Baptismus Flaminis

 

To My Readers: One of my readers sent me this article he wrote combating Feeneyism. As any regular visitor of my blog knows, I have written many times against this pernicious heresy. Nevertheless, this individual noted that he sees a spike in those professing the errors of the excommunicated priest, Leonard Feeney, to one degree or another. His article is concise and clearly written, and I have decided to use it as a post. The author wishes to remain anonymous, and he shall be credited simply as An Anonymous Traditionalist. For the picture accompanying this week's post, I have chosen the great Saint and Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, considered by the majority of theologians to have been the most erudite champion of the Faith, second only to St. Thomas Aquinas. 

St. Alphonsus did a magnificent job explaining the decrees of Trent and the Church's teaching on Baptism of Desire (BOD) and Baptism of Blood (BOB). I hope you enjoy this refresher on a matter of Church doctrine. It also gives me a needed break, especially with my expanding work duties, and in a week when I'm losing a precious hour to Daylight Savings Time. Please feel free to comment as usual, and I will be responding. 

God Bless you all, my dear readers---Introibo

Baptismus Flaminis

By An Anonymous Traditionalist

Written in honor of St. Alphonsus de Liguori and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Feast Day of St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, 4th of February 2022 AD. I, an anonymous author who is una cum sede apostolica, offer the following writing, submitted to the future decisions of the Magisterium of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, for the salvation of souls and the destruction of heresy.---An Anonymous Traditionalist. 

The Baptism of Desire, simply put, is the perfect act of contrition or charity of the unbaptized that receive the theological virtue of faith; which is received by hearing the faith preached by a preacher sent from God or by receiving the virtue of faith by an internal inspiration of grace from God. When the unbaptized make this perfect act of contrition or charity, united with the supernatural virtue of faith, they are (by definition) in the state of sanctifying grace. If the unbaptized dies in this state, then it follows that they go to Heaven, or in the case of those souls that need to still expiate their sins, Purgatory.

St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, 14, A. 11, ad 1: Objection- “1. Granted that everyone is bound to believe something explicitly, no untenable conclusion follows even if someone is brought up in the forest or among wild beasts. For it pertains to divine providence to furnish everyone with what is necessary for salvation, provided that on his part there is no hindrance. Thus, if someone so brought up followed the direction of natural reason in seeking good and avoiding evil, we must most certainly hold that God would either reveal to him through internal inspiration what had to be believed or would send some preacher of the faith to him as he sent Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10:20).” (Emphasis added).

The controversy surrounding Baptism of Desire begins with a certain Leonard Feeney. He was ordained a priest, as a Jesuit, on June 20, 1928. He became a professor at Boston College, and then became the chaplain of the Saint Benedict Center in 1945. Soon after his appointment, he preached against the doctrines of the Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood. His Jesuit superiors ordered him to leave the Center for a post at the College of the Holy Cross, but after initially going there, he returned to the Center and repeatedly refused to comply with the ecclesiastical order. Feeney was summoned to Rome to answer for his teachings, but he refused to go. By 1949 he was building an illicit religious order filled with married folk without canonical approval. On February 13, 1953, Feeney was solemnly excommunicated by His Holiness, Pope Pius XII. In 1972, Feeney reconciled with the post-Vatican II hierarchy without recanting his errors. Tragically, Leonard Feeney’s story of error ends with his death in the year 1978, AD, externally in union with the Modernist hierarchy. (N. B. Although a valid priest, once he was solemnly excommunicated by the Holy Father, Leonard Feeney forfeited his right to be known by his ecclesiastical title of “Father.” Hence, we do not speak of “Fr. Martin Luther.” ---Introibo).

While it is true that Leonard Feeney saw the Modernist theological attempts to use Baptism of Desire in a heretical manner, that manner being a sort of universalism, this foresight does not give one the liberty to deny Catholic doctrine. This denial of Catholic doctrine affects Traditionalists in America to the current day, and those influenced by the global impact of American culture.

At the time of writing this (the year being 2022 AD), a man claiming to be a bishop, Neal Webster, along with his clergy, an illicit so-called Benedictine Monastery called Most Holy Family Monastery, the St. Benedict Center of New Hampshire, a certain Charles Coulombe of Tumblar House (author of Desire & Deception), and Loreto Publications, all to some degree hold to the position of Feeney, which is the condemnation of the Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood.

Due to these facts of Feeney’s life, and the fact of his enduring legacy found amongst heretical offspring, may God have mercy on Leonard Feeney’s eternal soul. Today, the heresy of Feeney, the rejection of the perfect act of charity or contrition for the unbaptized, must be refuted because it is a pernicious, mortally sinful heresy that attacks the authority of the Catholic Church; the substance of this error condemns the very salvation of those souls united to the soul of the Holy Roman Catholic Church (1) , outside of which there is no salvation.

Every heresy, to some degree, attacks the Catholic religion in Her doctrines, disciplines, and liturgy. The Protestants, for instance, reject Catholic dogmas (notably the dogma of papal authority), Catholic disciplines (as a general rule, they do not keep laws of fast or abstinence), and Catholic liturgy (Protestant “reformers” created false liturgies stripped of Catholic prayers). As another example, the Modernists of Vatican II reject Catholic dogmas (the false religious liberty of Dignitatis Humanae contradicts the Magisterium in Quanta Cura which condemns religious liberty), Catholic disciplines (the 1983 Code of Canon law allows the mortally sinful practice of praying in common with heretics and schismatics), and Catholic liturgy (the new “mass” substantially differs from the Traditional Latin Mass to have a spirit comfortable to the most liberal of Protestants). The heresy of Feeneyism, more precisely the position of Most Holy Family Monastery (the rejection of Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood), shares in this same attack against the doctrines, disciplines, and liturgy of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, which this Church is habitually assisted by the Holy Ghost for the salvation of souls.

Thus, how the heresy of Feeneyism attacks the Catholic religion is to be defined.

Decidedly, Feeneyism rejects the Catholic doctrine of Baptism of Desire (the perfect act of contrition or charity). The Feeneyites base this rejection on their interpretation of the Magisterium. They quote directly the various magisterial statements on the necessity of sacramental baptism to justify their position. However, such quotations lack the official interpretation given by the ordinary teaching authority of the Church (in other words, the Magisterium). A Feeneyite could send these quotations all day, but if it lacks the official interpretation of the Church, then such quotations are all for naught.

 The correct means to understand theological quotations correctly requires one to consult the writings of approved Church theologians. It should be noted that they, approved theologians, do not officially and authoritatively teach doctrine, unless their voices are raised in a universal and ordinary manner on matters pertaining to faith or morals (2); but rather show where the Church teaches doctrine from the official interpretation of the Magisterium. 

The Feeneyites have yet to quote a single theologian, with the requisite credibility, that has adequately shown where the Church has officially condemned Baptism of Desire or Blood as heretical. Such a condemnation does not exist because the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium has consistently taught Baptism of Desire down through the centuries, and the Council of Trent infallibly taught it as well. Many quotes can prove this point, (such as from St. Hippolytus of the 3rd century or St. Prosper of Aquitaine of the 5th century), but previous works have already proven this point.

Indeed, the followers of Feeney attack the universal disciplines, which are attached to the universal liturgy of the Church, of the Roman Church. This rejection involves denying the passive infallibility of the 1917 Code of Canon Law because the Code expresses Baptism of Desire within certain canons. The logical conclusion of rejecting the canons, that support Baptism of Desire, necessarily implies that the public worship of the Requiem Mass offered for unbaptized catechumens is evil and condones heresy, yet the Church cannot give that which is evil to Her members. Furthermore, the Dimond Brothers and/or those clergy under Neal Webster, because they would have to logically condemn and censure the “heretical practice” of offering such Requiem Masses believe that the Church can sanction evil.

 Another absurdity, that absurdity which brings the dear reader to a main theme of this post, must be exposed, that is, if it is not infallible, then it can be heretical. The Dimond Brothers are notorious for doing just this, their literature is filled with objections being answered with “such a document is not infallible.” By doing this, they aim for the trees but end up destroying the whole forest. When one, whether they be of the Dimond Brothers or of the Gallican SSPX variety, or of Neal Webster’s clergy, says that the Church, in her official disciplines/liturgy, can give poison, pernicious error that sends souls to Hell; such a one implies that the Roman Catholic Church has defected, (the forest, being the Church, is destroyed). Every false religion defects, that is, a religion which is a means of damnation, in their doctrines, disciplines, and liturgy. The Roman Church is set apart from other religions, because it cannot defect; therefore the Catholic Church has not taught, ruled, or sanctified, a pernicious error when on the subject of the Baptism of Desire down through the centuries, because the Baptism of Desire is taught, ruled, and sanctified by the Church's teaching authority (3) 

The heresy of Feeneyism is to be rejected because it logically argues, in its conclusions, that the Catholic Religion has defected in Her doctrines, disciplines and liturgy down through the centuries. Furthermore, it is absurd to believe that the Doctors, theologians, Popes, and Church Fathers, of the Holy Roman Faith, have all failed to timely condemn, through the use of the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium, the “pernicious error” of Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood. May the heretical children of Leonard Feeney, who follow these absurdities, be converted back to the One True Church through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

Our Lady, Destroyer of Heresies, pray for us.

Endnotes and Addendum

1.      New Catholic Dictionary, Soul of the Church definition (1929): "From the 16th century, the Catholic theologians expressed more definitely the theological doctrine of the distinction between the Soul and Body of the Church. . . This distinction. . . is formally expressed by Bellarmine in his study on the members of the Church. According to him, men belong to the Body of the Church by virtue of external profession of the faith, and participation in the sacraments, and to the Soul of the Church through the internal gifts of the Holy Ghost, faith, hope, and charity. He draws three general conclusions relative to the members of the Church. There are those: (a) Who belong always to both the Body and Soul of the Church; (b) Who belong to the Soul without belonging to the Body; (c) Who belong to the Body but not to the Soul. This teaching has generally been followed by Catholic theologians.”

2.     A Commentary on Canon Law, (Augustine, 1918, Canon 1323, pg 327) states: "The universal and ordinary magisterium consists of the entire episcopate, according to the constitution and order defined by Christ, i.e., all the bishops of the universal Church, dependently on the Roman Pontiff". It also states, "What the universal and approved practice and discipline proposes as connected with faith and morals must be believed. And what the Holy Fathers and the theologians hold unanimously as a matter of faith and morals, is also de fide."

3.     Pope Pius XII, Address to the Midwives, official allocution of the Roman Pontiff: “An act of love is sufficient for the adult to obtain sanctifying grace and to supply the lack of baptism; to the still unborn or newly born this way is not open.”

COUNCIL OF TRENT (1545-1563) Canons on the Sacraments in General (Canon 4): “If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation, but are superfluous, and that although all are not necessary for every individual, without them or without the desire of them (sine eis aut eorum voto), through faith alone men obtain from God the grace of justification; let him be anathema.” (Emphasis added).

Decree on Justification (Session 6, Chapter 4): “In these words a description of the justification of a sinner is given as being a translation from that state in which man is born a child of the first Adam to the state of grace and of the ‘adoption of the Sons’ (Rom. 8:15) of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Savior and this translation after the promulgation of the Gospel cannot be effected except through the layer of regeneration or a desire for it, (sine lavacro regenerationis aut eius voto) as it is written: ‘Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter in the kingdom of God’ (John 3:5).” (Emphasis added). 

 ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI (1691-1787) Moral Theology (Bk. 6): “But baptism of desire is perfect conversion to God by contrition or love of God above all things accompanied by an explicit or implicit desire for true Baptism of water, the place of which it takes as to the remission of guilt, but not as to the impression of the [baptismal] character or as to the removal of all debt of punishment. It is called “of wind [flaminis] because it takes place by the impulse of the Holy Ghost Who is called a wind [flamen]. Now it is de fide that men are also saved by Baptism of Desire, by virtue of the Canon Apostolicam De Presbytero Non Baptizato and the Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 4, where it is said that no one can be saved “without the laver of regeneration or the desire for it.” (Emphasis added).

 1917 CODE OF CANON LAW Canon 737: “Baptism, the door and foundation of the Sacraments, in fact or at least in desire necessary unto salvation for all, is not validly conferred except through the ablution of true and natural water with the prescribed form of words.” (Emphasis added)

On Ecclesiastical Burial (Canon 1239. 2) “Catechumens who, through no fault of their own, die without Baptism, are to be treated as baptized.” — The Sacred Canons by Rev. John A. Abbo. St.T.L., J.C.D., and Rev. Jerome D. Hannan, A.M., LL.B., S.T.D., J.C.D. Commentary on the Code: “The reason for this rule is that they are justly supposed to have met death united to Christ through Baptism of Desire.”(Emphasis added).