So many Catholics are criticizing Fr.Leonard Feeney for not accepting the baptism of desire as an exception to the traditional interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.Yet none of them in 2013 would be able to name any person in Heaven whom they can see saved with the baptism of desire. So how can what does not exist in our reality be an exception ? SSPX, Catholic Culture, Peter Vere are all guilty.
In the standard theology textbooks used in all the seminaries at the end of the 19th century and throughout the first half of the 20th, in Tanquerey's Moral Theology, for instance, you will commonly see a sentence from one address Pius IX gave to some bishops, in which Pius IX declared that he — and the Catholic bishops in general — perfectly well knew that it is not a sin for persons to remain outside the Church if they are invincibly ignorant of the true religion — don't know it and without any guilty negligence on their part really can't find out about it.And, furthermore, though he does not use this odd modern word, of course, psychological factors matter — some things are impossible because they are morally impossible, humanly impossible, psychologically impossible. He said that in view of the indescribable real complexity and mysteriousness of the many factors that might limit a person's ability to understand the claims of the Church, there is no way as a rule to know who is or is not invincibly ignorant.
by Farley Clinton
While not wishing to engage in this controversy, Msgr. Perl clearly confirms that Fr. Feeney died in full communion with the Church, and that several of his spiritual descendants who hold his same doctrinal interpretations are in full communion with the Church. Such a statement is clearly within the mission of the PCED as this commission was established by Pope John Paul II to oversee the reconciliation and well-being of traditionalists within the Church.On that note, the evidence is clear: while the position held by Fr. Feeney and his spiritual descendants may be controversial, holding these positions does not, in itself, place one outside of the Catholic Church. In short, it is clear from the Church’s current pastoral and canonical practice that the Church considers this an internal controversy, and that she acknowledges the good standing of most of those who uphold a restrictive interpretation of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, baptism of blood and baptism of desire.
Consider a Hindu in Tibet who has no knowledge of the Catholic Church. He lives according to his conscience and to the laws which God has put into his heart. He can be in the state of grace, and if he dies in this state of grace, he will go to heaven.” (The Angelus, “A Talk Heard Round the World,” April, 2006, p. 5.)
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SSPX founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, "Against the Heresies",p.216
“Evidently,certain distinctions must be made. Souls can be saved in a religion other than the Catholic*religion*(Protestantism,*Islam,*Buddhism,*etc.), but not by this religion. There may be souls who, not*knowing Our Lord, have by the grace of the good Lord,*good*interior*dispositions,*who*submit*to*God...But*some*of*these* persons make an act of love which implicitly is equivalent to baptism of desire.It is uniquely by this means that they are able to be saved.”
In a prepared statement for the press the former Jesuit (Fr.Leonard Feeney ) added: "The conscience difficulty is that the diocese of Boston, under the auspices of Archbishop Cushing, and Boston College, under the auspices of Father John J. McEloney, S.J., both notably ignorant in the field of Catholic theology ... are teaching that there is salvation outside the Catholic Church." - Father Feeney Is Dismissed From Jesuit Order by Rome
-Lionel Andrades
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