FR.LEONARD FEENEY AND HIS COMMUNITIES HAVE ACCEPTED THE BAPTISM OF DESIRE PER SE

The book the Bread of Life mentions 'the catechumens' who die without the baptism of water.

Unlike the Catechetical and the Liturgy Office of the diocese of Sydney, Australia, the Jesuits there and the SSPX Holy Cross Seminary they do not consider the baptism of desire (followed by the baptism of water for them) as exceptions to the dogma.

The Bread of Life was written before the excommunication and before the lifting of the excommunication. He was not required to recant or change his writing.

In The Bread of Life he recognizes that a genuine desire of a catechumen could provide justification. These were rare cases, 'in certain circumstances'( Letter of the Holy Office 1949). These cases of the baptism of desire were not the ordinary means of salvation. God would then provide the grace for the person to receive the baptism of water.

So in general there were not three types of baptism but only one. Only God could know who was saved with the baptism of blood and desire. So they were not an exception to everyone needing the baptism of water and Catholic Faith to go to Heaven.

De facto, in reality the ordinary means of salvation for all adults is only the baptism of water and Catholic Faith. This is the only explicit means of salvation.

The Baptism of desire cannot be a part of the ordinary means of salvation since we do not know any de facto case.

The Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Richard Cushing was wrong in assuming that the baptism of desire was an exception to the dogma.For the first time in the history of the Catholic Church he made the baptism of desire and invincible ignorance an issue. Then along with the Jesuits he placed this teaching prominently in Vatican Council II.

The media implied that the baptism of desire etc was an exception to the dogma. So they assumed Fr. Leonard Feeney was in heresy and that the Archbishop was a pioneer.

A defacto-dejure analysis of magisterial texts show that the Letter of the Hoy Office does not mention this implication. Neither does Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium16 make the false assumption.

Instead Lumen Gentium 16 only mentions invincible ignorance, it does not say that it is an exception the dogma or the ordinary means of salvation. Neither is it an exception to Vatican Council II, LG 14, AG 7.

So Lumen Gentium 16 only refers to a possibility, dejure. Something always implicit and unknown to us. De facto the ordinary means of salvation is LG 14, AG 7 i.e. the baptism of water and Catholic Faith.

So like Vatican Council II (LG 14, AG 7) Fr. Leonard Feeney affirmed the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. He accepted in principle, de jure that a person could be saved with the baptism of desire i.e. a genuine desire with perfect charity, followed by the baptism of water which would all be implicit and known only to God.

The confusion on this issue continues since the media is in the hands of the enemies of the Church.

The magisterium however has approved the communities of Fr. Leonard Feeney and has not retracted the dogma which is in accord with Vatican Council II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1257,845,846 ( with a defacto-dejure analysis), Dominus Iesus 20, Redemptoris Missio 55 etc.

The Council of Trent mentions the baptism of desire and we know it is implicit and not the ordinary means of salvation. There is no Church definition which says the baptism of desire excludes being saved with the baptism of water.

-Lionel Andrades