UNBELEIVING AUXILIARY BISHOP OF ROME OFFICIATES AT FEAST OF ST.GIOVANNI LEONARDI

The feast of St. Giovanni Leonardi the founder of Propaganda Fide was celebrated this week with an Auxiliary Bishop of Rome, Mons. Matteo Zuppi in attendance, according to an announcement at the Church of San Giovanni Leonardi in Rome.

Unlike the bishop, the saint did not believe that there were explicitly known to us cases of the baptism of desire. Neither did he believe that there were known to us cases of non Catholics saved in invincible ignorance in the present times.I spoke to him a few times.He does not believe in the dogma.

For this bishop the dogma was relevant for its time only and not any more since the (explicit) baptism of desire and (explicitly) being saved in invincible ignorance, a good conscience, seeds of the word, imperfect communion with the church are known exceptions to the dogma on salvation.

The Italian St. Giovanni Leonardi  born in 1541 held  the literal interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus .St.Maximillian Kolbe also believed in the dogma in the 1930’s and Pope Pius XII in 1949 referred to it as ‘the infallible statement’.So the dogma was not relevant only for its time.The dogma is irrelevant for today only if one believes that the baptism of desire is explicit for us.

Vatican Council II (1965) without the false premise of being able to see  the dead saved, also affirms the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus according to St. Giovanni Leonardi.

Since we do not know any one dead and saved in 2012 there are no exceptions to the dogma and the Syllabus of Errors.

No text in Vatican Council II claims that these cases are explicitly known to us or that they contradict the dogma or the Syllabus.

According to a priest of the community of St. Giovanni Leonardi, Fr.Davide Carbonaro, there are no known cases of the baptism of desire in the present times. So there are no exceptions to the dogma in Vatican Council II.There are also no exceptions to Fr.Leonard Feeney of Boston's understanding of the dogma.

 The bishop has to assume it does contradict the dogma without any reference text from the Council. I spoke to Mons.Matteo a few times during the period he was the Parish Priest at the Church Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome.- Lionel Andrades