NO DENIAL FROM THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY

A priest in good standing in the Archdiocese of Sydney has indicated on an internet forum that the magisterium made a mistake in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949.

He suggests that the Letter indicates that the dead are physically visible to us, who have been saved in invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire. Since they are physically visible to us every one does not have to be a visible member of the Catholic Church for salvation. These visible-dead cases are exceptions to the literal interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

The priest, Fr. John George says the Letter of the Holy Office was critical of Fr. Leonard Feeney for not accepting the baptism of desire as an exception, in Fr.Leonard Feeney's  interpretation of the dogma on salvation. For Fr. John George the baptism of desire and being saved in invincible ignorance are known exceptions.

We now know that the baptism of desire is known only to God and it has nothing to do with the literal interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus. It is irrelevant to Fr. Leonard Feeney’s historical position on this issue.

So if the Letter of the Holy Office assumed that the baptism of desire was relevant and an exception then it made a factual error. It is a fact that the dead are not visible to us. So it cannot be an exception to every one needing to be a visible member of the Church for salvation.

This is an error of Fr. John George who does not want to affirm the dogma according to Tradition and suggests that the Letter said (mistakenly) that there is a visible baptism of desire.

There is no denial from, Fr. John George on the forum, True Catholic, nor from the Archdiocese of Sydney.

It may be mentioned that the Letter does not state that the baptism of desire etc is visible to us as is implied by Fr. John George. Neither does it state that these cases are exceptions to the literal interpretation of the dogma on exclusive salvation in the Church.

Whenever someone says the baptism of desire is an exception to the dogma it means he considers the baptism of desire to be physically visible to us. The baptism of desire is accepted as a possibility known only to God. It is not an exception.

Fr. John George wants to believe that the Magisterium says it is an exception. So he does not have to affirm the literal interpretation of the dogma, in Australia.-Lionel Andrades