Thursday, December 15, 2011

CAN YOU DIRECT ME TO THE TRACT OR ARTICLE IN WHICH FR.LEONARD FEENEY DENIES THE FAITH? “NO WE CANNOT”. THEY QUOTE OTHER SOURCES

The Bread of Life was published after the excommunication. He was excommunicated for disobedience and not heresy. The excommunication was lifted without him having to recant or change any of his writings.

Whatever be ones opinion on Fr. Leonard Feeney we can all agree that there is no visible baptism of desire and implicit baptism of desire is not an exception to the dogma outside the church there is no salvation.

People have different opinions about Fr. Leonard Feeney and they usually repeat what others have said or written about him. They are unable to provide any text written by him which is heretical.

The excommunication was for disobedience to Church authority. He refused to go to Rome when called, he refused to accept a transfer and he called the Archbishop Cardinal Richard Cushing a heretic. It was unbelievable at that time that a cardinal could teach heresy. Today, we have the example of Cardinal Walter Kaspar, Cardinal Carlo Martini S.J etc.

The Archbishop believed those saved in invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire were exceptions to the dogma and to Fr. Leonard Feeney’s traditional interpretation. For him the baptism of desire would be visible for it to be an exception to the dogma. This is the rejection of the dogma which says all need to convert into the Church for salvation. The Archbishop rejected the dogma, with his exceptions, which Pope Pius XII called the ‘infallible statement’ in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949. The Letter was addressed to the Archbishop and not Fr.Leonard Feeney. The pope was telling the Archbishop that all non Catholics in Boston need to convert into the Catholic Church to avoid the fires of Hell. The ‘dogma’ mentioned in the Letter did not mention any exceptions like the baptism of desire. This was an issue raised by Cardinal Richard Cushing and the Jesuits in Boston and which was then inserted in Vatican Council II . The Archbishop did not know the Faith or did not want to profess it.

The Church has accepted the baptism of desire (Council of Trent etc) but to claim that it is not implicit but explicit and is an exception to the dogma is heresy.

Fr. Leonard Feeney and the St. Benedict Center were disobedient as the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 mentions. They were disobedient but not heretical.

De facto everyone needs to enter the Church, as taught by the dogma. De jure a person can be saved with implicit baptism of desire and it would be known only to God. The baptism of water and teaching someone the Catholic Faith is explicit. The baptism of desire is never explicitly known to us.

So we accept the baptism of desire (Letter of the Holy Office, Council of Trent) and also the possibility of non Catholics being saved in invincible ignorance (Lumen Gentium 16) however we do not imply that they are exceptions to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. -Lionel Andrades