The
Infallible
Magisterium Has
Not Yet Ruled Out
the Possibility of So-
Called ‘Baptism
of
Desire’ for
Catechumens
+ + +
Why
Catholic
Fundamentalists
Are Not to Be
Believed When They
Claim That the
Catholic Church Has Infallibly
Forbidden the Opinion
That Catechumens Can Die
‘Accidentally’
Without Water Baptism and Still Enter
Heaven --- And Despite Any Personal Belief
That This Opinion Is Wrong
COMPOSED &
EDITED MARCH 2010.
+ + +
“Behold how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell in unity: like the precious ointment on the head,
that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, which ran down to the skirt
of his garment: as the dew of Hermon, which descendeth upon mount Sion. For
there the Lord hath commanded blessing, and life for
evermore.” (Psalm 132:1-3 DRC)
+ + +
Intended by the
Author of This Book
for the
Greater Glory of the Adorable Triune Catholic God,
for the
Worship of the Sacred Heart of King Jesus Christ of
for the Praise
of the Immaculate Heart of Queen Mary, the Blessed Ever-
Virgin Mother of
God,
unto the
Protection & Propagation of the Holy Roman Catholic Church &
Her Most
Precious Heavenly Dogmas,
and
under the Euphonious
Patronage of St. Cecilia, the Eloquent Patronage
of St.
Catherine of
Ven. Mariana de
Jesus Torres, Virgins &
Martyrs.
“Domine, non est exaltatum cor meum, neque elati sunt oculi mei. Neque ambulavi in
magnis, neque in mirabilibus super me. Si non humiliter sentiebam, sed exaltavi animam
meam; sicut ablactatus est super matre sua, ita retributio in anima
mea.Speret
in Domino, ex
hoc nunc et usque in saeculum.” (Psalmus CXXX,Vulgata)
St. Francis
Xavier, Patron of Catholic Missioners, Ss. Catherine of Alexandria &
Francis of Sales, Patrons of Catholic Philosophers & Apologists,
respectively, and St. Peter of Verona, the Glorious Martyr, may you be pleased
to guide this arrow to its target, either unto eternal life or eternal death!
“Now thanks be to God, who
always maketh us to triumph in Christ
Jesus, and manifesteth the odour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are the good odour of Christ unto
God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one
indeed the odour of death unto death: but to the
others the odour of life unto life.” (2
Corinthians 2:14-16b DRC)
St. Francis of
Assisi, Humble Seraph of the Incarnate God, and St. Dominic the Preacher,
Dogged Cherub of the Triune Deity, pray for your children that they may not
fail the test but suffer the malice of the wicked gladly and so gain the Crown
of Life!
+ + +
A NOTE TO THE
READER:
This is an excerpt from a letter I wrote earlier this year to a
former Catholic brother who is in schism against me over, amongst other things,
the necessity of water baptism. It is his contention that water baptism is an
absolute necessity of means. That is, God never makes an exception to
the rule that a man be baptized properly with water in order to enter the
This
is my position, too --- that a human being must, without any exceptions,
have a valid baptism of water in order to have any real hope of
entering into Heaven after this earthly life. Period.
Where, then, lies our disagreement?
He has become a ‘catholic fundamentalist’ --- about
which you may learn more in the article, The Hideous Schism of Catholic Fundamentalism --- and
claims the Church infallibly forbids believing that a catechumen
(someone learning the Faith to enter the Church via Baptism) can die
‘accidentally’ while nevertheless entering Heaven, possibly, due to
a ‘perfect contrition’ and his goal to be baptized in water had not
this so-called ‘accident’ stopped him. Meanwhile, I firmly
disagree. And I disagree because he twists
the Magisterium’s words thus far about Baptism to grossly misinterpret
their intended meaning.
As a result, he accuses me of being a ‘heretic’… not because I think Baptism is
symbolic or optional, and not
because I think catechumens can enter Heaven without water baptism due to
‘accidental’ death (the former position is heretical and the latter erroneous)…
but because I dare to say that a Catholic can
hold the latter option and still
be truly Catholic. And while I don’t think this excerpt is
exhaustively thorough, it’s enough to show a good willed man the simple good sense and excellent evidence against his schismatic stance. A stance that is schismatic
because he judges wrongly what the Magisterium actually says ---
pretending to be ‘infallible’
in this judgment of his --- and hence judges wrongly that his opponent
is ‘heretical’ for doing so, shunning entirely (not just
religiously) the opponent as a consequence.
Dear reader, are you Catholic and trying to comprehend why this stance is wrong? Then
this brief little article is for you. Or are you Catholic and hold this stance
but --- contrary to my schismatic brother --- don’t pretend you are infallible and thus incapable of
interpreting the sometimes
hard-to-understand words of the Magisterium wrongly? Then this
brief little article is especially
for you. But whether or not willing to read it in a humble spirit, my dear
reader, you are now on the hook. That
is to say, you are now fully responsible in the eyes of God Almighty for
the very objective & grave sin of spreading this horribly mistaken & schismatic position
against your fellow Catholics. I’ve tweaked the excerpt to fit the
context of this posting, adding a few things in brackets at three places, the
words otherwise wholly unchanged. May anything
true or praiseworthy in this work be attributed to the efforts of the Triune
God of the Catholic Church through the Immaculate Hands of the Blessed
Ever-Virgin Mary. And may anything false or
blameworthy be laid firmly in accusation at my own wayward feet.
1.
Pretty Much All Catholics
Believed in ‘Baptism
+++ of Desire’
for Catechumens by the 2nd Millenium +++
And now, my dear soul, there remain but a few items left to
address.
Namely, one, the BOD bogie. [BOD is
acronymic shorthand for ‘baptism of desire’, a phrase made popular
in the last few centuries and which has replaced the more ancient --- and far
more appropriate --- term of ‘baptism of fire’, i.e., a baptism of
the Holy Spirit alone without the corresponding baptism of water.] And, my poor
man, your position is evidence that either you were not listening carefully
when you & I talked this whole issue out by phone circa 2003 (you’ll
recall that I at first held your present position, then changed later on), or
else you have become a Catholic fundamentalist, doing the same thing with magisterial quotes that Protestant
fundamentalists do with scriptural quotes, pretending to be quite literal
in their interpretations and thus infallibly correct, while in reality both Protestants mangle the real meaning of
the Bible left-and-right and so-called Catholics distort the real meaning of
the Magisterium with abandon.
Because, my precious soul, it becomes unmistakably clear to the
honest & intelligent man as he pores through pages & pages of writings from
the early Church Fathers, the Saints, the Doctors, the Popes and the
Theologians, across the centuries from AD 30 to AD 1900, that the notion of
catechumens dying ‘accidentally’ without the Sacrament of Baptism
whilst still, possibly, going to Heaven, is
a common opinion amongst Roman Catholics from at least the 3rd
century onward.
Period.
It does not waver, whether after Pope Leo’s
doctrinal letter in the 5th century or after the Council of Trent’s second & fifth canons on Baptism in the
16th century, or what-have-you. [St. Thomas Aquinas is especially
irrefutable proof of this. The greatest of all the Scholastic Doctors near the
beginning of the second millennium, any smart student knows that he at least
two times in his Summa Theologica clearly upheld the notion of catechumenic BOD. E.g.:
“…a man may, without
Baptism of Water, receive the
sacramental effect from Christ’s Passion, in so far as he is
conformed to Christ by suffering for Him… In like manner a man receives the effect of Baptism by the power
of the Holy Ghost, not only without Baptism of Water, but also
without Baptism of Blood: forasmuch as his heart is moved by the Holy Ghost to
believe in and love God and to repent of his sins… Thus, therefore, each
of these other Baptisms is called Baptism, forasmuch as it takes the place of Baptism…” [Book 3, Q66,
A11, all emphases added.] As well, “Secondly, the sacrament of Baptism
may be wanting [lacking] to anyone in reality but not
in resolution: for instance, when a man wishes
to be baptized, but by some ill-chance he is forestalled by death before
receiving Baptism. Moreover, such a man can obtain salvation without
being actually baptized, on account of his resolution for Baptism,
which resolution is the outcome of ‘faith that works by charity’ [Galations 5:6], whereby God, Whose power is not tied to visible sacraments, sanctifies man
inwardly…” [Book 3, Q68, A2, all emphases & annotations
added.]
Indeed, so great was his sway in succeeding centuries that the
Council of Trent is said to have placed a copy of his Summa, along with Sacred Scripture, at the head of all of their
sessions in the presence of the conciliar fathers.] X would have us believe
that this is simply because Saints, and even Doctors of the Church, etc., were
ignorant of these doctrinal statements. Hence, say they, these Catholics were
not guilty of formal heresy since they didn’t know what the Catholic
Church had actually infallibly said about the absolute necessity of Baptism.
Meanwhile, Y would have us believe that there is no immediate
explanation for the mystery --- he quite plainly admits that he simply does not
know how Catholics could espouse this catechumenic
BOD position in spite of what he takes to be the Church’s infallible
definitions against it. Or, at least, this was his position last year.
Perchance he has changed his opinion since then. I don’t know, because I
don’t have time to minutely monitor every website out there that claims
to be Catholic on a regular basis.
I do know this, though:
If X or Y or you are correct --- that the Infallible Magisterium
has already ruled out the possibility of BOD for ‘accidentally
dead’ catechumens --- then the
Great Apostasy has reigned since at least the 1500s, and, very arguably, since
the 400s. Because not only have
Catholics not eschewed the catechumenal BOD opinion since the time of
any of those doctrinal statements, but it has been an opinion so common
that it can be reasonably said that it had become the de facto opinion of most --- if
not all --- members of the Church by the turn of the second millennium.
End of sentence.
And the explanation of ‘ignorance’ doesn’t cut
it. Because, first of all, who is to say that ignorance about this matter is excusable? There are some things so
basic, so necessary, that ignorance cannot excuse you. For instance,
could a grown man not know or grasp the Apostle’s Creed and be called
‘catholic’ just because he was baptized? And, second of all,
who’s to say that all of these Fathers, Doctors, Saints, Popes & Theologians were ignorant about all of these
doctrinal statements, whether from Pope Leo I, the Council of Florence, or the Tridentine Council? This is absurd! Surely over hundreds of
years at least some of these
learned & pious men would have read the magisterial statements to which you
and your comrades refer, realizing that they infallibly ruled out the BOD
catechumen opinion.
2. Even
After
+++ as Is Proven by
the Roman Catechism re Baptism +++
For example, we know that St. Charles Borromeo
edited the Catechism of the Council of Trent. That is to say, he was
responsible for overseeing the entire effort, and even though he didn’t
write everything in it. And yet, as any smart student knows, this Catechism plainly upholds the BOD
catechumen position in its section on Baptism. Y claims this is not so in the
Latin text of the original, but this is manifestly false. I know, because I’ve checked the
original Latin text. And it is starkly
evident that the original Latin that Borromeo
approved --- and which Pius V later approved after him --- supports the idea of catechumens dying
‘accidentally’ whilst still able to be saved. We repeat:
The original
Latin of the Tridentine Catechism clearly supports
the catechumenal BOD position. Y makes much of a word being translated as
‘impediment’, whereas it’s rendered “impossible”
in a popular 1923 English version, but this is specious. Whether
‘impediment’ or “impossible”, the overall sense of the passage is plain --- and it plainly
upholds the BOD catechumen stance. Indeed, the only reason Y reads into this passage what it
doesn’t truly & explicitly say, is that
he’d have a very serious problem
were he to admit the obvious --- that it upholds BOD.
[This is made the more stark by close study
of canonized saints since the 16th century. For instance, St. Robert
Bellarmine, who in his monumental work against
Protestant heresy, De Ecclesia Militante (which was published by 1577, apparently),
states, “…there are those who belong
to the soul [of the Church] and not the body, as [are] catechumens or the
excommunicated, if indeed they have charity [the state of grace], which can
happen.” And also, “Catechumens, however, if not in re [Latin for ‘in
reality’] at least in voto [Latin for ‘in resolution’] are in
the Church and are therefore able
to be saved.” [Book
3, Chapter 3, all emphases & annotations added.]
Now, my poor dear soul, you tell me… how is it that St. Charles Borromeo or St.
Pius V were ‘ignorant’ of Canons 2 & 5 from the Council of
Do you see?
There is no way to get around it. Either Charles Borromeo and Pius V are flaming heretics according to you,
and all of the men who have approved of them and their catechism, too (and the Great
Apostasy began in earnest no later than all the way back in the 1500s, the
supposed ‘popes’ since then having been all of them in reality
antipopes!), or else Canons 2 & 5 on Baptism don’t actually mean what people like you insist.
And so it is. The logically necessary explanation is that X, Y,
you, and so forth and so on --- as well as me for a short time at the beginning
of the ’00s --- have misinterpreted the statements
of the Infallible Magisterium. To wit, the Fathers of the Tridentine
Council never intended to address the issue of catechumens dying
‘accidentally’ without baptism. They never used explicit
language to show that this is what they were addressing, and the
catechumenal BOD position does not
pretend that Baptism of Water is ‘optional’ --- merely that the
Triune God of the Catholic Church permits ‘exceptions’ to the
otherwise unbreakable rule.
Consequently, the Tridentine Fathers were
addressing Protestant denial of the
necessity of Baptism --- not the notion of catechumenal BOD. And
they were telling Catholics, as well as any Protestants who would listen, that
the Sacrament of Baptism was not merely symbolic & optional. That is
to say, that a man must be baptized in water if at all possible, that
this is God’s normally unbreakable law.
Meanwhile, most, if not all, of these men at the Council held to
the notion of catechumenal BOD --- although it was not called ‘baptism of
desire’ at the time (this terminology came later, nearer to modern
times). Thus why Charles Borromeo
& Pius V could approve of the Catechism of the Council of Trent with its
passage upholding catechumenal BOD in the section on Baptism. Because
they, like pretty much every single Roman Catholic since the era of the
Scholastic Doctors, believed that God made ‘exceptions’ to the
otherwise absolute necessity of Baptism of Water for a man to enter Eternal
Life when it came to a catechumen dying ‘accidentally’.
An opinion that,
while I believe it to be logically flawed and totally erroneous, has
nevertheless not yet ever been
explicitly & infallibly addressed by the Church one way or another.
As a result, I cannot rule out infallibly that it is acceptable and hence
orthodox. Nor can you. Nor can X, nor can Y. Because none of us are
popes, and thus none of us are infallible.
Case closed.
+
+ +
Pilate’s
query met:
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