In hindsight, was Fr. Feeney's warning on diluting EENS in preaching prophetic?

[Gerard]

Sure you did. Provided you think confession is worthless as well. 

I noticed you didn't address my point, only to find my argument hypocritical as if contraries are contradictions, which is illogical.

I thought I did address your point.  You seem to think that having sanctifying grace is equivalent to salvation when Catholics consistently lose sanctifying grace and have to restore their souls though confession. 

I would assume many people go to Hell without Baptism and many people go to Hell after having been baptized.  The big question is....has God ever unjustly allowed someone to die without water baptism? 

The key word is "unjustly" and the answer is "no" but my answer is different in yours as to consequences of justice.

If God allows someone to die without Baptism and they go to Hell, they aren't being treated unjustly.  If someone dies with Baptism and they are in the state of grace, they go to Heaven.  If someone desires Baptism and God gifts them with sanctity that they cooperate with, why would God not also provide the water that He has deemed and revealed as necessary for them?  It doesn't matter whether or not their are witnesses or not.  If St. Thomas teaches that God will send an Angel to instruct someone if necessary why wouldn't the Angel also Baptize them? 

A Catholic burial is always based on Hope since the outcome of someone's judgement is beyond our knowledge. 

But if the soul is always in Hell such a ceremony would be a mockery wouldn't it? Unless I'm mistaken that's your argument: the soul without baptism will definitively go to Hell, and if so such a ceremony would be a mock prayer.

For something to be a mockery, someone has to have a malicious intent.  A child who prays for the soul of their dead dad in Hell and who thinks they are an angel in Heaven is not mocking God and their prayers are not mockeries to God. 

For infants, they don't and shouldn't delay.  For adults with reason, they should be delayed for instruction so they can have both the water and the "desire" or intention that is necessary for the validity of the Sacrament.  For the infirm and infants, the Godparents supply the intention. 

But the time before they desire and receive it can last months. If the soul definitively went to Hell the Church would be playing the game of roulette if it was a necessity of means. It would make the concept of the charity of God an absurdity from my perspective at least.

Not at all.  You simply allow for the hope that God's charity manifest itself in the way that God has revealed.  If one can hope that God will allow someone into Heaven without the Sacrament of Baptism, it's a lot more orthodox to believe that He will provide the Sacrament in the fulfillment of all Justice.  Jesus did not need circumcision nor the Baptism of St. John the Baptist.  But He followed the Law because it was what God had determined.  God follows His own laws because He can't deceive nor lie. 

What would be injurious to souls would be for the Church to have a running tally on the numbers and identities of souls in Hell.  There's no mechanism given by God for your scenario to be functional. 

How can you escape that conclusion if water baptism is absolutely necessary to reach the pearly gates? It would seem like an easy thing to measure. I don't know how that wouldn't be true and anyone could answer what I just said but I'll make it very clear.

If water baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation why don't we just say those souls are in Hell? Would mechanics of theology would preclude this if true?

You're approach is almost secularist. Witnesses are not necessary for the validity of a Baptism.  We belong to a religion built on miracles.  Virgin birth, resurrection, transubstantiation, bi-location, invisibility, teleportation, superhuman physical feats, infused knowledge, multiplication of food, walking on water, control of the weather etc. 

With all of that to contend with, how can someone determine for sure that someone actually died without water baptism?  The only thing we know is whether or not we witnessed a baptism.  Who is to say an Angel can't stretch a man's consciousness in the last moment, infuse his mind with knowledge, allow for his will to make a decision and the Angel can manifest a single drop moving across the forehead while he states the formula for Baptism? 

I see no reason for watering down a declarative infallible statement of the Church.  That approach avoids the miraculous and diminishes the preternatural and supernatural in favor of being anchored to a purely materialist  approach. That approach is solely dependent on human agency. 

God may save many more people than it appears or many people that appear to be saved are ultimately lost.  Only He knows how truly narrow the path is.

Or maybe slightly bigger than what we think too. We know it's narrow as God said so, but maybe it's not so narrow to those who love Him in faith and truth.

To summarize my understanding of justification includes salvation if they die in the state of grace, but yours does not. St. Benedict Center's quote is "justification is necessary but insufficient for salvation." I have asked for them to justify (pun but I jest) this quote based on a theologian but it's never been produced a justified soul is damned.

There isn't a single, extra person who is saved according to your formulation than there is to mine.  While you make the assumption that some person will be justified and brought into Heaven without the sacrament of Baptism through a special dispensation of God.  I believe God will in that very same case and every case, provide a water Baptism whether we who witness the death are aware of it or not.  It is no greater effort on God's part and at the same time, the infallible declarations of the Church and the revealed truth of the Church isn't compromised.  Necessary still means necessary, water is not a metaphor, the Church still admits they know of no other means for salvation besides that of water Baptism.  They guess God has a solution.  Someone has somehow tied God's wrists in the idea that if you don't see the Baptism happen, God couldn't still give a water Baptism through a member of the Church Triumphant. 

My position is solid and has a particular beauty and rightness to it.  For all we know, just as there is an angel of death, there may be an angel of last minute Baptisms.   Or perhaps Sts. Adam and Eve have the special mission to provide for those baptisms in order to rescue their children at the last moment. 

[St.Justin]

If you die in the State of Sanctifying Grace you are saved and you go to Heaven. That is the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Justification is one method of obtaining Sanctifying Grace and another is via the Sacraments.
It matters little on the source of Sanctifying Grace to be saved only that you are in the state of Sanctifying Grace when you die.

From New Advent:
Sanctifying grace

Since the end and aim of all efficacious grace is directed to the production of sanctifying grace where it does not already exist, or to retain and increase it where it is already present, its excellence, dignity, and importance become immediately apparent; for holiness and the sonship of God depend solely upon the possession of sanctifying grace, wherefore it is frequently called simply grace without any qualifying word to accompany it as, for instance, in the phrases "to live in grace" or "to fall from grace".

All pertinent questions group themselves around three points of view from which the subject may be considered:

    I. The preparation for sanctifying grace, or the process of justification.
    II. The nature of sanctifying grace.
    III. The characteristics of sanctifying grace.

Justification: the preparation for sanctifying grace

(For an exhaustive treatment of justification, see the article JUSTIFICATION).

The word justification (justificatio, from justum facere) derives its name from justice (justitia), by which is not merely meant the cardinal virtue in the sense of a constant purpose to respect the rights of others (suum cuique), nor is the term taken in the concept of all those virtues which go to make up the moral law, but connotes, especially, the whole inner relation of man to God as to his supernatural end. Every adult soul stained either with original sin or with actual mortal sin (children are of course excepted) must, in order to arrive at the state of justification, pass through a short or long process of justification, which may be likened to the gradual development of the child in its mother's womb. This development attains its fullness in the birth of the child, accompanied by the anguish and suffering with which this birth is invariably attended; our rebirth in God is likewise preceded by great spiritual sufferings of fear and contrition.

In the process of justification we must distinguish two periods: first, the preparatory acts or dispositions (faith, fear, hope, etc.); then the last, decisive moment of the transformation of the sinner from the state of sin to that of justification or sanctifying grace, which may be called the active justification (actus justificationis) with this the real process comes to an end, and the state of habitual holiness and sonship of God begins. Touching both of these periods there has existed, and still exists, in part, a great conflict of opinion between Catholicism and Protestantism.

This conflict may be reduced to four differences of teaching. By a justifying faith the Church understands qualitatively the theoretical faith in the truths of Revelation, and demands over and above this faith other acts of preparation for justification. Protestantism, on the other hand, reduces the process of justification to merely a fiduciary faith; and maintains that this faith, exclusive even of good works, is all-sufficient for justification, laying great stress upon the scriptural statement sola fides justificat. The Church teaches that justification consists of an actual obliteration of sin and an interior sanctification. Protestantism, on the other hand, makes of the forgiveness of sin merely a concealment of it, so to speak; and of the sanctification a forensic declaration of justification, or an external imputation of the justice of Christ. In the presentation of the process of justification, we will everywhere note this fourfold confessional conflict. "

"A masterly, psychological description of the whole process of justification, which even Ad. Harnack styles "a magnificent work of art", will be found in the famous cap. vi, "Disponuntur" (Denzinger, n. 798). According to this the process of justification follows a regular order of progression in four stages: from faith to fear, from fear to hope, from hope to incipient charity, from incipient charity to contrition with purpose of amendment. If the contrition be perfect (contritio caritate perfecta), then active justification results, that is, the soul is immediately placed in the state of grace even before the reception of the sacrament of baptism or penance, though not without the desire for the sacrament (votum sacramenti). If, on the other hand, the contrition be only an imperfect one (attritio), then the sanctifying grace can only be imparted by the actual reception of the sacrament (cf. Trent, Sess. VI, cc. iv and xiv). The Council of Trent had no intention, however, of making the sequence of the various stages in the process of justification, given above, inflexible; nor of making any one of the stages indispensable. Since a real conversion is inconceivable without faith and contrition, we naturally place faith at the beginning and contrition at the end of the process. In exceptional cases, however, for example in sudden conversions, it is quite possible for the sinner to overlap the intervening stages between faith and charity, in which case fear, hope, and contrition are virtually included in charity. "

[bigbadtrad]

There isn't a single, extra person who is saved according to your formulation than there is to mine.  While you make the assumption that some person will be justified and brought into Heaven without the sacrament of Baptism through a special dispensation of God.  I believe God will in that very same case and every case, provide a water Baptism whether we who witness the death are aware of it or not.  It is no greater effort on God's part and at the same time, the infallible declarations of the Church and the revealed truth of the Church isn't compromised.  Necessary still means necessary, water is not a metaphor, the Church still admits they know of no other means for salvation besides that of water Baptism.  They guess God has a solution.  Someone has somehow tied God's wrists in the idea that if you don't see the Baptism happen, God couldn't still give a water Baptism through a member of the Church Triumphant. 

My position is solid and has a particular beauty and rightness to it.  For all we know, just as there is an angel of death, there may be an angel of last minute Baptisms.   Or perhaps Sts. Adam and Eve have the special mission to provide for those baptisms in order to rescue their children at the last moment.

Thanks for this thoughtful response. Work just jumped up on me and I just got a new project but I did read your post. Again, thanks for your thoughtful reply. Even if we disagree I respect our mutual desire to have everyone baptized and become Cathollic. Pray for me

[Gardener]

I've always been impressed with the Jesuits' ability to correct Saints and Doctors of the Church.

What would we do without them?

We would probably be left with more Saints and Doctors' mistakes and errors.  Saints aren't saints because  of their infallibility in theological matters, they are saints because they led holy lives. 

St. Robert Bellarmine was a Jesuit and is a Doctor of the Church.  And error is possible even among Doctors of the Church.

But consistently? And crossing the gamut of the work of such esteemed Doctors as St. Thomas Aquinas, Alphonsus Liguori, etc.? And, having taught these things, particularly St. Thomas, having not had them corrected as was his error on the Immaculate Conception?

Come on.

[Kreuzritter]

But consistently?

Yes.

Come on.

Come on? How about  an ecumenical council teaching error and Rome falling into something nigh apostasy?

Three canonised popes taught the same "errors". The claim that this is somehow different, or that "baptism of desire" aka salvation by implicit faith is somehow not a novelty of the second millennium Western church while the ideas of Vatican II are is just special pleading. Western Catholicism, via the theologians, has been pulling new ideas and doctrines out of its arse for the past 800+ years. It's just bias and mental gymnastics by which people convince themselves that it's somehow "Apostolic tradition" from the "deposit of Faith".

[Kreuzritter]

Someone please explain: if St. John Paul II can have been a heretic or at the least have held to errors, why not Alphonsus Liguori or even Thomas Aquinas? If Rome could run afoul of the Faith 60 years ago, why not 160 or even 1,000 years ago?