Here's the short and simple for those who are seeking the truth about so-called baptism of desire:

For 19 centuries of Church history, so-called baptism of desire applied to a person who explicitly desired to be a Catholic. And no catechism ever taught otherwise.

In the 20th century catechisms began teaching that someone who has no explicit desire to be a Catholic, and even if the person rejected Christ and His Church, could be saved. Below are some examples.

AND that is the problem! It is a novelty, with no basis in the Fathers of the Church, nor was it ever taught by any Saint, and it is opposed to the dogmatic Athanasian Creed.

From the book  Against the Heresies, by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:

1. Page 216: “Evidently, certain distinctions must be made.  Souls can be saved in a religion other than the Catholic religion (Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.), but not by this religion.  There may be souls who, not knowing Our Lord, have by the grace of the good Lord, good interior dispositions, who submit to God...But some of these persons make an act of love which implicitly is equivalent to baptism of desire.  It is uniquely by this means that they are able to be saved.”

2.Page 217: “One cannot say, then, that no one is saved in these religions…”

Pages 217-218: “This is then what Pius IX said and what he condemned.  It is necessary to understand the formulation that was so often employed by the Fathers of the Church:  ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation.’  When we say that, it is incorrectly believed that we think that all the Protestants, all the Moslems, all the Buddhists, all those who do not publicly belong to the Catholic Church go to hell.  Now, I repeat, it is possible for someone to be saved in these religions, but they are saved by the Church, and so the formulation is true: Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.  This must be preached.”
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Bishop Bernard Fellay, Conference in Denver, Co., Feb. 18, 2006: “We know that there are two other baptisms, that of desire and that of blood. These produce an invisible but real link with Christ but do not produce all of the effects which are received in the baptism of water… And the Church has always taught that you have people who will be in heaven, who are in the state of grace, who have been saved without knowing the Catholic Church. We know this. And yet, how is it possible if you cannot be saved outside the Church? It is absolutely true that they will be saved through the Catholic Church because they will be united to Christ, to the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Catholic Church. It will, however, remain invisible, because this visible link is impossible for them. Consider a Hindu in Tibet who has no knowledge of the Catholic Church. He lives according to his conscience and to the laws which God has put into his heart. He can be in the state of grace, and if he dies in this state of grace, he will go to heaven.” (The Angelus, “A Talk Heard Round the World,” April, 2006, p. 5.)

And so, whenever anyone talks in favor of Baptism of desire, go straight to the heart of the matter, know that they really all deny the very sources that they bring forward like St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus Ligouri. For they believe what NO Father of the Church, nor Doctor, nor Saint ever believed, that is, that a person who has no explicit desire to be a Catholic, can be saved.

With that, I say goodbye, for some time I hope. Family and life calls.

I believe the following is worth perusing for those interested in the topic:

http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/13Jul/jul17ftt.htm

You are John Gregory?

How can you reconcile the soul of the Church with this:

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos (# 10), Jan. 6, 1928: “For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.”

How can you reconcile the soul of the Church with this:

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos (# 10), Jan. 6, 1928: “For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.”

That is a correct statement.  You have not read the link either, Father Fenton and the Catholic Church clearly teach that NON-MEMBERS can be saved within the Church.  He presents a summery of all the teachings on this issue and systematically explains how the errors on the issue were formed in the latter centuries.  Please read the link and then ask questions if you have any.

Saint Robert Bellermine clearly teaches that some within the Church through the inner bonds of unity are NOT members.  We do not deny this.  He clearly defines who the members are and who are not.  He also defines who are within the Church as non-members.  For those who truly want to understand the issue please read the link.  

Here.  Let me post a portion of it so at least some of you will read some of it:

The first part of this chapter "On the Definition of the Church" is devoted to the description and the refutation of the various theories evolved by heretics to explain the composition of the true Church militant of the New Testament. St. Robert deals with five of these theories, and then sets forth his own teaching, which is true Catholic doctrine. This is the pertinent section of the second chapter.

   But it is our teaching that there is only one ecclesia, and not two, and that this one and true Church is the assembly of men bound together by the profession of the same Christian faith and the communion of the same sacraments, under the rule of the legitimate pastors, and especially that of the Roman Pontiff, the one Vicar of Christ on earth. From this definition it is easy to infer which men belong to the Church and which do not belong to it. There are three parts of this definition; the profession of the true faith, the communion of the sacraments, and the subjection to the Roman Pontiff, the legitimate pastor.

    By reason of the first part all infidels, both those who have never been in the Church, such as Jєωs, Turks, and pagans; and those who have been in it and have left it, as heretics and apostates, are excluded. By reason of the second part catechumens and excommunicated persons are excluded, because the former are not yet admitted to the communion of the sacraments, while the latter have been sent away from it. By reason of the third part there are excluded the schismatics who have the faith and the sacraments, but who are not subject to the legitimate pastor and who thus profess the faith and receive the sacraments outside [of the Church]. All others are included [within the Church in the light of the definition] even though they be reprobates, sinful and impious men.

    Now there is this difference between our teaching and all the others [the "definitions" offered by the various heretics, and discussed in the first section of this second chapter of the De ecclesia militante], that all the others require internal virtues to constitute a man "within" the Church, and hence make the true Church invisible. But, despite the fact that we believe that all the virtues, faith, hope, charity, and the rest, are to be found within the Church, we do not think that any internal virtue is required to bring it about that a man can be said absolutely to be a part of the true Church of which the Scriptures speak, but [that what is required for this] is only the outward profession of the faith and the communion of the sacraments, which are perceptible by the senses. For the Church is as visible and palpable an assembly of men as the assembly of the Roman people or the Kingdom of France or the Republic of the Venetians.

    We must note what Augustine says in his Breviculus collationis, where he is dealing with the conference of the third day, that the Church is a living body, in which there is a soul and a body. And the internal gifts of the Holy Ghost, faith, hope, charity, and the rest are the soul. The external profession of the faith and the communication of the sacraments are the body. Hence it is that some are of the soul and of the body of the Church, and hence joined both inwardly and outwardly to Christ the Head, and such people are most perfectly within the Church. They are, as it were, living members in the body, although some of them share in this life to a greater extent, and others to a lesser extent, while still others have only the beginning of life and, as it were, sensation without movement, like the people who have only faith without charity.

    Again, some are of the soul and not of the body, as catechumens and excommunicated persons if they have faith and charity, as they can have them.

    And, finally, some are of the body and not of the soul, as those who have no internal virtue, but who still by reason of some temporal hope or fear, profess the faith and communicate in the sacraments under the rule of the pastors. And such individuals are like hairs or fingernails or evil liquids in a human body.

   Consequently, our definition takes in only this last way of being in the Church, because this is required as a minimum in order that a man may be said to be a part of the visible Church. [De ecclesia militante, c. 2.]

I believe the following is worth perusing for those interested in the topic:

http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/13Jul/jul17ftt.htm

Thank you for posting this article, I am reading through it now, it is very informative.  I really like Fr Fenton, he has gone too unappreciated since the council.

Luke

From Fenton:

In the passage just quoted, St. Robert Bellarmine sets out to explain and to define the thesis he is going to defend and explain throughout the rest of the book De ecclesia militante. The outstanding talent of this great Doctor of the Church is precisely his power of forceful and clear exposition. In the section we have just cited, that talent was exercised as perfectly as it is in any section of his works.

    St. Robert contends that the one and only supernatural kingdom of God on earth, the ecclesia spoken of in the Scriptures, has been constituted by God as a society composed of members or parts whose appurtenance [going with and belonging - J.G.] to this company is manifest to all men. He asserts that the factors by which a man is constituted as a member or a part of this company are the profession of the true Christian faith, access to the sacraments, and subjection to the Roman Pontiff. The group which is God's one and only ecclesia in this world is actually the company of men who have these factors of unity.

    He acknowledges the presence within the Church of faith, hope, charity, and the other supernatural virtues. Furthermore he realizes that these infused virtues themselves constitute another bond of unity with Our Lord and among His disciples. Nevertheless he insists that this spiritual or inward bond of unity is not the factor which constitutes a man as a part or a member of the Church militant of the New Testament.

    Yet despite the perfection of St. Robert's teaching and the clarity of his exposition, this section of the second chapter of his De ecclesia militante was destined to be the source of serious and highly unfortunate misunderstanding by subsequent theologians. The weak part of this, perhaps the most important single passage in the writings of any post-Tridentine theologian, was St. Robert's use of the terms "soul" and "body" with reference to the Church.