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FROM THE HOUSETOPS
Vol.
III, No. 3 Spring,
1949
REPLY TO A LIBERAL
By Raymond
Karam
PART III. BAPTISM
1. Baptism is Absolutely
Necessary for Salvation.
2. Is Baptism by Itself Sufficient
for Salvation?
3. Baptism of Blood and Baptism of
the Holy Spirit.
a. Introduction.
b. Meaning of Baptism of Blood and Baptism of the
Spirit.
c. Baptism of Blood.
d. Baptism
of the Holy Spirit.
1st
Question: Can Sanctifying
Grace Precede The Reception Of A Sacrament?
2nd
Question: Is Sanctifying
Grace When Received Before Baptism Sufficient For Salvation?
3rd Question: Is There Any
Case When Baptism Of The Holy Spirit Without Actual Reception Of Baptism Of
Water Can Be Sufficient For Salvation?
PART III
BAPTISM
1. Baptism
is Absolutely Necessary for Salvation
Finally we come to the
question of baptism and of its necessity for salvation. In his paper,
Father Donnelly does not commit himself openly to any statement about the
necessity or lack of necessity of baptism for salvation, as he never
commits himself openly about anything. But it is easy to see what he holds
on the question from the texts he quotes and the way in which he arranges
these texts, as also from the irrelevant comments he makes on the
impossibility of judging the subjective state of Protestants. It is rather
remarkable to watch a professor of dogmatic theology waste his logic and
his scholarship in defending the sincerity of heretics, as if the admission
of sincerity or lack of sincerity in a person had anything to do with the
possibility of being saved without the Catholic Faith, outside the Catholic
Church.
The same thing happens
concerning baptism. After quoting the Council of Trent which says that
baptism, or at least “the desire of it,” is necessary for justification,
Father Donnelly goes on to discuss the inculpability, good faith and
sincerity of those outside the Church. It is very clear that, hiding behind
the authority of an Ecumenical Council, Father Donnelly claims to be
defending orthodox doctrine, but in fact he destroys the whole import of
the Council he quotes.
Father Donnelly says
that “sanctifying grace and, consequently, a title to the Beatific Vision,
are conferred by baptism of desire.” But what does he mean by “baptism of
desire?” By misquoting Pius XI, as I have shown, Father Donnelly openly
teaches that a person who is totally ignorant of the truths of the Faith
and of the Catholic Church can be justified and attain eternal salvation
while remaining in his ignorance until death. But Father Donnelly also says
that, on the authority of the Council of Trent, at least a desire for baptism
is necessary for justification. Therefore, it is clear that Father Donnelly
believes that a person can have a desire for baptism while being totally
ignorant of the Church, of the Catholic Faith, and of baptism of water.
Further, Father Donnelly
believes that a man can be justified and be saved who “does not believe
explicitly in the Catholic Church, and does not accept all the revealed
truths proposed by her for belief.” But again he says, on the authority of
the Council of Trent, that at least a desire for baptism is necessary for
justification. It is clear, therefore, that Father Donnelly believes that a
person can have baptism of desire, or more correctly a desire for baptism,
which would confer sanctifying grace on him, while rejecting the
Church and the truths proposed by her for belief.
Again, Father Donnelly
claims that Pope Pius XI teaches “that only those who are
‘contumaciter’ and ‘pertinaciter’ divided from the Church cannot be saved
as long as this condition exists.” Let us repeat, because Father Donnelly
inserts this word “only” into the Pope’s statement, we must infer that
Father Donnelly holds the following: Among those who hear of the Catholic
Church and her baptism, only those who contumaciously and obstinately
refuse the Catholic Church and her baptism will not be saved. The
remainder — who refuse, but not contumaciously and obstinately, — will be
justified and saved. But once more, since at least baptism of desire is
necessary for justification, it is clear that, according to Father Donnelly,
a person can have baptism of desire while rejecting baptism of
water!
Let us keep in mind
these three doctrines of Father Donnelly’s: (1) that a person can be said
to have a desire for baptism while being totally ignorant of the
Catholic Faith and ignorant of the baptism of water; (2) that a person can
be said to have a desire for baptism while knowing the Catholic Church and
the Catholic Faith and refusing both; (3) that a person can be said
to have a desire for baptism while knowing the baptism of water and refusing
to receive it.
Before showing that
these doctrines are heretical, let us see what the Church, in her
definitions, in her tradition and her teachings, says about the necessity
of baptism, for salvation.
Our Lord said to
Nicodemus: “Amen I say to you, unless a man be born again of water and the
Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3,5.)
St. John Chrysostom
says, commenting on this text:
“Bewail the infidels, bewail those who in nothing
differ from the infidels, who died without illumination, without baptism;
those are truly worthy of lamentations, those truly worthy of tears; they
are outside of the kingdom, along with those who are subject to punishment,
along with the damned. “Amen I say to you, unless a man be born again of
water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.””[i]
In a homily on the Acts
of the Apostles the same Chrysostom says:
“What do you suppose is my anguish when I hear that
any person has been taken away unbaptized, while I reflect upon the
intolerable punishments of that life, the inexorable doom!”[ii]
Speaking on the dignity
of the priesthood, St. John Chrysostom again says: “For it is manifest
folly to despise so great a ministry, without which we could obtain neither
salvation nor the good things that have been promised. For as no man can
enter into the kingdom of Heaven, unless he be born of water and the Holy
Ghost; and except he eat the flesh of the Lord, and drink His Blood, he
shall be excluded from everlasting life; and as all these things are
ministered only by the consecrated hands of priests, how could anyone
without them either escape the fire of Hell or obtain the crown that is
prepared?”[iii]
Saint Ambrose says:
“The Church is redeemed by the precious Blood of
Christ. Therefore, whoever should believe, whether Jew or Greek, must know
how to circumcise himself from sins, that he might be able to be saved;
. . . for no one ascends into the kingdom of heaven except by the
sacrament of baptism.”[iv]
Pope St. Leo the Great
says:
“The souls of men, before they
are breathed into their bodies, were not; nor would they be breathed
into a body by anyone except by God the Maker, Who created both them and
the bodies; and since by the transgression of the first man the whole
progeny of the human race is vitiated, no one can be freed from the
condition of the old man except by the sacrament of the baptism of Christ.”[v]
Tertullian says in his
treatise On Baptism:
“From that great pronouncement of Our Lord, Who
said: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he does not
have life,” it is prescribed that salvation comes to no one without
baptism.”[vi]
Saint Thomas Aquinas says, commenting on the
Apostles’ Creed:
“For just as a man cannot live in the flesh unless
he is born in the flesh, even so a man cannot have the spiritual life of
grace unless he be born again spiritually. This regeneration is effected by
Baptism: “unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God.””[vii]
In a profession of faith
prescribed to the Orientals, Pope Benedict XIV says:
“Likewise, baptism is necessary for salvation for
every human creature.[viii] The
Council of Trent anathematized anyone who would say that baptism is not
absolutely necessary for salvation for every human creature: or if anyone
should say: Canon 5. “If any one shall say that baptism is free, that is,
not necessary for salvation, let him be anathema.””[ix]
Saint Thomas Aquinas, in
his treatise on the Sacraments, says: “It is manifest that all are bound to
receive baptism, and that without it there cannot be salvation for men.”[x]
Saint Robert Bellarmine
says the same in his treatise on the Sacrament of Baptism. He had to refute
the heretics of his time, the Waldensians, the Zwinglians, the Lutherans,
the Calvinists, and the followers of Wyclif. The first question he proves
is that baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation.[xi] In speaking of this, he says:
“There was once the heresy of the Pelagians, saying
that baptism was not necessary for the remission of original sin, but only
for the attainment of the kingdom of Heaven, as Augustine testifies in
Chapter 69 of his book on heresies. But our heretics, more audacious than
the Pelagians, deny that baptism is necessary, not only for the remission
of sin, but also for the attainment of the kingdom of Heaven.”[xii]
Saint Robert Bellarmine
then goes on to say that this same heresy is the heresy of Wyclif, Zwingli
and Calvin.[xiii] And may we repeat, heresy being
monotonously the same, the error St. Robert was fighting against is today
once more being held by people who call themselves Catholics, and these
same Catholics are, in our time, actually sharing the heresy of the
Protestant heresiarchs. It must be a case of the greatest distress for this
glorious Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmine, to see that some
professors of theology in his own Society are teaching the very heresies
which he combated all his life.
But to return to our
subject, modern liberals would say that Baptism is not absolutely necessary
for salvation because it would not be just to punish all those who are not
baptized, as it would not be just to punish all those who do not accept and
join His Church. Therefore, they conclude, on the authority of their own
reasonings, “God must have innumerable other ways of saving those who are
not baptized or who are baptized and join some heretical or schismatical
sect. For no one can deny that there are innumerable non-Catholics who are
sincere and ready to obey God in everything. God cannot punish eternally a
person who is not baptized or is not a Catholic, if this is not his fault.”
According to this false
and presumptuous reasoning, they arbitrarily postulate the existence of
other means for saving all those non-Catholics, means other than the Church
and her sacraments. According to them, such things as invincible ignorance,
sincerity, readiness to do God’s will, and so on, can confer sanctifying
grace on a person who is ignorant or unwilling to receive the sacraments of
the Church and affiliation with her. Bainvel teaches this openly, and also
Father Donnelly, who teaches that a person ignorant of the Church, or a
heretic who refuses to become a Catholic, can be justified and receive
sanctifying grace without the means ordained by God. This is what makes
them speak of the Church and Baptism as the “ordinary means
instituted by God for salvation.” Thus, Bainvel says: “It is indeed the
order desired by God, the rule He lays down, that all shall be saved within
the Church. The exceptional cases, be they ever so numerous — and they are
less numerous than appears at first sight — are outside the Divine
intention because of the fault of the human will, and are supplied by God
with an extraordinary economy, a special Providence granted in the measure
of necessity.”[xiv]
The question, may we
say, is not how numerous the exceptions are, but whether we have a right to
assume that there are any exceptions at all, in other words, to
assume that God has any other plans for salvation besides the Church and Baptism.
Is not Father Bainvel guilty of rationalization here — that is, guilty of
an attempt to subject revelation to his own reasoning?
St. Augustine and St.
Robert Bellarmine answer for us by saying that the eternal damnation of
those outside the Church and of the unbaptized might seem to be unjust; but
this is only because the ways of the justice of God are hidden to us in
this life, but when they will be revealed to us in the Beatific Vision, we
shall see how very just is the damnation of the unbaptized.[xv] “However,” says St. Robert, “those who
imagine that there is another remedy, besides baptism, openly contradict
the Gospel, the Councils, the Fathers, and the consensus of the Universal
Church.”[xvi]
The heretics and liberal
Catholics of Bellarmine’s time were especially trying to invent other means
of salvation for unbaptized babies. “If baptism is necessary for
salvation,” they would say, “then innumerable infants would perish without
being guilty, which seems to be against God’s justice.” St. Robert answers,
saying: “Even though children are not baptized without being guilty
thereof, yet they do not perish without any guilt on their part, since they
have original sin.”[xvii]
The same arguments are
brought forth nowadays in relation to adults, because the liberals of this
day would not dare openly contradict what has already been clearly defined
about children, namely that they cannot be saved without actual baptism.
But what St. Robert says about children applies to adults as well, for,
even though some of them could die unbaptized because they never heard of
Christ, and hence without being guilty of this ignorance, yet these will
perish eternally because they have original sin and because of their actual
sins, as St. Thomas unmistakably teaches in the Summa.[xviii] On the other hand, those who heard
of Christ and do not join His Church and receive baptism, will perish
because of their refusal, which is the sin of infidelity, the most serious
of all sins, as St. Thomas says.[xix]
But it is pride that
incites the liberals to their foolish reasonings. For, as St. Robert says,
they do seem to know that the care and protection of all men belongs to God
much more than to them, “and Christ well knew, when He asserted that baptism
was necessary (John 3) that many would be deprived of this remedy without
any fault of their own, and it would be most easy for God, if He wished, to
provide baptism for all children, as He provides it for all His elect
. . . or those whom God predestined, to them He provides most
efficaciously the means of salvation.”[xx]
The only remedy against
original sin is baptism, and all those whom God predestined to salvation,
He draws them to this remedy. All the children who die unbaptized and all the
adults who die ignorant of baptism, or who, having been drawn to it by
God’s Providence, refuse it, are not predestinate, but will perish
eternally.
As a matter of fact, the
absolute necessity of baptism for salvation was always recognized so
strongly, that some of the Fathers of the Church went as far as to affirm
that all those who die unbaptized, even babies, are punished in eternal
fire.
For example, St.
Fulgentius says in his De Fide ad Petrum:
“Hold most firmly and do not doubt at all, that not
only men who already have the use of reason, but even children who either
begin in their mother’s wombs and die there, or who, being already born of
their mothers, pass from this world without the sacrament of holy baptism,
which is given in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost, will be punished with the torment of everlasting fire.”[xxi]
St. Augustine says the
same in his De Anima et eius Origine.[xxii]
But as St. Bonaventure
says in his Breviloquium:
“Lastly, because the lack of that justice in those
who are now born is not the result of any choice of their own will, or of
any actual delectation, it is not fitting that there should be punishment
of the senses in Hell after this life for original sin, because divine
justice, which is always accompanied by an overflowing mercy, punishes us
not beyond what is merited, but rather short of that. We must believe that
blessed Augustine knew this, though his words on the surface seem to sound
otherwise because of contempt for the Pelagian error, which granted them a
different kind of happiness. So that Augustine might lead them back to a
middle position, he turned more easily to the other extreme.”[xxiii]
In those ages of strong
faith, baptism was known to be so important that the holy Fathers were not
afraid to go even a little farther in their orthodox affirmations in order
to destroy the hateful heresies that surrounded them.
2. Is Baptism by Itself Sufficient for Salvation?
When is baptism valid?
(1) When water is used, (2) when the proper words are used: “I baptize you
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” (3) if the
person baptizing has the intention of doing what Christ intended, and (4)
in the case of an adult being baptized, if the person baptized has the
intention of receiving baptism. For, as Pope Innocent III said, “But he who
never consents but entirely contradicts, receives neither the res nor
the character of the sacrament.”[xxiv]
St. Thomas also says, “It must be said that if the intention of
receiving the sacrament is lacking in an adult, he should be rebaptized.”[xxv]
Now that we have shown
that baptism is necessary for salvation, we may ask, — is valid baptism
sufficient for salvation? And we answer, for children, yes, but for adults,
no. What more is required of an adult besides baptism for salvation? Two
more things are required: (1) the Catholic Fatith, since “without Faith it
is impossible to please God,” (Heb. 11, 6) and (2) membership in the
Catholic Church under the authority of the Roman Pontiff, since “outside the
Church there is no salvation” and since, as St. Thomas says in his
treatise, Against the Errors of the Greeks, “to be subject to the
Roman Pontiff is necessary for salvation.”[xxvi]
1. Concerning the first
of these requirements, namely, Faith, St. Thomas, in his treatise on
baptism, asks the question whether faith is necessary for baptism so that
sanctifying grace be conferred on the soul by the sacrament. The Angelic
Doctor answers that, in order to receive sanctifying grace through baptism,
“right faith is of necessity required for baptism; since, as it is said in Rom.
III, 22, ‘the justice of God is by faith in Jesus Christ.’”[xxvii] The Council of Trent speaks of the
“Sacrament of Baptism, which is the ‘Sacrament of Faith,’ without which
faith there can be no justification for anyone.”[xxviii]
Thus, baptism can be
valid even if the subject who receives it does not confess the Catholic
Faith, but it cannot be profitable for salvation if the subject is an
adult.
2. Likewise, all those
who receive baptism without the explicit intention of becoming members of
the Catholic Church under the authority of the Roman Pontiff will receive a
valid sacrament, but not the effects of the sacrament, namely, sanctifying
grace and salvation, except if they are children.
St. Alphonsus Liguori
says in his treatise, On the Commandments and the Sacraments: “We
must believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church. Hence,
they who are out of our Church, or separated, cannot be saved, except
infants who die after baptism.”[xxix]
But this is not an exception. Children who are baptized are real
members of the Church, even if their parents and the minister who baptizes
them are not Catholics. Every child validly baptized is a Catholic, and
every adult who is validly baptized and who confesses the Catholic Faith,
with the intention of joining the Catholic Church, is a Catholic.
This is the definition
St. Robert Bellarmine gives of the Catholic Church:
“The Church is one only and not two, and this one
and true Church is the congregation of men bound together by the profession
of the same Christian Faith, and by the communion of the same sacraments,
under the rule of the legitimate pastors, and especially of the one Vicar
of Christ on Earth, the Roman Pontiff.”[xxx]
All those, therefore,
who do not profess the Catholic Faith, or who do not participate in the
sacraments of the Church or who do not submit to the authority of the Roman
Pontiff, are not members of the Church and, therefore, cannot be saved.
Does this mean that
every adult who is baptized outside the Catholic Church, or every baptized
child who grows up and follows the heretical sect of his parents, cannot be
saved? Yes, unless, before he dies, he repents and joins the Catholic
Church. Let us see what the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have to say
on this point.
St Fulgentius says:
“Whether in the Catholic Church or in any heretical
or schismatical church, if anyone receives the sacrament of baptism, in the
Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, he receives the
integral sacrament; but salvation, which is the power of the sacrament, he
will not have, if he has received the same sacrament outside the Catholic
Church. Thus, therefore, he must return to the Church, not that he might
receive the sacrament of baptism anew, which no one ought to repeat in any
baptized man, but that, being now in Catholic society, he might receive
eternal life, which can never, in any way, be obtained by one who, with the
sacrament of baptism, would remain a stranger to the Catholic Church.”[xxxi]
Again, St. Fulgentius
says:
“Hold most firmly, and do not doubt at all, that
the sacrament of baptism can be, not only in the Catholic Church, but also among
the heretics who baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost, but that outside the Catholic Church it cannot profit. Nay,
rather, as in the Church salvation is conferred by the sacrament of baptism
to those who believe rightly, so to those baptized outside the Church, if
they do not return to the Church, destruction is completely fulfilled by
the same baptism. For, the unity of this Ecclesiastical society is of such
value for salvation, that he is not saved by baptism to whom it has not
been given where it ought to have been given.”[xxxii]
Again:
“Hold most firmly, and do not doubt at all, that
everyone baptized outside the Catholic Church cannot be made partaker of
eternal life, if before the end of this earthly life, he does not return to
the Catholic Church and become incorporated with it.”[xxxiii]
The same St. Fulgentius
says:
“Hold most firmly, and do not doubt at all, that
not only all the pagans, but also all the Jews, and all the heretics and
schismatics who end the present life outside the Catholic Church, will go
into the eternal fire, which was prepared for the Devil and his angels.
(Mt. 25,41)”[xxxiv]
St. Augustine says in
his commentary on St. John: “And yet it may be that one may have baptism
apart from the dove” (i. e., the Catholic Church), “but, that baptism
apart from the dove should do him good, is impossible.”[xxxv]
Speaking of the heretic or schismatic St. Augustine says: “I, says he, have
baptism. You have it, but that baptism without charity profits you nothing,
because without charity you are nothing . . . For you did have
baptism to destruction, outside (the Church); if you shall have
it within, it begins to profit you to salvation.”[xxxvi]
St.
Bonaventure says, in his Breuiloquium:
“Because outside of the unity of faith and love,
which makes us sons and members of the Church, no one can be saved, hence,
if the sacraments are received outside the Church, they are not effective
for salvation, although they are sacraments. However, they can become
useful if one returns to Holy Mother the Church, the only Spouse of Christ,
whose sons alone Christ the Spouse deems worthy of eternal inheritance.”[xxxvii]
St. Augustine, in his On Baptism: Against the
Donatists, Bk.4, says:
“The Church compared to Paradise indicates to us
that certain men are able to receive baptism even outside of Her, but that
no one is able either to grasp or to retain the salvation of beatitude
outside of Her.
“For even the rivers from the font of Paradise, as
the Scripture testifies, flowed widely outside. They are remembered by name
and it is known to all through what lands they flowed and that they existed
neither in Mesopotomia nor in Egypt, in which those rivers flowed. So it is
that, though the water of Paradise is outside of Paradise, there is no
beatitude except within Paradise.
“So, the Baptism of the Church can exist outside
of the Church, but the gift of a blessed life is not found except within
the Church, which was founded on a rock and received the keys of binding and
loosing. She is the one that keeps and possesses every power of Her Spouse
and Lord, and through this conjugal power She can also bring forth sons
from the handmaids, who, if they be not proud, shall be called into their
share of inheritance. If, however, they are proud, they shall remain
without.
“Because
we fight for the honor and unity of the Church, let us not concede to the
heretics what we know to be false, but rather let us teach them by
arguments that they cannot attain salvation through unity unless they come
to that same unity. For the water of the Church is faithful and salutary
and holy for those who use it well. But outside of the Church no one can
use it well.”[xxxviii]
In the same book, St.
Augustine says:
“Therefore, we are right in censuring, anathematizing,
abhorring and abominating the perversity of heart shown by heretics; yet it
does not follow that they do not have the sacrament of the Gospel, because
they have not what makes it avail.”[xxxix]
We do not deny that
baptism can be validly administered outside the Church, if all the
conditions for its validity are fulfilled. But we deny that it can confer
sanctifying grace and a title to the Beatific Vision if one does not intend
to join the Church while receiving it. We say, with the whole tradition of
the Church, that a non-Catholic can receive baptism outside the Church, but
not sanctification.
Now, let us be sure that
everything is perfectly clear. We have seen (1) that for one who has not
the intention of being baptized, baptism is not valid; (2) if one
has the intention of being baptized, but does not confess the Catholic
Faith, his baptism is valid BUT it does not confer sanctification and
salvation.
Therefore,
if this is true of real baptism, how can the so-called “baptism of desire”
of Father Donnelly confer sanctification and salvation when the man has
neither the required explicit intention of receiving the baptism of water
nor confessed the Catholic Faith?
We confess, with the
Catholic Church, and with the whole Christian tradition, that it is
absolutely impossible to attain salvation outside the Catholic Church. As
we have shown, we mean by this what the Church herself means: (1) that no
adult can be saved if he does not, whether through ignorance or obstinacy,
explicitly confess the Catholic Faith; (2) that no adult can be saved who
dies ignorant of the Catholic Church, or who, having known the Church,
refuses to become one of her members; (3) that no adult can be saved who
dies ignorant of baptism or who, having heard of it, refuses to receive it;
(4) that no adult can be saved who is baptized into a heretical or
schismatical church, unless before he dies he joins the Catholic Church;
(5) that no adult can be saved if he does not explicitly confess the
Catholic Faith, or if he denies one truth of the Faith, or if he does not
submit fully to the authority of the Roman Pontiff; (6) and that no child
who dies unbaptized can be saved.
Therefore, it is
impossible for a man to be saved if he holds other beliefs than those of
the Catholic Church, if he belongs to any other religious community than
the Catholic Church, and if he does not receive the baptism instituted by
Christ.
St. Robert Bellarmine,
who defends very strongly the doctrine that outside the Church there can be
no salvation for anyone, says that he means by the Catholic Church “the
congregation of men bound together by the profession of the same Christian
Faith, and by the communion of the same sacraments, under the rule of the
legitimate pastors, and especially of the one Vicar of Christ on Earth, the
Roman Pontiff.”[xl]
But if those who are
outside the Church cannot attain salvation, is there a way of determining
exactly who is a member of the Church and who is not? Bellarmine answers:
“From this definition it can be easily gathered
what men belong to the Church and what men do not. For there are three
parts of this definition: the profession of the true Faith, the communion
of the Sacraments, and the subjection to the legitimate Pastor, the Roman
Pontiff. By reason of the first part are excluded all infidels, as much
those who have never been in the Church, like the Jews, Turks and Pagans;
as those who have been and have fallen away, like heretics and apostates.
By reason of the second, are excluded catechumens and excommunicates,
because the former are not to be admitted to the communion of the
sacraments, the latter have been cut off from it. By reason of the third,
are excluded schismatics, who have faith and the sacraments, but are not
subject to the lawful pastor, and therefore they profess the Faith outside,
and receive the Sacraments outside. However, all others are included, even
if they be reprobate, sinful and wicked.”[xli]
In his Compendium of
Christian Doctrine, Bellarmine says:
“I believe that for the good Christians there is
eternal life full of every happiness and free from every sort of evil; as,
on the contrary, for the infidels and for the bad Christians there is
eternal death full of every misery and deprived of every good.”[xlii]
St. Peter Canisius says,
in his Catechism, speaking of the Catholic Church:
“Outside of this communion (as outside of the Ark
of Noah) there is absolutely no salvation for mortals: not to Jews or
Pagans, who never received the faith of the Church; not to heretics who,
having received it, forsook or corrupted it; not to schismatics who left
the peace and unity of the Church; finally, neither to excommunicates who
for any other serious cause deserved to be put away and separated from the
body of the Church, like pernicious members . . . For the rule of
Cyprian and Augustine is certain: He will not have God for his Father who
would not have the Church for his Mother.”[xliii]
Pope Boniface VIII, in
his Bull Unam Sanctam, says:
“Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to
hold that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We firmly
believe in her, and we confess absolutely that outside her there is neither
salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles (VI, 8)
proclaims: “One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one of her
mother, the chosen of her that bore her,” who represents one mystical body,
whose head is Christ, and the head of Christ is God. In her there is one
Lord, one faith, one baptism. There was, indeed, at the Deluge only one ark
of Noah, prefiguring the One Church, which Ark, having been finished to a
single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i. e., Noah, outside of
which, as we read, all that subsisted on the Earth was destroyed.”[xliv]
Origen said in one of his
homilies:
“If anyone from this people wants to be saved, let
him come to this house, in which is the Blood of Christ in sign of
redemption . . . Let no one, therefore, persuade himself, let not
one deceive himself: outside of this house, that is, outside of the Church,
no one is saved; for, if anyone should go out of it, he is guilty of his
own death.”[xlv]
St. Cyprian in his
treatise On the Unity of the Catholic Church says:
“. . . Our Lord said: “I and the Father
are one.” And, again, it is written about the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit; “And these three are one.” And does anyone believe that this
unity, coming from the divine power, and joined by heavenly sacraments, can
be torn apart in the Church and separated by the division of opposing wills?
Whoever does not hold this unity, does not hold the law of God, does not
hold the faith of the Father and of the Son, does not hold life and
salvation.”[xlvi]
Speaking to the
Philadelphians, St. Ignatius of Antioch says:
“Do not err, my brethern: If anyone follow a maker
of schism, “he shall not possess the kingdom of Heaven” (I Cor. 6,9-10). If
anyone walk in a foreign doctrine, he does not communicate with the
Passion.”[xlvii]
St. Irenaeus says in his
Treatise against Heretics:
“In the Church, God has set apostles, prophets,
doctors (I Cor. 12, 28), and all the remaining operation of the Spirit, of
which are not partakers all those who do not hasten to come into the
Church, but defraud themselves of life, by an evil determination and a
worse operation. For where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God;
and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every grace; for
the Spirit is truth.”[xlviii]
Let us listen to Pope
Pius XI who, Fr. Donnelly says, believes that there can be salvation
outside the Catholic Church:
“No one is found in the
one Church of Christ and no one perseveres in it unless he acknowledges and
accepts obediently the supreme authority of St. Peter and his legitimate
successors. Did not the very ancestors of those who are entangled in the
errors of Photius and the Protestants obey the Roman Bishop as the high
shepherd of souls?
“Let them listen to Lactantius crying: “It is only the Catholic
Church that retains the true worship. She is the fountain of truth, she is
the abode of faith, she is the temple of God; if anyone does not enter her
or if anyone shall depart from her, he is a stranger to the hope of life
and salvation. Let not one deceive himself, therefore, by continuous
disputations. Life and salvation are in the balance which, if not looked to
carefully and diligently, will be lost and destroyed.””[xlix]
St. Fulgentius says,
concerning all those who are outside the Catholic Church, whether baptized
or not:
“Hold most firmly and do not doubt at all, that not
only all the pagans, but also all the Jews, and all the heretics and
schismatics who end the present life outside the Catholic Church, will go
into the eternal fire, “which was prepared for the Devil and his angels.”
(Mt. 25, 41)”[l]
Finally, the Council of Florence,
under Pope Eugene LV, decreed in the Bull Cantate Domino:
“The most holy Roman Church firmly believes,
professes and preaches, that none of those existing outside the Catholic
Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can
have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire,
“which was prepared for the Devil and his angels,” unless before death they
become affiliated with Her; and that so important is the unity of this
ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit
by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive
an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgiving, their other works
of Christian piety, and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his
almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood
for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and
the unity of the Catholic Church.”[li]
3. “Baptism
of Blood” and ‘Baptism of the Spirit”
(a) Introduction. But
let us come now to what Father Donnelly and the other liberal theologians
call “baptism of desire.” Is there anything in Catholic tradition to
warrant this phrase and its use by liberals?
As I have already said,
the expression “baptism of desire” is a mistranslation of the Latin
expressions: “baptismus Flaminis” and “baptismus in voto” or “votum
baptismi.” The first of these expressions (baptismus Flaminis) means, as
St. Thomas explains in the Summa, Part III, Question 66, Article 11,
“baptism of the Holy Spirit,” which is a far cry from the interpretation
which the modern liberal puts on this phrase, as I will show. The other two
expressions (baptismus in voto and votum baptismi) make use
of the word votum, which means will, intention, purpose, and
can therefore be translated as: “baptism in purpose” of “will for baptism.”
What do the Fathers and
Doctors teach concerning this question of baptism in voto or of
baptism of the Spirit?
First, let us quote St.
Ambrose on the efficacy of baptism:
“And thus you have read that three testimonies
in baptism are one, water, blood and the Spirit; since, if you
remove one of these, the sacrament of baptism does not stay. For what is water
without the Cross of Christ? A common element, without any effect of
sacrament. Nor again is the mystery of regeneration without water; for
“unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God.” Now, a catechumen also believes in the Cross of
Our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he also signs himself, but unless he be
baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, he
cannot receive remission of his sins, nor can he receive the gift of spiritual
grace.”[lii]
Likewise, St. Thomas
says:
“The baptism of water has its efficacy from the
passion of Christ, to which someone conforms himself through baptism, and
ultimately from the Holy Spirit as from a first cause.”[liii]
Elswhere in the Summa,
St. Thomas explains this:
“A sacrament, in causing grace, works after the
manner of an instrument. Now, an instrument is twofold; the one, separate,
as a stick, for instance the other, united, as a hand. Moreover, the
separate instrument is moved by means of the united instrument, as a stick
by the hand. Now, the principal efficient cause of grace is God himself, in
comparison with Whom Christ’s humanity is as a united instrument, whereas
the sacrament is as a separate instrument.”[liv]
We see, therefore, that
sanctification is primarily caused by the Three Divine Persons and
is the work of the Holy Spirit by appropriation. It is, however,
achieved in us through Christ’s Passion as a primary instrument, and
through water as a secondary instrument. All three, namely, the Spirit, the
blood of Christ, and water are, consequently, indispensable, and no one can
be sanctified if one of the three is missing.
(b) Meaning
of “Baptism of Blood” and “Baptism of the Spirit.”
Now, the word baptism,
which comes from the Greek, means washing. Every time a person
passes out of the state of sin (whether original or actual), he is said to
be washed, or cleansed. The first sacrament of the Church is a general
washing, and is therefore called baptism. But even a baptized person can
fall back into sin, though not original sin. The only way for this person
to come back to the state of grace is through another purification or
washing.
It is in prefiguration
of these washings from sin that the Jews had to have so many ablutions,
especially before their meals. We also are asked to wash before our
Eucharistic meals. But this washing is not the renewal of the
sacrament of baptism, which cannot be repeated. It is, rather, a washing
from actual sin only, not from original sin. This is why Our Lord insisted
on washing the Apostles’ feet before He instituted the Sacrament of the
Holy Eucharist. Jesus came first to Peter, who refused to see his God and
his Master descend so low as to wash his feet. But Jesus answered: “If I
wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with me.” Frightened lest he should
lose his beloved Master’s friendship, Peter said, “Lord, not my feet, but
also my hands and my head.” And Jesus said to him, “He that is washed,
needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly.”[lv]
This indeed signifies
the sacrament of penance, which is a certain washing, but a washing only of
that in us that touches the Earth; for he that is washed wholly by baptism
needs only to have his feet washed. Says St. Augustine:
“And every day, therefore, is he who intercedes for
us washing our feet . . . For “if,” as it is written, “we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all iniquity,” that is, even to our feet wherewith we walk on the
Earth.”[lvi]
Therefore, every washing
whereby the Holy Spirit comes to inhabit the soul can be called a baptism,
a cleansing, although we do not necessarily mean the real sacrament of
baptism. Every time the sacrament of penance is administered, a certain
washing or baptism is administered, but it is not a baptism of water, but
rather a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, when a Catholic is
about to be martyred and is unable to receive the sacrament of penance for
the remission of his sins, his martyrdom itself effects this remission, and
can thus be called a kind of washing or baptism, a baptism of blood.
St. Thomas says the same
thing about these two baptisms, the baptism of blood and the baptism of the
Spirit:
“But those who live after baptism in this mortal
life are not able to ascend to such a height of perfection that the
inordinate motions of sensuality may not still rise up from earthly
affections; and therefore it is necessary that they wash their feet, either
by martyrdom, which is the baptism of blood (baptismus sanguinis),
or by penance, which is the baptism of the Spirit (baptismus
Flaminis), in order that they might be saved.”[lvii]
But how about an
unbaptized person? Could these two kinds of baptism be received by persons
who have not been actually baptized with water? And if these sacraments
could be received by them (baptism of blood and baptism of the Spirit, that
is), would they supply the place of baptism of water, so that the persons
who received them could attain salvation without being baptized with water?
Let us see what the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church have to say about
this.
(c) Baptism
of Blood.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem
says about baptism of blood:
“If anyone does not receive baptism, he does not
have salvation, with the exception of the martyrs alone, who even without
water receive the kingdom.”[lviii]
St. Fulgentius says:
“From the time when Our Saviour said, “unless a man
be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God,” (John 3,5) no one, without the sacrament of baptism, can receive
the kingdom of Heaven or life eternal, except those who, without baptism, shed
their blood for Christ in the Catholic Church.”[lix]
St. Augustine says in
his City of God:
“For whoever, being not yet regenerate, dies for
confessing Christ, is freed of his sin as well as if he had received the
sacrament of baptism. For he Who said: “Unless a man be born again of water
and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” elsewhere
says about the martyrs, “Everyone, therefore, that shall confess me before
men, I will confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven;” and again: “He
that shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.” Whereupon it is that
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” For what is
more dear than the death wherein all the wickedness of a man is abolished
and his good augmented?”[lx]
St. Robert Bellarmine
says: “Martyrdom is rightly called, and is, a certain baptism.”[lxi]
Martyrdom for the Name
of Christ can therefore supply the place of baptism of water, and this both
for adults and children, — witness the Holy Innocents who were killed for
the sake of Christ.
When can martyrdom
supply the place of baptism? Can a man who knows that he is going to be
killed for confessing Christ and who on this account refuses or neglects
the baptism of water because martyrdom is a perfect substitute, can such a
man be saved? Or can a man who dies for confessing Christ while remaining
in a heretical or schismatical sect be saved? Or again, is there any way in
which a man can be saved by the baptism of blood if he is ignorant of
Christ and His Church?
Martyrdom is a
substitute for the baptism of water only in case of a catechumen who has
the Catholic Faith and confesses Christ and His Church, and who, because of
his apprehension by pagans or heretics, is unable to receive the baptism of
water. Thus, St. Augustine, in the City of God, says that these martyrs
will be saved “because they willed rather to die in confessing Christ than
to deny Him.”[lxii]
Therefore, martyrdom can replace Baptism only in the case of a man who
cannot receive the Sacrament of Baptism because he is dying for
Christ.
Thus, it is clear that
even a catechumen who dies confessing Christ cannot be saved if he refuses
the baptism of water, or if he does not try to receive it, knowing that he
is going to be martyred.
Moreover, it is not
enough to confess Christ in order to have the baptism of Blood. One needs
also to confess His Church and to be dying as a Catholic, although
prevented by martyrdom from receiving the baptism of water. Thus, St.
Fulgentius says that no one can be saved without the baptism of water,
“except for those who, without baptism, shed their blood for Christ in
the Catholic Church.”[lxiii]
Further, St. Paul said,
in his first Epistle to the Corinthians (13, 3): “And if I should
distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body
to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” This does not
mean (and St. Robert Bellarmine in his treatise on Baptism clearly proves
it)[lxiv]
that a martyr needs to have perfect charity before he is
martyred. Imperfect charity is sufficient, since martyrdom itself would
confer perfect charity on the martyr. But it means that unless a man is
dying for Christ in His Church, he cannot be saved. For, as St.
Thomas shows, separation from the Body of the Church and from the authority
of the Vicar of Christ on Earth is a sin against charity.[lxv]
This is why the Council
of Florence, on the authority of St. Paul, decreed:
“No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may,
no one, even if he pour out his blood for the name of Christ, can be saved,
unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”[lxvi]
Therefore Bellarmine
rightly concludes that salvation can be attained by:
“Those who are killed for Christ in the
confession of the true Faith, and in the unity of the Church. For heretics
and schismatics cannot be martyrs, since they place an obstacle to the
grace of God by their sin of infidelity and schism, in which they actually
persevere.”[lxvii]
And St. Cyprian, in his
book On the Unity of the Church, writes:
“If such (heretics or schismatics) should even
suffer martyrdom for the name of Christ, they would not expiate their
crime. There can be no such thing as a martyr out of the church. Though
they should be thrown into the fire, or be ex |