Tuesday, September 28, 2010

CDF, VATICAN, SSPX, MOST HOLY FAMILY MONASTERY IN TENSION OVER STRAWMAN

The Society of St. Pius X teaches that there is a baptism of desire (BOD) and so attacks supporters of St. Benedict Centre ,the community of Fr. Leonard Feeney. The Most Holy Family Monastery (MHFM), sedevacantists in New York, believe there is no baptism of desire. They criticize the Catholic Church which claims there is a baptism of desire. The MHFM remain outside the Church because they choose to. The Sisters of St. Benedict Centre, Worcester and the St. Benedict Centre, NH say there is no baptism of desire and choose to remain within the Catholic Church. The sisters have been granted canonical status.
The Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vatican was a professor at the Gregorian University where the Jesuits suggest there is an explicit baptism of desire. So for the MHFM, the Jesuits and the Pontifical Universities and the CDF are in mortal sin for rejecting an ex cathedra dogma, extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Explicit baptism of desire means everyone does not have to visibly enter the Church as states the dogma.

Is this complicated enough?

None of the parties in this tension know a single case of the baptism of desire.

They cannot name a single person who has the baptism of desire in the present times.

They cannot name a single person who has had the baptism of desire over the last 100 years.

So what are they all disagreeing about?

For the Gregorian University professors the baptism of desire can only be a concept, a probability, and a possibility known only to God.

De jure, in principle there can be a BOD. De facto (explicitly) we do not know any case.

Explicitly (externally, visibly) the CDF Secretary does not know of any case of BOD.

Implicitly (in principle) he cannot name any person with BOD.

Yes, as a concept we believe it is possible. Something hypothetical. BOD is only hypothetical. Never explicit.

The SSPX are realizing that there is no explicit or implicit BOD. The Saint Benedict Centre, NH on its website (Catholicism.org) have provided a definition of BOD which is acceptable to them. So when priests on the SSPX website say the SBC is in heresy because they reject the BOD they need to check the SBC website and update theirs.

The issue became complicated when the bishops and priests of the SSPX misinterpreted Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the SSPX. When Lefebvre mentioned that persons in non Catholic religions could be saved it is something known to us in principle, hypothetically. We do not know a single person in Islam or the other religions being saved with the baptism of desire.

So when Archbishop Lefebvre says that a person in another religion can be saved he means: God will send someone to baptise that person or provide the helps he need (St. Thomas Aquinas).

“There are only Catholics in Heaven”, says Michael Vorris of Real Catholic TV’s, The Vortex.

Archbishop Lefebvre called on Catholics  to “preach”, “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” in it its rigorist interpretation, since there is only one interpretation of an infallible teaching. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus is an ex cathedra dogma we all have in common. Archbishop Lefebvre, the MHFM and the CDF. The Church never retracted extra ecclesiam nulla salus and Church Documents support the dogma (Ad Gentes 7, Vatican Council II, Dominus Iesus 20, CDF Notification on Fr. Jacques Dupuis S.J etc. )

Rationally we Catholics know that there is no baptism of desire that we can know of.

Explicit, knowable baptism of desire is a straw man.

So we are back to: everybody with no exception needs to enter the Catholic Church with Catholic Faith and the Baptism of water to go to Heaven and avoid Hell (Cantate Domino, Council of Florence ex cathedra, Ad Gentes 7 etc). Those saved with the baptism of desire, invincible ignorance etc are known only  to God.