Baptismal
Confusion:
Dilemmas
of ‘Desire’;
or, It Is Foolish
to Presume
Either ‘BOD’ or ‘WO’, as of
Yet
in Our Era, to Be
the ‘Final’ or
‘Inarguable’
Stance, Not Even
Bothering to Honestly Study
Each
Side’s Evidence!
XXXXXXX
+++
1. The Dilemmas of ‘Desire’ +++
(The Earthly Problems With BOD)
Let’s get down to business.
For while we already covered everything in
Baptismal Confusion with a great
thoroughness, it was long & complex --- too long and complex for most
people. Overwhelmingly, the key point to get into one’s skull is the
following precaution: NEITHER the
‘baptism of desire’ (BOD) theological stance NOR the ‘water only’ (WO) theological view have ever
yet been infallibly & explicitly upheld, confirmed, defined or
condemned by Holy Mother Church. A real
Catholic, in an orthodox way,
may still hold to either one.
But BODers tend to be more numerous, more cocksure, more troublesome --- like a
plague of ecclesiastical locust --- and thus more tyrannical & more
confusing for most poor souls during the Great Apostasy. So... right here,
right now, on the dot --- we’re keeping it brief… AND
WE’RE DRIVING IT HOME HAAARRRD.
Ladies & gentlemen, start your
religious cars and prepare your spiritual engines!
·
1.) There is NO
evidence, prior to AD 400, that any REAL Catholic was a BOD
(‘baptism of desire’) believer in its LATER formulation.
(Chapters 23-82, 89-90 & 170-176 of Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
2.) The existence
of the ‘baptism of blood’ (BOB) teaching during the first
millennium is NOT to the point. BOB & BOD were two SEPARATE ideas only LATER
joined together with the MUSINGS of Scholastic theologians
during the SECOND millennium, AFTER BOD had become the
overwhelmingly popular opinion. (Chapters 23-28 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
3.) Meanwhile,
there is NO hard evidence belief in BOB existed PRIOR to the third
century AD, and only about HALF of the early Church fathers
uphold it. Thus, BOB CANNOT possibly be part of the
Church’s ORDINARY Infallible Magisterium, as if
‘indubitable’. Which makes the tiresome and NOT-TO-THE-POINT
‘argument’ for BOD via a belief in BOB even that more outright RIDICULOUS. (E.g., Chapters 25 & 146 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
4.) Supposedly
‘unbaptized’ martyrs in ancient pagan times are thus NO
‘final’ evidence for BOD. The martyrologies are NOT
acts of ‘infallibility’, and God would sometimes miraculously
provide WATER for catechumens right before
martyrdom. He additionally sometimes RESURRECTED catechumens so that they
could receive a REAL water baptism. Which doesn’t ‘prove’ WO
(‘water only’)… but it DOES show the opinion of BOD
to be quite susceptible to a VERY RATIONAL DOUBT. (Chapters 29-31
of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
5.) St. Ambrose,
who everybody ASSUMED taught BOD ‘inarguably’ for the first time
ever in Church history, by the end of the fourth century, is, in actuality,
surprisingly AMBIGUOUS at his funeral eulogy for an imperial catechumen who
died BEFORE
the redoubtable St. Ambrose could give him water baptism. Read the COMPLETE
eulogy --- which we have until this day in Ambrose’s OWN words --- for the
clear PROOF that this is the case! But, of course, who in the world
actually bothers doing so? NO ONE would be so
‘foolish’ as to dare to want the TRUTH UNSULLIED.
(Chapters 33-37 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
6.) St.
Ambrose’s OWN priestly teachings upon the Sacrament of Baptism make this BEYOND
dispute --- he allows for NO exceptions PRIOR to what everyone WANTS
to think he taught at his late life funeral eulogy. What’s more, his own
diocesan flock MOURNED for loss of an UNBAPTIZED catechumen because they
naturally believed him CERTAINLY to be in HELL,
since he died WITHOUT the life-giving waters of a
very visible, material & watery BAPTISM! (Chapters 33-37 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
7.) St. Augustine
of Hippo is the FIRST Catholic to INARGUABLY teach BOD in a truncated
yet accurate formulation in AD 400 that LATER became dominant by the turn of
the SECOND
millennium. But he makes it PLAIN this is simply his OPINION
and NOT
something that he got from Christ & His Apostles, or from an EARLIER
tradition! (Chapters 38-41 of Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
8.)
·
9.) And, were that
not enough, we learn WHY
·
10.) With the
beginning of the SECOND millennium you see Church thinkers, like St. Bernard of
Clairvaux, PRESUMING BOD to be correct based on what they PRESUMED
to be the thinking of Ss. Ambrose & Augustine. But Bernard himself dares NOT
to pretend that it is ‘certainly’ true just because he THINKS
Ss. Ambrose & Augustine upheld it, as IF the theological opinion of BOD is
a ‘certainty’ for this reason! Getting it? Two Church
fathers’ OPINION do not a ‘dogma’
make! (Chapters 39 & 76-80 of Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
11.) In a letter to
St. Bernard from one of his theological & monastic peers, Hugh of St.
Victor, we discover that during the AD 1100s there were still PLENTY
of Roman Catholics who did NOT approve of the NEW-fangled
notion of BOD! Ergo, the relatively NEW theory of BOD was NOT
automatically accepted merely BECAUSE many theologians of THAT
particular time liked the INNOVATION of BOD. (Chapters 76-80
of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
12.) The theological
stance of Ss. Thomas Aquinas & Alphonsus Ligouri, etc., in favor of the
relatively NEWLY accepted notion of BOD makes the blithe BODer ASSUME
it ‘couldn’t’ be wrong. Yet NONE of them are an
infallibly defining pope and Aquinas was flat-out WRONG regarding the
Immaculate Conception PRIOR to its infallible definition
in 1854 with Pope Pius IX. Ergo, an eminent Scholastic OPINION is then NEVER
‘certain’ just BECAUSE the Scholastic theologian THOUGHT
it so. Ergo also, REAL Roman Catholics very politely disagreeing with a
Scholastic is NOT THE SAME as Modernists trashing the Scholastics
left-and-right because they HATE Catholicism! And there is NO
shortage of imprimatured theologians who will DISAGREE with
Alphonsus’ OPINION that the Council of Trent ‘infallibly’
taught BOD, all the while the same IMPRIMATURED theologians love to
believe BOD is ‘proximate’ to dogma and think Trent
‘surely’ was referring to BOD in its LESS THAN PRECISE words
‘about BOD’. (Chapters 42-60 of Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
13.) In the
meantime, there’s an early Church father, doctor & saint who DESTROYED
the heart of the BOD notion even WITHOUT meaning to! To wit, the
magnificent St. Gregory Nazianzen. BODers HATE THIS FACT, trying all they can
to deny it, nevertheless, it is HISTORICALLY testified, and PRIOR
to Gregory Nazianzen’s reception of WATER baptism, he as well tells us
of his immense FEAR that he would die and go to HELL in a ship during a
storm WITHOUT real baptism! (Chapters 61-71 & 183 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
14.) Everyone who
believes in BOD ASSUMES it ‘must’ be true because their
‘catechism’ taught them it was so in the past century-and-a-half.
They think this because they WRONGLY think a catechism is
‘infallible’, or that you never dare to intelligently SUSPECT
that a particular catechism teaches an ERRONEOUS idea (erroneous, NOT
necessarily heretical!). Yet NO catechism has ever YET
been infallible in ALL of its words, NOT even the greatest of them all,
mighty Catechism of the Council of Trent.
(Chapters 83-132 in Baptismal Confusion.)
·
15.) Furthermore,
there is a pattern through the Church’s history. The EARLIEST eminent
catechism we have in writing, from the early Church father & doctor, St.
Cyril of
·
16.) Much, much LATER
catechisms, since the AD 1500s, simply ALLUDE to BOD WITHOUT speaking of it by
NAME.
Obviously, the official writers of such catechisms did NOT think BOD to be an
all-consumingly ‘important’ notion to teach to their readers like a
‘certainty’ that the LATER writers of catechisms make it
out to be, from the turn of the TWENTIETH century onward till our
perilous & apostate times. (Chapters 83-132 in Baptismal Confusion.)
·
17.) And, just as
writers of official catechisms BEGIN to teach about BOD by name
around AD 1900, they ALSO mysteriously begin to poison
these NEWER catechisms with an unabashedly BLATANT teaching of a
malevolent & wicked SALVATION HERESY. Period. (Chapters
83-132 in Baptismal Confusion.)
·
18.) Lots of BODers,
including writers of LATER contemporary catechisms, love
teaching BOD as IF Sacred Scripture supports the opinion. It does NOT.
There is NEVER mention of BOD by NAME anywhere in the Bible, and the
verses they PRETEND will uphold it are EASILY interpreted as meaning NO
such thing! NEITHER has the Infallible Magisterium ever ‘ruled’
as IF
Sacred Scripture ‘SURELY’ teaches us BOD is so. (Chapters 133-157 in
Baptismal Confusion.)
·
19.) Devastatingly,
BODers are apparently utterly CLUELESS that a mere TWO
canons in the NEWLY systematized-for-the-FIRST-time-ever in Church history,
the Pio-Benedictine or 1917 Code of Canon Law, is NO act of
‘infallibility’ and was a complete NOVELTY & INNOVATION
in daring to treat BOD as if it is ‘doubtlessly’ true and thus
‘justifies’ putting the bodies of the UNBAPTIZED within CONSECRATED
grounds. That is to say, PRIOR to this astonishing INNOVATION,
the Church’s cautious leaders NEVER dared to allow for the routine
& unquestioned burial of UNBAPTIZED catechumenal bodies in
the HALLOWED
ground of a Roman Catholic cemetery. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever… PERIOD! (Chapters 170-186 in Baptismal Confusion.)
·
20.) This is because
EARLIEST
Roman Catholics NEVER knew about, or dared to believe in, the theological OPINION
of BOD. They were WOers by default, it simply being what EVERY Roman Catholic
believed WITHOUT even suspecting that there could POSSIBLY be another
interpretation about the Holy Sacrament of Baptism. Only AFTER the great Ambrose (supposedly) and an equally great
Augustine (for a while) were ASSUMED
to have unflinchingly supported it, did such a NOTION start to spread.
Consequently, the BOTTOM line is truly the BOTTOM line --- the most ancient
& earliest of Roman Catholics were STAUNCHLY for WO. This
conclusion is NOT truly arguable for the LEARNED Catholic person, and even
learned BODers CANNOT ever, academically or honestly, without theological
bias, PRETEND that this historically proven FACT
is otherwise, somehow… nonetheless… ‘wrong’.
Preeminently scholarly priests & theologians of the 20th century
ADMIT,
if only indirectly, the ‘water only’ position of the most ancient,
earliest and ORIGINAL Roman Catholics in, and near to, APOSTOLIC centuries. They
also know quite well, IF pressed to admit it, that BOD has
NEVER
been infallibly & explicitly upheld, the seemingly ‘impressive’
papal or curial documents they love to tout NEVER, all by themselves,
WITHOUT
adhering to the Vatican Council’s 1870 INFALLIBLE DEFINITION OF PAPAL
INFALLIBILITY, as if these papal, curial or ‘official’
documents can amount to ANY KIND of ‘infallible’
teaching, and hence ‘never possibly mistaken’, support for the BOD THEOLOGICAL
OPINION which has dominated up until our times of the Great Apostasy.
(Chapters 170-186 in Baptismal Confusion.)
Now, my dear & beloved reader, do you start to see how BOD is not
‘unquestionable’? The Scholastic theologians were in no way ‘reckless’
merely for touting the idea of BOD. And, once it gained traction, there being
no lastingly serious opposition
to it (and yet we see, from St.
Bernard’s correspondence with Hugh of St. Victor during the 1100s, that
there was indeed some serious opposition that didn’t
end up lasting!), it is natural that BOD stuck around and became the dominant theological opinion.
Nor was there any particularly galvanizing reason to question BOD at that point in history. Ergo why it
became ‘unquestionable’ only after
centuries of percolation inside
Catholic minds. Consider --- wise Catholics are very cautious &
conservative about novelty.
Hence ‘baptism of desire’ having endured for several centuries, it gained the
‘aura’ of an ‘indisputable’ teaching without actually having been put
beyond dispute with an
indisputably infallible &
explicit ruling from a wise & fearless pope! Strange?
Welcome to the world of arcane theology and the curious history of
BOD.
The bullet points above are far from exhaustive. They must be
brief.
Read the Baptismal Confusion
book if you desire minute details.
But they start to make it clear --- BOD is quite questionable.
+++
2. The Dilemmas of ‘Desire’ +++
(The Heavenly Problems With BOD)
Ah, yet we’re not finished. We’ve got some more
problems.
The previous chapter was about historical & developmental
difficulties.
Now we get really serious. Theologically, religiously & dogmatically serious.
·
1.) English is the GLOBAL
language of today. Therefore, whether or not a slippery ‘desire’ is
the term used by Catholics in every OTHER language of the world in the
past 2 or 3 centuries, NO ONE learned in Latin --- the
language of the Catholic Church --- can possibly PRETEND that
‘desire’ is an ‘excellent’ translation of the proper
term in Latin, which is ‘VOTUM’. It is open
& shut. Most of the time by far, when translating VOTUM (as in ‘baptismus voti’, the strict
name for BOD in Latin, although not the most popular… the
‘baptismus flaminis’ was most often employed, meaning
‘baptism of spirit’ or ‘wind’, the Holy Ghost
being metaphorically like the wind), it SHOULD be rendered in
English as ‘vow’, ‘prayer’ or even ‘solemn
resolution’. ‘Desire’ necessarily operates as the LAST
and LEAST
LIKELY choice in translating ‘votum’. Leading the
intelligent & learned Catholic to ask, “Why this ODD choice translating
the Latin, made by otherwise LEARNED Latin scholars? Is
theological agenda driving the matter? Or is it just ‘chance’?”
Yet no PRUDENTLY SHREWD Roman Catholic person can simply ASSUME
it to be the latter possibility. In constantly rendering it as
‘desire’, it is EASIER for us to MIDUNDERSTAND
BOD heretically. Viz., there is no need for a catechumen to have a
‘perfect contrition’ for his or her mortal sins --- a MERE
‘desire’ to do the ‘right’ thing is all that is ‘ESSENTIAL’.
Which is straight out HERESY. Yet it’s
exactly what more & more people, calling themselves Catholic, have BELIEVED.
(Chapter 6 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
2.) Speaking of
which, by the time BOD was thought ‘NECESSARY’ to teach by
name to ALL Roman Catholics around AD 1900 in the catechisms being
written then, WHY is it that the vast majority of these Catholics then come
away with a MISTAKEN idea of three DIFFERENT ‘baptisms’?
When, in fact, Scholastic theologians were quite CAREFUL & PLAIN ---
there are NOT three different ‘baptisms’, there are only three distinct WAYS TO PARTAKE in the ONE
& SINGULAR Sacrament of Baptism. Period! Again… is there an AGENDA
transpiring here, AGAINST Catholicism? At the very least, learned clergy
practiced rather CARELESS catechism when teaching their flocks in the TWENTIETH
century. (E.g., Chapter 147 in Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
3.) Meanwhile, to WHOM
are these clergy and their catechisms, around the turn of the 20th
century, and afterward, aiming their teaching about BOD? And WHY
do they think it ‘necessary’, now, after nearly TWO
MILLENNIA, to explicitly INDOCTRINATE their Catholic flocks
into believing BOD is ‘unquestionable’ teaching… indeed, as
if it were a ‘dogma’? WHAT’S THE POINT? Recollect,
too, WHO
they’re teaching this to. Almost WITHOUT exception, to Catholics
already LONG baptized in water, for whom the notion of BOD is, well, NOT
exactly that ‘CRUCIAL’, as if they THEMSELVES might need to
be nicely ‘REASSURED’ should they ‘accidentally’
fail to get water baptism. Again, they’re ALREADY LONG AGO BAPTIZED!
So what’s the deal? 1500 ecclesiastical years went by WITHOUT
the Church’s Hierarchy thinking it ‘critical’ to teach
run-of-the-mill Catholics about the theological OPINION of BOD. Why now,
in the last FIVE centuries --- especially since around 1900 --- is it SUDDENLY
‘imperative’ to do so? This is rather puzzling. Either
bandwagon appeal is going on… and modern clergy simply must…
MUST!...
get with the theological program, or else a SUBVERSIVE motive is
operating. Which explains things BETTER. (Chapters
119-132 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
4.) Which is where
it is useful to remark upon a very confusing MUDDLE of theological
terminology when it comes to BOD. The Roman Catholic
Church has ALWAYS taught Her members that the
Sacrament of Baptism is a NECESSITY OF MEANS, no ifs, ands or
buts. The Scholastic theologians were orthodox & smart… they knew
this to be the case. I.e., that there is NEVER any way to enter EITHER
Church OR Heaven (and the Roman
Catholic Church teaches infallibly that She is God’s SOLE MEANS to Heaven!) WITHOUT
Her Holy Sacrament of Baptism. This is WHY the Scholastic theologians ALSO
carefully taught there is NEVER ‘another’ kind of
‘baptism’. RATHER, that BOB & BOD & sacramental
water are simply three different WAYS to participate in the ONE
MEANS of sacramental and baptismal grace. Yet this is a type of word
play. Either something IS absolutely
necessary, WITHOUT exception (‘necessity
of means’) or it is NOT absolutely necessary, there CAN
be at least a few exceptions (‘necessity
of precept’, which means you intend to obey, yet can be excused if
something serious prevents it). SO WHICH IS IT? Encountering this
muddled terminology as a devout Catholic for the first time, it can almost seem
as if someone is trying PURPOSEFULLY to confuse you.
Certainly the Scholastic theologians were NOT trying to do that. They were
simply trying to RECONCILE the WO stance of the most ancient of Catholics ---
the Sacrament of Baptism is an absolute necessity, NO exceptions to the form
& matter --- with their LATER BOD stance in its orthodox
version for a supposedly good-willed catechumen who ‘accidentally’
dies --- he or she surely MEANT well, intending to join
the Church in water baptism, God will have mercy upon them if they had PERFECT
contrition for their mortal sins --- struggling not to sound as if they
‘denied’ what the Church has constantly maintained… that the
Sacrament of Baptism is a NECESSITY OF MEANS, being ABSOLUTELY
NECESSARY for visible membership in the Church, God’s SOLE
MEANS OF SALVATION. Understood thusly, the muddling terminology gets a
little easier to put up with. NOTWITHSTANDING, what this messy
controversy then REALLY COMES DOWN TO is the following… is THE
VISIBLE FORM & MATTER of the Sacrament of Baptism an absolute
necessity of means, or merely a necessity of precept with occasional EXCEPTIONS?
This the REAL ISSUE, and the REAL
DISPUTE. All else is unnecessary (pun not really intended!) DISTRACTION. Unfortunately, for all
their good intentions (again, pun not
really intended!), the Scholastic theologians did NOT actually successfully
clear this up. This is because they could NOT back then foresee UNINTENDED
consequences and the whelming tide of the Great Apostasy. They ASSUMED
BOD to be true WITHOUT an infallible & explicit papal pronouncement. The
popes of that time TOLERATED this arrangement, WITHOUT ever infallibly
& explicitly defining it to be true, since they, ADDITIONALLY,
had been taught & presumed an identical theological OPINION. (Chapters
108-110 & 187-197 of Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
5.) This is further
compounded by the UNBAPTIZED catechumen quandary mentioned above in the previous
chapter of this article. WITHOUT the visible form &
matter (the correct words said
along with real water correctly applied at the same time), HOW
is anyone in the Church supposed to know WHICH of the
‘accidentally’ dead catechumens had a HOPE OF SALVATION since
they had a PERFECT contrition for their mortal sins, and WHICH
of them did NOT? It’s LUDICROUS to suppose that any mere
human being could certainly know the INVISIBLE heart of
another human being! This is the POINT of a VISIBLE sacrament. Being morally
certain of a person’s water baptism, with resulting MEMBERSHIP
in a visible Catholic Church, allows us, in God’s Sight, to RIGHTLY
presume, with charity, the HOPE OF SALVATION of another
Catholic, barring quite BLATANT evidence to the CONTRARY.
Whereas, WITHOUT a visible water baptism, we are NOT then capable of a MORAL
CERTAINTY regarding another Catholic’s Hope of Salvation! This is
WHY
God’s Roman Catholic Church has NEVER considered any UNBAPTIZED
catechumens to be ‘members’ of this Church in any STRICT
sense; rather, contrarily, they are NOT. (Chapters 170-197 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
6.) Now we see WHY
the Catholic Church once NEVER permitted any
‘accidentally’ dead yet UNBAPTIZED catechumen to be buried
in the most HALLOWED & CONSECRATED ground of a Catholic cemetery.
Catholic leaders NEVER presumed, in the FIRST millennium, apart from
supposedly unbaptized martyrs for the Catholic Faith after the second century,
that such a catechumen had ANY Hope of Salvation. THEN,
with the advent of dominant BOD teaching in the SECOND millennium, they
almost NEVER presumed to know an ‘accidentally’ dead UNBAPTIZED
catechumen’s heart --- that he or she ‘certainly’ had PERFECT
contrition for their mortal sins --- Catholic leaders thus still almost NEVER
dared to bury such UNBAPTIZED catechumens in hallowed cemetery ground. They NEVER
routinely dared to do such a thing, even during the SECOND millennium, UNTIL
the Code of Canon Law put forth in 1917. Getting this? And WHY it’s disturbing
to a wise, learned & devout Catholic? Such actions tended toward increasing
CARELESSNESS
& FLIPPANCY concerning HOLY THINGS. (Chapters 170-186 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
7.) This point CANNOT
be stressed too much. The Triune God of the Catholic Church DISTINGUISHES
between the HOLY and UNHOLY. The Sacrament of Baptism is
the ENTRANCE
to His HOLY Catholic Church, being the means by which Our Lord CLEANSES
such souls and makes them acceptably HOLY. It’s forgetting this VITAL
TRUTH that has made people, claiming to be Catholic, to act
increasingly CARELESS & FLIPPANT about DISTINGUISHING in these
matters. Such people have been increasingly taught, and they have
increasingly wanted to believe, that God is NEVER wrathful, that He is ONLY ‘loving’. Therefore, they grew to have NO
fear of God and couldn’t care LESS about pleasing Him. CARELESSNESS
about, and COLDNESS toward, the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, and its
sacramental FORM & MATTER, is a key foreshadowing of our Great
Apostasy. (Chapters 170-197 of Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
8.) This is where
Catholic theologians, AFTER the Scholastic era, became
very slowly, subtly & shockingly DISMISSIVE of the imperative
importance of water baptism. They had been INCULCATED in the
misleading notion that it is ‘only the INVISIBLE graces’
of the Sacrament of Baptism that REALLY matter (no pun intended --- honestly!). Ergo, catechumens COULD
be getting ‘invisibly’ baptized LEFT-&-RIGHT before
their ACTUAL water baptism; that is, with PRESUMABLY PERFECT
contrition in a catechumen’s heart. Ergo, too, as centuries went by, the
form & matter of ACTUAL baptism are more a mere SYMBOL
of the ‘thing’ that is REALLY important, which, thought
they, increasingly as centuries slipped by, is the INVISIBLE graces. And
thus WHERE
it begins to be troubling. This is NOT outright heresy… YET.
Howsoever, it is DISTURBING & UPSETTING for the wary, devout & informed
Catholic. Most ANCIENT & EARLIEST Roman Catholics did ALWAYS treat the FORM
& MATTER of the Sacrament of Baptism with UTTERMOST REVERENCE, HUMILITY
& SPIRITUAL CAUTION. Remember… the Sacrament of Baptism, and
getting it RIGHT, is a matter UNAVOIDABLY impinging upon each
& every human being’s IMMORTAL SOUL’S ETERNAL LIFE OR DEATH.
Period!!!!!!! (Chapters 170-197 of Baptismal
Confusion.)
·
9.) My OWN
experience of conversion, interviews of elderly former Catholics
and careful study of documents over the past few centuries SUBSTANTIATES
this. When I BEGAN to be Roman Catholic, I thought at first the post-Vatican
II Novus Ordo ‘church’ was the
·
10.) Which brings us
to another terrible impasse. For Novus Ordoists
are NOT
authentically Catholic. They HAVE, nonetheless, INHERITED
what Catholics were coming to, in their HORRIBLE catechesis… or, um, LACK
of catechesis… CEASING to believe, little by
little, like Protestants of every stripe, that the Holy Sacrament of Baptism is
ANY
MORE really necessary to SALVATION of human immortal souls
than is the ONE TRUE CHURCH itself --- which they also don’t believe
to be ROMAN CATHOLIC, and neither more nor less, being what GOD
HIMSELF COMMANDS. They are the inevitable OUTCOME, between heresy
& theological DRIFT over centuries, of a LESSENING focus on human WILL,
compared to an INCREASING emphasis on the INTELLECT. Or, should one say, while
increasingly NEGLECTING the necessity of human WILL --- that it be either
GOOD
or BAD --- we have increasingly VENERATED ‘essentialness’
of human INTELLECT --- what we either KNOW or DON’T
KNOW. In reality, real & wise Catholics realize that it’s NOT
an either / or situation. Yet we also recognize, NECESSARILY, that the
human WILL COMES FIRST. You can know FULLY
that Roman Catholicism is God’s ONE & ONLY RELIGION, without
which you CANNOT be saved, period. So what? You can STILL,
maliciously, REFUSE TO OBEY, remaining OUTSIDE God’s Church. Comprehend?
All the knowledge in the world DOES NOT GUARANTEE you will ever, or
always, OBEY, becoming & remaining ROMAN CATHOLIC; thus, WHY
SHOULD YOU BLITHELY ASSUME, conversely, that the IGNORANT
person WOULD BE ‘GOOD-WILLED’ AND THUS ‘SINCERE’
were they to CONSCIOUSLY KNOW that the Roman Catholic Church is God’s SOLE
MEANS OF SALVATION? How does the one follow FROM
the other? It DOESN’T! Furthermore, NOR
is the blithe person, calling his or her self Catholic, ‘justified’
ASSUMING
that such a SUPPOSEDLY ‘sincere’ &
‘good-willed’ soul is CERTAINLY, or even LIKELY,
to enter Heaven IGNORANTLY, when, in fact, IF he or she had a truly GOOD
WILL, they’d hence have used their INTELLECT & INTELLIGENCE
to actually SEEK FOR THE SINGULARLY TRUE RELIGION OF CATHOLICISM! And this
is WHY
such people --- who are NOT truly Catholic --- then ALWAYS
resort to the made-up-out-of-nowhere FICTION of a purportedly
INVISIBLE
‘membership’ in the Catholic Church. Which membership is NONSENSE,
something real Catholics NEVER dared believe or teach in MOST
ANCIENT TIMES, with Christ & His Apostles. ‘Invisible
membership’ is DOUBLETALK… a lie!... made to ENTICE
the foolish & unwary people, and to let PHONY
‘catholics’ sound ‘believable’ PRETENDING
they’re actually Catholic, holding to an INFALLIBLE & UNCHANGEABLE
RELIGION entitled Roman Catholicism. PERIOD. (Chapters 187-197
of Baptismal Confusion, with emphasis
added.)
·
11.) This is further
driven home by the fact that God, in His OMNISCIENCE, certainly knows WHO
IS INTELLIGENT & GOOD-WILLED, and WHO IS NOT. The
Scholastic theologians upheld this STAUNCHLY. Repeat --- quite
adamantly. Both Ss. Thomas Aquinas & Alphonsus Ligouri taught PLAINLY
how a human being, RAISED IN THE WILD BY WOLVES, would, all the same, IF OF
GOOD WILL, receive more-than-sufficient TESTIMONY of Catholicism.
NOR
is an unwary or rebellious person, PRETENDING to be an actual
Catholic, to PRESUME... with utter nonchalance, as IF they themselves
couldn’t possibly be WRONG interpreting papal
writings… that more recent popes speaking of an ‘INVINCIBLE’
ignorance meant, ‘doubtlessly’, that such ‘invincibly’
ignorant people are then of an ADEQUATE intelligence. TO
THE CONTRARY, it is a matter of ANCIENT TEACHING & SIMPLE LOGICAL
THINKING that the ONLY human beings who could ever POSSIBLY
be in the state of a REALLY invincible ignorance
are those who are INFANTS (thus NOT yet able even to know
they are COMMANDED to seek for Catholicism, reading the
Law of Natural Reason written upon their hearts), or COGNITIVELY
DISABLED FROM THEIR INFANCY (ditto the previous parenthetical
statement), or UTTERLY INSANE FROM THEIR INFANCY (ditto again!). These are,
definitively, the ONLY human beings who can truly be INVINCIBLE in ignorance, NOT
having an adequately intelligent mind to know to begin, cooperating ---
of a GOOD
will! --- with their guardian angels and other HEAVENLY denizens that
are only MORE THAN HAPPY to assist, thus GUARANTEEING that
they’ll FIND Roman Catholicism Whole, Entire & Undefiled
even despite being, as Scholastic theologians loved to note, raised, SEPARATE
from other human beings, by WOLVES IN THE WILDERNESS! And if
this is what both ANCIENT Catholics and SCHOLASTIC
theologians upheld… and it is!... then HOW in the world could
souls raised amongst any NON-Catholic people have any more
‘excuse’ THAN a human raised in the WILDERNESS
BY WOLVES? You savvy? There is NO EXCUSE. Most humans have intelligent
minds; we, every one of us, have Natural Reason inscribed upon our
hearts; we, every one of us, have guardian angels to wonderfully assist
us; and God is not willing that any should perish. There is no
other thing needed, in such situations, than a heart that is GOOD-WILLED.
God will CERTAINLY correspond with graces & testimony for
such persons. It is this crucial element that is MISSING in such human
beings… it is WHY such tragic people NEVER find the One True Religion
of Catholicism since they NEVER bother looking, being proud
& lazy in their hearts & minds. OBVIOUSLY! (Chapters 56,
129 & 191-197 of Baptismal Confusion;
see also Part 1 of Helplessly Ignorant,
as well as the short article, Concerning
Abjuration, Invincible Ignorance, Children & the Use of Reason.)
·
12.) So, to recap,
the BOD theological OPINION, in its orthodox sense (only CATECHUMENS
--- people of adequate intelligence consciously knowing they MUST
to be Catholic in order to save their souls, and visibly, in some
real way, trying to OBEY THIS COMMAND of Our Creator ---
who die ‘accidentally’ without water baptism), CANNOT
BE BLAMED AT ALL for automatically or intentionally CAUSING
the salvation heresy, and consequent Great Apostasy, of our times. HOWEVER,
it was most CERTAINLY the open door through which, theologically
speaking, salvation heresy was able to POSE AS ‘DOGMA’
when theologians dared to teach, and clergy dared to accept, its
poison, stretching the idea of an IMPLICIT BOD beyond the
boundaries of SALVATION DOGMA, pretending AS IF ANCIENT & EARLIER
clergy & theologians HAD EVER DARED TO THINK, let alone
openly teach!, the SCANDALOUS NOTION adequately intelligent persons can die
IN
THE BELIEF & PRACTICE OF VISIBLY FALSE RELIGION, and, WITHOUT
visibly & consciously CONVERTING TO CATHOLICISM,
nevertheless enter Heaven Above! Teaching this clearly amounts to
teaching salvation OUTSIDE the Church. Deceitful WORD PLAY calling
‘inside the church’ the SAME as an ‘invisible
membership’ for intelligent people not knowing they are, is LYING,
a complete & vicious DENIAL of what ANCIENT Catholics knew
Christ to actually INTEND. Comprehending? WITHOUT
BOD this rank nonsense could NOT have thereby saturated EVERYONE’S
THINKING, buying into salvation heresy blithely, UNBENDING
OPPOSITION TO IT instead coming from Hierarchy and academics until
it was STAMPED OUT. This is WHY, even IF BOD is promulgated INFALLIBLY
& EXPLICITLY in the near future, a pope necessarily MUST,
to close the loopholes, define & condemn carefully, BLOCKING
ALL POSSIBILITY of it happening once more… AGAIN. Successors to St.
Peter MUST HALT THE COMPLETE NONSENSE of ‘invisible
membership’ of intelligent humans WHO HAVE NO IDEA ON EARTH
that they’re ‘catholic’ let alone that they want to be.
PERIOD!!!
(Chapters 187-197 of Baptismal Confusion.)
·
13.) And finally,
there is NO reason God, Who is BOTH Omnipotent &
Omniscient, ‘cannot’ act to provide water baptism
for the truly good-willed catechumen. Ergo, why MUST, then, BOD be the ONLY option for explaining the
catechumen who dies ‘accidentally’ BEFORE receiving water
baptism? This is inconsistent, to say the least. IF Scholastic theologians
readily accepted the idea a human being could be raised alone by WOLVES
IN THE WILDERNESS, who, nonetheless, are GOOD-WILLED and therefore
God provides them with the TESTIMONY OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH…
then what is the problem with it happening IN THE SAME WAY with the Sacrament
of Baptism? To wit, God provides the WATER BAPTISM to the good-willed
human being regardless, miraculously if NECESSARY! There really
is NO
reason WITHOUT popes DEFINING OR CONDEMINING INFALLIBLY &
EXPLICITLY. It is, astonishingly, merely OPINION that BOD is
correct, while WO not. What’s more, can the TRULY Catholic person imagine
the idiocy IF the same thinking were applied to, say, the Sacrament
of Holy Orders? THEN we could have men and women everywhere, whenever they
wish, CLAIMING that he or she, or someone else, IS a ‘priest’
simply because this person ‘desires’ it. Yes, that’s
correct… a so-called ‘ORDERS OF DESIRE’. Any
sensible & wise Catholic, who’s REALLY what they claim to be, can
see the INSANITY of such a thing. There is NO reason yet to
‘have’ to believe in BOD. It has a
Alright, my dear & precious soul. This is
straightforward stuff. I’ve done pretty much all I can to make it as
simple, easy & obvious to the adequately intelligent person who is of a
good will in the matter --- earnestly & honestly wishing to understand and
get through all of this confusion! --- to figure it
out and get one’s head screwed on correctly. There are lots of unhinged,
confused & bad-willed people. This is a way to stop them short.
And help them, if they’ll let me. We don’t want to
needlessly offend others.
But this is become ridiculous and there’s no good excuse for it.
Time’s running out! It’s time to see right and act
properly.
The above is NOT
‘proof’ that BOD is ‘certainly’ wrong. Rather,
it’s VERY HARD EVIDENCE that a
real Roman Catholic nowadays, during the Great Apostasy, has very
excellent reasons to question the BOD theological opinion, at the
very least, and, perhaps, even embrace the WO theological
opinion. I simply hit hard here at BOD because, as said before, they’re
more numerous, they’re often more stubborn, and, in any case, given this
numerical advantage & stubbornness, they can behave like a spiritual plague
of locusts.
I’d prefer to change the mind of the individual
‘locust’. Barring that, I
swat hard.
No real Catholic needs to put up with more foolishness in this
matter.
It’s time to start preparing for what’s to come soon.
This is an annoying sideshow. STOP IT.
+++ 3. ‘Baptism of Desire’
vs. ‘Water Only’ +++
(Catholic Orthodoxy & the Horns of
Many Dilemmas)
There are times when a human being has to cast aside diplomatic
talk and an endless ‘beating around the bush’ in order to be
‘nice’ or to ‘keep the peace’. It becomes clear, after
enough experience, that others --- who claim to care about a particular subject
--- are, instead, weirdly & sadly controlled by their passions and their
prejudices.
Such is the case with the ‘baptism of desire’ (BOD) vs.
‘water only’ (WO) battle.
People, saying they’re Catholic, desire to believe
whatever they want, case ‘closed.’
As if. AS IF ‘what
you want
to believe’ is always the certain truth, no
matter what.
I have found most people, who tout their Catholicity, to care more
about being thought ‘right’ than actually being
right. And, while there are many, many, many things people can get caught up
in, it is strange how self-proclaimed Catholics become so pompous,
vicious, fearful and just plain unhinged in their practically crusading
support of BOD, allied with their positively inexplicable, and
practically banal, attitude toward what is genuinely threatening
Roman Catholic Orthodoxy & Praxis, which is a diabolically deranged
salvation heresy that masquerades as if ‘orthodox’
and ‘moral’ under the purportedly ‘unquestionable’
stance of an implicit BOD which can actually never harmonize
properly and authentically with the always infallible & explicit dogma,
‘NEVER
Salvation OUTSIDE the Catholic Church’ in its original, ancient,
narrow, correct, simple, universal & unchanging sense. Something any Scholastic
theologian himself confirms since the Scholastics NEVER pretended, or
understood, an ‘implicit’ BOD to mean that a human being can die
visibly OUTSIDE the Catholic Church and, somehow, this human being is
invisibly ‘inside’ the Catholic Church WITHOUT this person, or
any real & visible Catholic, having any visible PROOF that such a person
wound up consciously INTENDING to be an actual MEMBER
of Christ’s Church.
This is no ‘chance’ or ‘happenstance’. And
it’s beyond high time to call a spade a spade.
The foolishness must end. I cannot possibly do that by myself, in
my own ‘power’. I have no wealth, power, fame or prestige in this
world. But I also don’t have to play along with foolish people any more.
The foolishness is blatantly demonic,
issuing from the Pit of Hell
itself. A presently orthodox version of BOD has been mentally mangled into most
rank heresy, boldly denying both Catholicity
& Scholasticity. As my
name’s sake said to his fellow Hebrews after having long attempted to get
them to see the truth about Christ Jesus of Nazareth, their Messias, and Jesus
& Mary’s Singular Catholicism:
“But they gainsaying and blaspheming [attacking St. Paul the Apostle mindlessly, to the point of
committing blasphemy against God & His Singular Religion of
Catholicism], he [i.e., Paul]
shook his garments [to metaphorically
signify that he had nothing more to do with them --- see Matthew 10:14,
Mark 6:11, Luke 9:5, Matthew 23:35 & 27:24-25], and said to them, ‘YOUR BLOOD BE UPON YOUR
OWN HEADS; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles [those who don’t claim to be Catholic
or are at least willing to listen seriously, think carefully and prayerfully
seek the truth about something I’m daring to tell you, FOR IT IS UTTERLY
CRUCIAL].” (Acts of the Apostles 18:16 DRC.
All annotations & emphasis added in this or other quotes.)
In 2011, we began posting a long & complex book in the global
cloud at The Epistemologic Works website. It’s called
Baptismal Confusion: What the Fight Over
‘Baptism of Desire’ vs. ‘Water Only’ Is All About, and Where Both Sides Get It Very Wrong, Falling into
Heresy or Schism as a Result. I did not write this book because I
thought myself adequate for the job. I did not think I would be capable
of it. I wrote it, and dared to post it, because I could not find anything else, anywhere in the world, which got the
controversy wholly correct, fully explained, and thoroughly documented. Which is NOT to say that the book is an
exhaustive scholarly statement upon the subject; I seriously doubt it is. It
most certainly IS, however, to say
that it is a very, very COMPREHENSIVE
scholarly statement upon a now URGENT
controversy.
We kept at it for several more years. Then came an intense year of
pain, wherein we nearly gave it up, even thinking that, perhaps, The
Epistemologic Works should close. Then came a celestial shot in the arm,
wherein my spirits lifted and what I could not do by myself… and did not
dare to think that I could ever do it successfully on my own!... got done, regardless.
No one has to believe that this is heavenly or miraculous. You’re free
to believe whatever the hey you want! The
facts, however, are the facts. Three gigantic books are now in the public
domain, available anywhere on earth or in the heavens, including
Baptismal Confusion (the other two are
the massive
Helplessly Ignorant and
the still rather lengthy, yet not nearly as massive,
Inter Regnum).
And these three gigantic books all got done & posted by the
close of AD 2018.
Now, if you don’t have any more patience or curiosity about
this, then skip on.
Or go to Chapters 1 & 2 of this article and study the dilemmas
of BOD.
But if you won’t look seriously at the facts & logic, then
I am clean.
YOUR
BLOOD BE UPON YOUR OWN HEAD.
You have been warned.
And if you would pretend to be ‘omniscient’ and just
somehow magically ‘know’ --- without actually knowing me personally
or bothering to get to know me --- that I’m just as ‘biased’
about the subject as I say most others are, who go by the name of Catholic,
then step back… back down… take a deep breath… and be truly
just, factual & fair.
When I became truly Roman Catholic during the Great Apostasy, I very naturally adopted the opinion of
a so-called ‘baptism of desire’ (BOD). This is because it
has been the dominant theological opinion of both
clergy & laity, the learned & the unlearned, in the
I hence had NO problem
with BOD, and I understand the position completely.
Then I was exposed to the theological stance of ‘water
only’ (WO) by the turn of the 21st century and found the logical syllogism cited in
WO’s favor, based on the infallible & greatest council of the Church
ever yet, the Council of Trent, vastly compelling. For, clearly,
infallible definitions & rulings are the gold standard of Roman
Catholicity.
I thus had NO problem
with WO, and I understand the position completely.
Got it, my dear soul? You’re dealing with someone utterly informed. Someone who
once believed in BOD wholeheartedly,
then believed in WO wholeheartedly.
Someone who was honest enough, and earnest enough, to admit he was wrong about his former positions
and therefore changed his stance
accordingly, seeking for the unvarnished truth about this now much-fought-over topic of
‘baptism of desire’ vs. ‘water only’.
What’ve YOU done,
dearest soul? About seeking the TRUTH of this topic, I mean.
At a bare minimum, if you hear of this enormous research and
mammoth effort to communicate the results to the world at large, yet are not
able or willing to examine it carefully, with infinite patience and taking a
serious look at all the sides involved in this controversy, then be prudent,
wise & candid --- step back from the precipice and, at the very least,
admit that you could be wrong in your present opinion about the topic.
And, charitably (if truly
Catholic!) permit other real
Catholics to think as they wish of it.
As long as they’re truly Catholic, then what’s your problem with this?
What’s the
burr in your saddle that bugs ya so much, eh?
Are you a busybody? Can’t you just live and let live?
Or must you go off the deep end and be a jerk?
Acting like you
‘know’ when you
don’t?!?
That is very, very, very, very, very foolish.
Sorry if I’m stepping on your toes. Yet diplomacy and endless
‘nice talk’ does no good in this matter. Most people, calling
themselves Catholic, go unhinged about the BOD vs. WO controversy. I’ve
seen it for countless years. And I’m not putting up with it.
Nor should anyone else who is truly Roman Catholic. This is
going to end.
And until it does,
the Great Apostasy is not
going to go away. Period!!!
It is THAT IMPERATIVE.
A ‘little’ thing now become very, very,
very HUGE.
Prepared to listen and take an extremely close look? I suggest you
do. Either that, or BACK OFF. And
humbly admit you have neither the knowledge nor the patience or curiosity to
rightly opine in the matter. And if you would try to ‘turn the
tables’ on tiny little me, as if I have no knowledge, patience &
curiosity to have done what I counsel others to do --- who dare to call
themselves Catholic --- then I quote my name’s sake:
“Would to God you could bear with some little of my folly:
but do bear with me. For I am jealous of you with the jealousy
of God. [I wish God would make
you both capable & willing to put up with my ‘foolishness’,
but, I beg you, please do so! Because I care about you
immensely with the same concern that Our Creator has for you.]…
But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced
Eve by his subtilty, so your
minds should be corrupted,
and fall from the simplicity
that is in Christ [I am afraid that satan
has, or will, fool you with
his clever lies, causing you
to lose a simple &
correct comprehension of the
Roman Catholic Religion Whole, Entire
& Undefiled, filling you with his brainy yet mindless lies, converting you into witless & hate-filled automatons
who do his hellish bidding].
For if he that cometh preacheth [comes
and preaches to you] another Christ, whom we have not preached [that we, God’s Chosen Founders of the
New Testament of Roman Catholicism, never taught you to believe with unbending
servitude]; or another gospel which you have not received [another form of ‘christianity’
that we never taught you to begin with]; you might well bear
with him [knowing your tendency
toward simplistic & proud folly, you very likely will listen
to that erroneous person… while you won’t spend a single
second paying attention to what I have to say, in opposition to that foolish
& dangerous person.]” (2 Corinthians 11:1-2a, 3-4, DRC.)
Which is why dear
“I say again, (let no man think me to be foolish,
otherwise take me as if one foolish, that I also may glory a little):
that which I speak, I speak not according to God, but as it were in foolishness,
in this matter of glorying. [Don’t
you dare think me ‘foolish’ to speak like this, you who
put up with fools leading you astray! These
misleading fools glorify themselves highly, causing you to put your
trust in them? Alright, then so do I. In doing so I’m not
going to sound like I’m speaking ‘wisely’ with the Wisdom of
God, but, as it were instead, as if I’m ‘foolish’ to talk
like I’m going to talk, as if I ‘glorify’ my own self in the
humanly superficial appearance of ‘pride’.] Seeing
that many glory according to
the flesh, I will glory also.
For you gladly suffer the
foolish; whereas you yourselves are wise.
For you suffer a man to bring you into bondage…
I speak according to dishonour, as if
we had been weak in this part. Wherein if any man dare (I speak foolishly), I dare also. They are Hebrews: so
am I. They are Israelites: so am I. They are the seed [descendants] of Abraham: so am
Think this isn’t what
Oh, goodness. You’re part of the crowd who doesn’t
understand language!
And how it changes over the centuries and over the
various countries & nations. Given enough time from an
‘old’ way of speaking, or a far ‘distant’ way of
speaking elsewhere in this wide world, naïve human beings --- especially
the traditionally religious sort of the ‘conservative’ kind --- presume
that nobody would have said things like that. That would be too shocking! This
is imbecilic. Words or phrases thought ‘crude’ can change over
centuries, but the ability to be blunt and too-the-point, as if
‘harsh’, is timeless. I.e.:
The way we speak changes over time, and in different
places. Get it? Once you comprehend
what something means, in the original language, you can then safely translate
those original words into another language, reliably telling others what
the original writer had in mind. In this case, being part of Sacred
Scripture, it both comes from the saintly & wise mind of the Apostle Paul,
and from the Holy & Divine Mind of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
And guess what? Both saint and Holy Ghost
dare to speak quite bluntly.
Which is why I, an abject & abominable sinner, dare to
speak in this matter likewise. For in infirmity, as says my
name’s sake, God’s Power is manifest. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
That is to say, God delights in using the worst of instruments.
Which is why we have the supposed ‘audacity’
to say the following blunt words:
You call yourself Roman Catholic? SO
Savvy? Think you got ‘bragging rights’? SO HAVE I. As much or
more than you, dearest soul. And you’re ‘dearest’
since I care for you… though likely you hate me.
I care intensely about the truth and I care intensely about you, my
beloved one.
Enough to be blunt and call a spade a spade. Enough to risk sounding ‘harsh’.
Neither BOD nor WO has yet, with infallible & explicit ruling, been finally defined or condemned. And
yet, while a real Catholic can still hold to an orthodox version of BOD, this theological opinion now has many problems, problems that have
now been revealed during the last century and a half. Indeed, it has become the
Church’s Achilles’
Heel.
Which doesn’t
make an orthodox BOD ‘wrong’. But it does send up a red flag.
I’m waving it as clearly as I can. And
welcoming real & charitable Catholics.
+
+ +
Pilate’s
query met:
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