Today morning at 10.30 a.m the priest offered Holy Mass in Italian with his face towards the altar and not the congregation. Communicants also received the Eucharist kneeling on a single pew, placed in the centre aisle.He was the Rector of the Church, Santa Maria di Annunziata, Rome.The Rector from the community Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate founded by Fr. Stefano Manelli F.I spoke on the necessity of the baptism of water for all people to go to Heaven.
On the feast of the baptism of Our Lord, in his homily he said, that being saved with the baptism of desire is an impossibility and is accepted only in theory.
Most of his homily dealt with the subject of the necessity of the baptism of water for salvation. The ordinary means.
There is the need for missionaries he said who would go out to the pagans. The Church is missionary.
The Rector based his talk on the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However he left out the issue of the Protestants and the Orthodox Christians who were baptized with water.
Protestants who die immediately after receiving the baptism of water I thought could go to Heaven. If they lived on after baptism they would need to live the Gospel according to the teachings of the Catholic Church and with the necessary helps of the Sacraments. Without the Sacraments of the Catholic Church they cannot go to Heaven. This is similar to a Catholic in mortal sin who does not use the Sacrament of Penance.He would be on the way to Hell.
The homily today was on a positive and pleasant note according to the instructions of the Vatican and the Vicariate. Since I have been writing on this subject I could understand the priest’s nuances and accent of certain points. In brief what he was saying, and not saying clearly and directly, is that millions of people are oriented to Hell. Since they are not in the Catholic Church.
He was saying really that all the members of non Christian religions (Hindus, Jews, Muslims etc) are oriented to Hell ‘practically’ and we do not know any case ‘practically’, of a non Catholic saved with the baptism of desire or in invincible ignorance.
So ‘practically’ there are no known exceptions to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Since only ‘in theory’ we accept that a non Catholic can be saved with a baptism of desire or in invincible ignorance.
The ordinary way ‘to go to Paradise’ (and avoid the fires of Hell) is the baptism of water given to adults with Catholic Faith in the Catholic Church.
I was thinking to myself, that since practically we do not know any case of a person saved in invincible ignorance, CCC 847-848 (invincible ignorance) is superfluous in the Catechism of the Catholic Church under the subheading Outside the Church No Salvation. Since in reality (practically) we do not know these ‘exceptions’.They cannot be exceptions to the traditional teaching that everyone needs to convert into the Church to avoid Hell.
The Catechism could suggest wrongly, or the reader could imply wrongly, that those saved with the baptism of desire are known to us practically. These cases it could be implied wrongly, are not just theoretical .
Also in these times the confusion has increased. Now due to political pressure the Vatican is teaching wrongly that Jews do not have to convert into the Church for salvation in the present times and that there is no attempt by the Church to convert Orthodox Christians.
Yet according to the dogma Cantate Domino, Council of Florence and according to the Letter of the Holy Office 1949, all Jews, Orthodox Christians and Protestants are oriented to Hell unless they convert into the Catholic Church.
The Franciscan priest recalled Jesus’ missionary teaching to ‘go out into the whole world and proclaim the Good News and baptize all people .Those who believe will be saved, those who are not baptized and do not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:15-16).Jews,Othodox Christians and Protestants do not believe within the Catholic Church.
The Franciscan had got it right. The baptism of desire and invincible ignorance are not ‘practical’( defacto) exceptions.To claim that they are practical exceptions would be indifferentism and syncretism. It would be a negation of an infallible teaching. This would be a mortal sin and heresy. The stuff of excommunications. It would be a sacrilege for the priest offering Holy Mass.-Lionel Andrades
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