take 20 years for them to fully realize that true statement someone had made to them about the Catholic religion and the Good Lord who knows all things, will give them the 20 years to find about the truth, if they are sincerely seeking it. Non-Catholics who were obstinately against the faith, might change their view through a horrible accident, which is Divine Providence at work. At this point some of them will "re-evaluate" their life, and this is where particularly many come to the Church. This was God's Divine providence to open their hearts more fully to the Gospel. So that some who were previously completely blasphemers, of a cold heart, close minded, anti-Catholic etc... Two years later they completely changed their mind by the grace of God, who operates in their life, showing them the truth and leading them towards Himself. He uses unworthy instruments like ourselves to bring about the Good News! It would be a whole lot more efficient to have the Angels preach to everyone the Gospel in an instant, but He chose the best way to save the most amount of people without infringing on Free will.

Since these are matters that deal with justification etc... It is best not to go too deep into them, we are only accountable for the things that God has taught through His Church anything over and above that is pure speculation even if brilliant Holy theologians delve into it does not mean that everyone MUST delve into it. All we know is that the Dogma which has been repeated ex cathedra more times then ANY other Dogma EVER, is to be understood only in the context of Catholics who have explicit belief in the Trinity and the essentials of the faith. Is it theoretically possible that Angel's invisibly baptized with water or even visibly, all those who had the desire for it? Who knows... That is all pure speculation, all we know for certain is that it is legitimate to hold the position of Baptism of Desire, as a doctrine that at worst has been tolerated for an awful amount of time and at best is a doctrine to be held with ecclesiastical faith (which suffices for me), most especially since it is directly intimately linked with the most essential doctrine of the Church of who constitutes a member of the Church (only those who are baptized with water).

Hope this helps for some who are tormented about this issue. You can still be apostolic and believe in explicit Baptism of Desire, there are many Saints who had a true missionary spirit that held to that belief. Just look at the entire life of Archbishop Lefebvre, no one can accuse a man who spent his whole life in the service of the Church as a missionary in Africa of being "indifferent" because of Baptism of Desire. His Excellency Dolan explained it this way (not that I agree with the analogy completely, but it helps with understanding exceptions and the general rule): Suppose you have a man that is hunting for deer and accidentally shoots a man, he does not sin even venially since he had no malice behind his act, his intent was something completely different. Now just because this particular case was not immoral because of the particular circuмstances another thing would be to make a sport out of shooting men making licenses where that would be legal. The point is that the exception does not infringe upon the rule.

There are many who think because someone believes in any sort of Baptism of Desire (BOD) that they are then totally indifferent to preaching the Gospel to those who belong in false religions. Again the emphasis would be whether one has reduced the EENS understanding of the Church that no one is saved outside of this ark of salvation to a meaningless formula. There are many who through implicit baptism of desire believe that they cannot judge anyone in particular with certainty that they are in hell, even if they are told as far as we know through the external forum they died completely unrepentant. I remember an older friend who told me his dad was a mormon (he never repented or recanted, but died a mormon), and he gave him a scapular. The scapular, which is a sacramental, is something that should never be given to non Catholics the only exception to this rule is the green scapular because the person is not aware (there is no danger of syncretism) that someone has placed a green scapular around one of his items (bed, backpack, house etc...). Now what I am not sure (please correct me if I am wrong), does this same principle apply to catechumens who already externally profess the Catholic faith, but have not yet been integrated into the Church. Now to continue the story, he kept weeping and weeping that he might be saved because he died with the scapular touching his skin. He also made sure to pray the rosary for his intention as the promise of Our Lady to those who pray the rosary and have the scapular would apply. Now I had asked him why his Dad might be saved, he said that through "invincible ignorance" (even though he had several children who were converts to Catholicism, who over a period of decades tried converting him to no avail) he would belong to the "soul of the Church." Let's not forget the man was never even validly baptized either, since Mormons under no circuмstances have valid baptisms. This man went to a FSSP mass centre, and the "priest" confirmed him more in his error, rather then leading him to truth. Some might be tempted to equate the position of the FSSP with that of the SSPX with respect to EENS. There is a world of difference between both.  FSSP accepts Lumen Gentium (no amount of theological gymnastics can reconcile this with the traditional teaching of the Church) which is Universal Salvation, and SSPX believes in implicit Baptism of Desire which could be interpreted in an orthodox manner (through little gymnastics).

+Pax+