From Priest watches video of his own baptism and realizes it was invalid…and that he’s not really a priest by Joseph Shaw
The point they would do well to consider is this. If sacramental validity makes no difference, then the sacraments make no difference. If the sacraments make no difference, then Christ’s death on the Cross, which made the sacraments possible, makes no difference. Indeed, Christianity makes no difference, except as a moral teaching and example to follow. It makes no metaphysical difference.
Lionel: Agreed. So the Sacraments are necessary for salvation. The Sacrament of baptism is necessary for salvation.All need the baptism of water for salvation(CCC 1257).Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation(CCC 845,846).This is the norm for salvation.The norm is not the baptism of desire etc( CCC 847-848)
_______________
There are people who would be happy to accept this train of thought, but they are not Catholics. It is what you would expect of liberal Protestant thinking. The Catholic Church has a great apparatus of Sacramental theology and cares deeply about valid formulas and ritual actions because Catholics think it makes a difference. We think Christ’s death was efficacious, it actually reconciled us to God, and we think that we participate in this through things which, like the Cross, are specific and contingent: specific words and actions, chosen by God as the way this grace will be given to men.
It is true that God could have chosen to save us in some way other than through the Cross, and he could have chosen that we participate in the saving event of the Cross through the use of different words and actions. But He chose what He chose, and if we want to benefit from these things we must adopt the means He has provided for us.
Then again, God can still save people other than through water baptism.
Lionel: However this is not the norm. The norm is the baptism of water with faith for adults.
That God can save someone without water-baptism is hypothetical. There is no concrete case knowable.The baptism of water is repeatable and visible. We can check if someone has learnt the faith. It is real and concrete.We cannot administer the baptism of desire.We cannot check if someone has been saved in invincible ignorance.
___________________________
How and whether this happens is something which has not been revealed to the Church, and speculation on the subject, on the basis that God is terribly nice, is never going to get us the objective assurance that our sins, or those of our children, have been washed away, that the sacraments of Baptism and Confession give us.
Lionel: We do not know any case of someone saved outside the Catholic Church without faith and baptism.Any speculation is just speculation.
No one saw St.Emerentiana or St. Victor in Heaven without the baptism of water. To suggest that they are in Heaven without the baptism of water, is speculation with good will.
No one saw St. Ambrose's friend the Emperor Valentinian in Heaven. That St. Ambrose wished and believed his friend was in Heaven was sentimental and understandable.
We do not know of any one saved in 2020 with the baptism of desire(BOD), baptism of blood(BOB) or invincible ignorance(I.I) and without the baptism of water.
__________________________
If Fr Hood had died without ever having been baptized, it is reasonable to say that his desire for baptism would, at the point of death, have worked as a substitute for water baptism, in saving him from Original Sin. (This is what is denied by the followers of the late Fr Leonard Feeney.)
Lionel: Yes hypothetically the desire for baptism could have saved him or if he had perfect contrition or if there was some other factor acceptable to God. However this is speculation in the case of any particular person, for example, Fr. Hood.These are theoretical hypothesis.They can only be a known fact,for God.
We cannot say that any particular person will be saved with the baptism of water and not according to the norm. Neither can we say that any particular person is in Heaven without the baptism of water and is an exception to the norm.
Fr.Leonard Feeney was saying that there are no known exceptions to the norm. He could not know of any one would be saved for example, with the baptism of desire and not with the baptism of water. Since the baptism of desire is unknown in particular cases.It is not an exception to traditional extra ecclesiam nulla salus(EENS). So he could accept hypothetical baptism of desire and also the necessity of being a member of the Catholic Church with faith and baptism for salvatiom. BOD does not contradict EENS.They are both compatible when BOD is theoretical.
The confusion and problem arises when the liberals and the Lefebvrists assume BOD refers to a personally known person saved outside the Church. Then they project this case as a known exception to the norm.-Lionel Andrades
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment