Now for Baius. Here is his thesis (condemned) as you cited it:

"Perfect and sincere charity ... can be in catechumens as well as in penitents without the remission of sins."

This thesis is FALSE, precisely because charity cannot exist without the remission of sins, or in other words, perfect charity is necessarily accompanied by remission of sins, and vice versa. They are inseparable. Commit a mortal sin, and lose charity, if you had it. Make an act of perfect charity, and your sins are gone.

The part "in catechumens as well as in penitents" is true, insofar as perfect charity can exist in either. Evidently, Baius did not deny this. What he denied was that perfect charity cannot be separated from the remission of sins. Thus, anyone who is justified necessarily possesses the virtue of charity, and vice versa.

IAAD thinks that Feeney's position (I refer to him this once according to IAAD's new ruling; hereafter "LEF") agrees with this thesis. He does not distinguish between "holding" a position (point A) explicitly, and holding a different, but logically implicit, position (point B), that leads to the other position (A). The former is what readers understand by "holding" an opinion; e.g. "I agree with this proposition" or "Baius was right" or just "Charity can and does coexist with sin." It's a perfectly good argument in itself to refute position A by showing that it leads to untenable position B, but grossly misleading if it isn't made clear that one's opponent does not advance the position "B" EXPLICITLY. And that is what IAAD is doing.

Apart from that, In this case, at any rate, IAAD is still wrong. LEF never said (and I have already pointed this out, in vain) that sin continued to exist after justification by baptism of desire, nor anything leading to that conclusion. His argument rested on the simple point that grace and charity can be LOST after justification by mortal sin, and that if one dies in that state, one is damned (obviously). So LEF's thesis is that if one perseveres in grace, God will provide baptism before death. God can do that, after all. IAAD proposes a hypothesis: what if someone dies without baptism immediately after being justified? But it is precisely LEF's position that God will not allow that to happen. Where is the lack of logic in that position? It can't be refuted by a contrary hypothesis; hypothesis A excludes hypothesis B; the objection is a wash. Do I agree with LEF's position? I do not, any more than IAAD. But this position has nothing whatever to do with the proposition of Baius.

It should be noted that the LEF thesis has never been condemned ex cathedra (infallibly). It is disproved by the constant teaching of the Church. It is a question of contingent facts and of the free operation of Divine Power; namely, that God has actually permitted some justified persons to die without baptism, and yet be saved. THAT is clear from tradition, not from any a priori argument. At any rate, LEF's position is wrong, it can and should be condemned, I think, but in fact, it has not been. Formally, it possibly remains in the realm of arguable, but wrong, opinions, just like the innovatory and laxist implicit denial of Extra Ecclesiam by certain theologians, originating with the Spanish Dominican school of the 16th century, before the Council of Trent. Should both these opinions, the latter long tolerated (like Gallicanism and the Dominican opposition to the Immaculate Conception), be condemned? I think so, I hope so, I pray so, but that will be up to a future (valid) Pope.

In contrast to LEF's erroneous opinion, which did not even enter into his suppression, you have the archbishop of Boston and various priests openly and explicitly denying a defined dogma of the Faith, something as to which IAAD continues to keep a perfect silence. I wonder why.

It's another source of cheap amusement (nothing to with this blog, maybe) that even Wikipedia gets my point exactly right: LEF was persecuted (my word, of course) for his preaching No Salvation Outside the Church. I invite all to read it. There are, of course, points in the article that I would take issue with, but on several of the facts it's surprisingly (to me) accurate. No, I didn't ghost-write it or edit it either. Most amusing of all, a Jєωιѕн publication (The Jєωιѕн Week) gets it right too: "Richard Cardinal Cushing excommunicated a priest, Leonard Feeney, in 1953, for preaching that all non-Catholics would go to Hell." (This, by the way, is our moderator's expressed position as well, so why not admit that LEF was right on this point? Would that somehow weaken his, IAAD's, own position somehow?)

As a sad postscript to this affair, a writer in a leading American Catholic magazine a few years later (I think Commonweal, but perhaps it was America magazine), a layman if that improves things, actually referred to the dogma Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, a truth for which our Divine Savior poured out His Blood to bring to us, as "this medieval nonsense." Well, words fail.

The moderator has wondered just what I have been getting at. My aim is simply the truth, no matter which side it falls on. Only God's side is all truth. St. Augustine said, in regard to the Donatists (an early schismatic group), and the principle is of general application: to heal what is diseased, and not to harm what is healthy. A doctor of the soul acts no differently from a doctor of the body. There is a terrible scandal in mixing up in one immoderate attack not only on LEF, but on the Dimonds and similar "Feeneyites," what they get wrong, what they get right, and what is debatable. St. Augustine also said, "In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity." (necessary things=dogmas; doubtful things=opinions not yet determined)