Baptismus de Voto: Ex Ecclesiam, Unum Baptisma, & Sola Fide

Ex Ecclesiam Nulla Salus

One of the classic objections which Feenyites such as the Dimond Brothers make against baptismus de voto is that it allows for salvation outside the Church and thus contradicts the dogma of ex ecclesiam nulla salus (“outside the Church there is no salvation”). This objection can only be upheld by grossly misapprehending the meaning of baptismus de voto because, when properly understood, this dogma explicitly confirms the dogma of ex ecclesiam nulla salus. Fr. Martin explains this as follows:

The salvation of those baptized by way of Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood comes about immediately, at death. Such souls ​[are] brought by God into His Church at death, and they enter into Heaven, not “outside the church,” but “inside the Church.” There are no “unbaptized” or “outside Church” souls in Heaven, nor were “unbaptized” or “outside the Church” Saints among the Saints of God.
- ​​​The “UnBaptized Saints” Deception

​Thus, the question regarding baptismus de voto is not whether people can be saved outside the Church but whether those baptized in desire and those baptized in blood are inside the Church or not. Those who insist that baptismus de voto allows for salvation outside the Church are severely distorting both the dogma they are attacking as well as the dogma they are defending as condemning it.

While it is absolutely true to state that the Church is a visible body united not only by invisible ties of Faith, Hope, and Charity but also by visible ties of liturgy, clergy, and history, this fact does not in itself automatically condemn all those not enclosed within the visible bonds of this unity. This condemnation is neither a necessary nor a truthful conclusion to be drawn from the dogma of ex ecclesiam nulla salus. The proper, complete, and harmonious exposition of this dogma is excellently summarized in the Encyclopedia as follows:

But does the proposition that outside the Church there is no salvation involve the doctrine so often attributed to Catholicism , that the Catholic Church , in virtue of this principle, "condemns and must condemn all non-Catholics"? This is by no means the case. The foolish and unchristian maxim that those who are outside the Church must for that very reason be eternally lost is no legitimate conclusion from Catholic dogma . The infliction of eternal damnation pertains not to the Church , but to God , Who alone can scrutinize the conscience . The task of the Church is confined exclusively to the formulating of the principle, which expresses a condition of salvation imposed by God Himself, and does not extend to the examination of the persons , who may or may not satisfy this condition. Care for one's own salvation is the personal concern of the individual. And in this matter the Church shows the greatest possible consideration for the good faith and the innocence of the erring person . Not that she refers, as is often stated, the eternal salvation of the heterodox solely and exclusively to "invincible ignorance", and thus makes sanctifying ignorance a convenient gate to heaven for the stupid. She places the efficient cause of the eternal salvation of all men objectively in the merits of the Redeemer , and subjectively in justification through baptism or through good faith enlivened by the perfect love of God , both of which may be found outside the Catholic Church . Whoever indeed has recognized the true Church of Christ , but contrary to his better knowledge refuses to enter it and whoever becomes perplexed as to the truth of his belief , but fails to investigate his doubts seriously, no longer lives in good faith , but exposes himself to the danger of eternal damnation , since he rashly contravenes an important command of God . Otherwise the gentle breathing of grace is not confined within the walls of the Catholic Church , but reaches the hearts of many who stand afar, working in them the marvel of justification and thus ensuring the eternal salvation of numberless men who either, like upright Jews and pagans , do not know the true Church, or, like so many Protestants educated in gross prejudice, cannot appreciate her true nature. To all such, the Church does not close the gate of Heaven , although she insists that there are essential means of grace which are not within the reach of non-Catholics.
- Catholic Encyclopedia, “Tolerance”, The inadmissibility of theoretical dogmatic toleration, para. 5, available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14763a.htm

This teaching which balances the absolute and immutable necessity of unity with the Roman Catholic Church along with the hidden mercies of the Divine Redeemer is perhaps nowhere more beautifully laid before us than by these words of our Holy Father Pope Pius IX:

Not without sorrow have we learned that another error, no less destructive, has taken possession of some parts of the Catholic world, and has taken up its abode in the souls of many Catholics who think that one should have good hope of the eternal salvation of all those who have never lived in the true Church of Christ. Therefore, they are wont to ask very often what will be the lot and condition after death of those who have not submitted in any way to the Catholic faith, and, by bringing forward most vain reasons, they make a response favorable to their false opinion. Far be it from Us, Venerable Bretheren, to presume on the limits of the divine mercy which is infinite; far from Us, to wish to scrutinize the hidden counsel and "judgments of God" which are "a great deep" [Psalms 36:6] and cannot be penetrated by human thought. But, as Our Apostolic duty, we wish your episcopal solicitude and vigilance to be aroused, so that you will strive as much as you can to drive from the mind of men that impious and equally fatal opinion, namely, that the way of eternal salvation can be found in any religion whatsoever. May you demonstrate with that skill and learning in which you excel, to the people entrusted to your care that the dogmas of the Catholic faith are in no wise opposed to divine mercy and justice.

For, it must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood; but, on the other hand, it is necessary to hold for certain that they who labor in ignorance of the true religion, if this ignorance is invincible, are not stained by any guilt in this matter in the eyes of God. Now, in truth, who would arrogate so much to himself as to mark the limits of such an ignorance, because of the nature and variety of peoples, regions, innate dispositions, and of so many other things? For, in truth, when released from these corporeal chains "we shall see God as He is" [1 John 3:2], we shall understand perfectly by how close and beautiful a bond divine mercy and justice are united; but, as long as we are on earth, weighed down by this mortal mass which blunts the soul, let us hold most firmly that, in accordance with Catholic teaching, there is "one God, one faith, one baptism" [Eph. 4:5]; it is unlawful to proceed further in inquiry.

- Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quamdam, para. 5 - 6, avail: http://www.geocities.ws/caleb1x/documents/singulariquadam.html

These words of the Holy Father can leave no doubt whatever in our minds that the extremes of both Feenyism and Postmodernism are equally abhorrent to the true Church and the purity of Her holy doctrine given by Christ. The Feenyite dogmas are, in fact, the direct descendants of ancient heresies no less than the Postmodern darkness against which Feenyism is the equally incorrect and opposite extreme. The spiritual brotherhood of Feeney with Martin Luther, for instance, can be quickly perceived in the following quotation from the latter’s Large Catechism:

These articles of the Creed, therefore, divide and separate us Christians from all other people upon earth. For all outside of Christianity, whether heathen, Turks, Jews, or false Christians and hypocrites, although they believe in, and worship, only one true God, yet know not what His mind towards them is, and cannot expect any love or blessing from Him; therefore they abide in eternal wrath and damnation. For they have not the Lord Christ, and, besides, are not illumined and favored by any gifts of the Holy Ghost.

The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther, Translated by F. Bente and W. H. T. Dau. Part Second. OF THE CREED. Article III, available: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1722/pg1722.txt

This bleak and cruel dogma of Martin Luther, Leonard Feeney, and all their Catharist brotherhood was not only rejected by Pope Pius IX but also over 140 years before by Pope Clement XI:

29. Outside of the Church, no grace is granted... Declared and condemned as false, captious, evil-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and her practice, insulting not only to the Church but also the secular powers seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy, and smacking of heresy itself, and, besides, favoring heretics and heresies, and also schisms, erroneous, close to heresy, many times condemned, and finally heretical, clearly renewing many heresies respectively and most especially those which are contained in the infamous propositions of Jansen, and indeed accepted in that sense in which these have been condemned.

- CONDEMNATION OF THE ERRORS OF PASCHASIUS QUESNEL, UNIGENITUS (Section 3), Dogmatic Constitution issued by Pope Clement XI on Sept. 8, 1713. avail: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Clem11/c11unige.htm

Going somewhat further back we find the same idea condemned by Pope Alexander VIII:

5. Pagans, Jews, heretics, and others of this kind do not receive in any way any influence from Jesus Christ, and so you will rightly infer from this that in them there is a bare and weak will without any sufficient grace... Condemned and prohibited as rash, scandalous, evil-sounding, injurious, close to heresy, smacking of heresy, erroneous, schismatic, and heretical respectively.

- Alexander VIII – Decree of the Holy Office, Dec. 7, 1690 – Errors of the Jansenists, available: http://www.romancatholicism.org/jansenism/jansenism-condemnations.htm#decree1690

In reviewing the above material we see that the Dimond Brothers are indeed carrying on a very ancient tradition of venerable age, yet however venerable its age, its content is entirely execrable. From Martin Luther, Paschasius Quensel and the Jansensists, to Leonard Feeney and the St. Benedict Center, this Catharist tradition of puritanical condemnation, marked in all ages by the brutal simplicity of its soulless dualism, has been persistently rejected by the Vicars of Christ and the truth of Catholic dogma.

By rejecting this Cartharistic dualism of the Dimond Brothers, are we thereby forced to accept the opposite extreme of the Postmodern heretics who mindlessly enfold the entirety of the human race within the welcoming jaws of the infinitely amorphous Vatican II “Church”? No. On the contrary, justification by means of blood or of desire is a hard path to follow by any standard, and it definitely stands firm against the libelous charge of liberal modernism which is so regularly hurled against it by its critics. This is because in it the Church definitely recognizes the validity of salvation through blood and desire, yet also acknowledges the extremely limited scope of these means to justification in practice.

The striking contrast of this dogma to both the Feenyites and the Postmodern liberals of our time is beautifully captured by Fr. Frederick Faber as he describes the fearful yet not totally hopeless condition of those outside the visible Church in his book, “The Precious Blood: or the Price of Our Salvation”:

If the Precious Blood had been shed, and yet we had no priesthood, no Sacraments, no jurisdiction, ho sacramentals, no mystical life of the visible unity of the Church, — life, so it seems, would be almost intolerable. This is the condition of those outside the Church; and certainly as we grow older, as our experience widens, as our knowledge of ourselves deepens, as our acquaintance with mankind increases, the less hopeful do our ideas become regarding the salvation of those outside the Roman Church. We make the most we can of the uncovenanted mercies of God, of the invisible soul of the Church, of the doctrine of invincible ignorance, of the easiness of making acts of contrition, and of the visible moral goodness among men; and yet what are these but straws in our own estimation, if our own chances of salvation had to lean their weight upon them? They wear out, or they break down. They are fearfully counterweighted by other considerations. We have to draw on our imaginations in order to fill up the picture. They are but theories at best, theories unhelpful except to console those who are forward to be deceived for the sake of those they love, — theories often very fatal by keeping our charity in check and interfering with that restlessness of converting love in season and out of season, and that impetuous agony of prayer, upon which God may have made the salvation of our friends depend. Alas! the more familiar we ourselves become with the operations of grace, the further we advance into the spiritual life, the more we meditate on the character of God, and taste in contemplation the savour of his holiness, the more to our eyes does grace magnify itself inside the Church, and the more dense and forlorn becomes the darkness which is spread over those outside.
- pages 92 - 93, available: http://archive.org/stream/preciousblood00fabe#page/92/mode/2up

Let these solemn words of Fr. Faber awaken us both to the clemency and the justice of our Savior so that we may incorporate ourselves into the unshakable edifice of the one and only holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church which He founded for the salvation of mankind.

Unum Baptisma

Feenyites such as the Dimond Brothers insist that since baptism in desire and baptism in blood do not use the sign of water, they must therefore be counted as two separate “baptisms” from that of water. This, however, is not the teaching of the baptismus de voto. It is indeed true that these three forms of Baptism lack the unity of exterior sign, but they are united by the essential desire (“voto”) to do what Christ commands. Fr. Martin describes this unity of desire this way:​

That word “desire,” in the term “Baptism of Desire,” means a definite desire and intention and determination to do what God wills for salvation. And interestingly enough, that very same kind of desire is present also for Baptism of Water and Baptism of Blood. It is this desire that God finds in all three cases of the Sacrament of Baptism and He sees that the souls in question are worthy of the grace of the Sacrament.
- ​​​The “UnBaptized Saints” Deception

St. Thomas Aquinas addresses this objection in similar terms, saying:

The other two Baptisms are included in the Baptism of Water, which derives its efficacy, both from Christ's Passion and from the Holy Ghost. Consequently for this reason the unity of Baptism is not destroyed.
- Summa, Part III, Question 66, Article 11, “Reply to Objection 1”

As discussed previously (Objection IV), the efficacy of Baptism derives from Christ’s Passion and from the Holy Ghost, and this efficacy is what forms the essential nature of Baptism, not water. Water is the symbol of this efficacy, but since the efficacy does not find its origin in the symbol, it can be imparted without the symbol if God wills. What the Feenyites are ultimately denying, therefore, is the fact that God would ever will to save man without water. This is an evil contradiction to the magnanimity of God who desires all men to be saved, as St. Paul says:

I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
- 1 Timothy 2:1-4

Furthermore, it cannot be denied that Baptism of Blood and Baptism of Desire are included in that of water not only by the unity of God’s will, but also by a unity of the recipient’s will, as Fr. Martin says: “that very same kind of desire is present also for Baptism of Water and Baptism of Blood” (The “UnBaptized Saints” Deception). It is proof of this that: 1. he who is baptized in water is also willing to be baptized in blood, 2. he who is baptized in blood is willing to be baptized in water, and 3. he who is baptized in desire, is willing to shed his blood for Christ and also be washed in the Water of Regeneration. Thus, the unity of will in all three cases demonstrates the unity of the effect, Who is Christ:

For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free; and in one Spirit we have all been made to drink.
- 1 Corinthians 12:13

​This sacred unity of Baptism is analogous to that of the Blessed Trinity, Whom we all adore. Thus, we must ask: if we are willing to confess the undivided nature of our God, how can we be unwilling to accept the undivided trinity of His Baptism? Mercifully, the Feenyites have not yet seen fit to condemn the dogma of the Blessed Trinity as contradicting the belief in One God. Let us therefore put aside all objections to the Faith of Christ and confess the similar unity in Baptism which we contemplate in the Divine Trinity.

Sola Fide

The Dimond Brothers attempt to make the assertion that when the Council of Trent condemned the Protestant Reformers for teaching that faith alone was sufficient for salvation, the Council was also condemning the Catholics (such as St. Thomas Aquinas and, as we shall see, the Council of Trent itself) who taught that the effect of baptism can be achieved through desire or blood as well as water. It is not difficult to demonstrate, however, that the Protestant heresy of salvation by faith alone is entirely alien to the Catholic dogma of the baptismus de voto, and that in consequence, the condemnation of Trent does not refer to it but to the Protestant errors only.

​The Protestant heresy of salvation by faith alone holds that works are not requisite for salvation, as the Catholic Encyclopedia describes it:

Faith, which alone can justify, is also the only requisite and means of obtaining salvation. Neither repentance nor penance, neither love of God nor good works, nor any other virtue is required, though in the just they may either attend or follow as a result of justification.

- Justification, “The Protestant Doctrine on Justification”, available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm

Hence Protestants such as Luther taught that works and dispositions of conversion were not necessary if faith was present, as Luther’s famous quotation puts it:

Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ more strongly, who triumphed over sin, death, and the world; as long as we live here, we must sin.

- Letter to Melancthon, 1521, as quoted in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Martin Luther, “The Protestant doctrine on justification”, available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm.​

In sharp contrast, the Catholic teaching on justification is that Faith must be joined with Charity and good works, which union does not exclude those who are physically cut off from the possibility of the Church’s formal sacraments, such as the font of Baptism. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains this in its article on Justification:

Only such faith as is active in charity and good works (fides caritate formata) can justify man, and this even before the actual reception of baptism or penance, although not without a desire of the sacrament (cf. Trent, Sess. VI, cap. iv, xiv). But, not to close the gates of heaven against pagans and those non-Catholics, who without their fault do not know or do not recognize the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, Catholic theologians unanimously hold that the desire to receive these sacraments is implicitly contained in the serious resolve to do all that God has commanded, even if His holy will should not become known in every detail.

- “The process of justification (processus justificationis)”, available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm

The conversion of St. Mary Magdalen is a perfect example of this justification through Charity and works of penance, not only Faith, as the Douay Rheims gloss on Luke 7:47 explains:

...the sins of this woman, in this verse, are said to be forgiven, because she loved much: but (ver. 50) Christ tells her, Thy faith hath made thee safe. Hence in a true conversion are joined faith, hope, love, sorrow for sin, and other pious dispositions.

- Available: http://drbo.org/chapter/49007.htm

Going back to the Encyclopedia, we find a full and elegant synopsis of justification’s spiritual progression in the soul:

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).

- Sanctifying Grace, “The "sola fides" doctrine of the Protestants”, available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm

The specific requirements for Baptism of Desire, therefore, are described this way:

The baptism of desire (baptismus flaminis) is a perfect contrition of heart, and every act of perfect charity or pure love of God which contains, at least implicitly, a desire (votum) of baptism.

- Catholic Encyclopedia, Baptism, “Substitutes for the Sacrament”, available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02258b.htm

As for the baptism of blood, nobody could possibly mistake it for salvation by “faith alone”, as it requires the ultimate sacrifice of one’s own life for Christ:

The baptism of blood (baptismus sanquinis) is the obtaining of the grace of justification by suffering martyrdom for the faith of Christ.

- ibid.

It is a truly gross and unconscionable misrepresentation of the baptismus de voto to make the claim that it is in any way related to the “faith alone” dogma of Luther which was condemned by Trent. Anyone, therefore, who takes the time to learn what the teaching actually means, will see that the Council had no intention whatever of condemning the Catholic understanding of justification (as expressed by the baptismus de voto) in its condemnation of salvation Sola Fide.

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