There’s more to be said about the late Fr. Leonard Feeney than I could – or intend – to write about here. For those who want the full scoop they can use this site. Briefly, Fr. Feeney was a man who staunchly asserted the doctrine of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus – the dogma stating that one must necessarily be a professing member of the Catholic Church in order to achieve salvation. As an effort to reinforce this teaching, he preached the absolute necessity of baptism by water, for it is by that sacrament and that sacrament alone that men become members of the Catholic Church. In doing so, he deliberately rejected the baptisms of desire and blood. The former is the idea that one can achieve salvation by having an unfulfilled desire to be baptized (presumably unfulfilled by reason of death) and the latter is the idea that one can achieve salvation by being martyred in the name of God. It is only true baptism – that by water – that brings a man to salvation.
For the edification of man and the glory of God, I venture to show that the dogma of the Church vindicates Fr. Feeney.
One must of necessity be a member of the Catholic Church in order to be saved. As was defined at the 4th Lateran Council: “The universal Church is one outside of which none is saved.”
How does one enter the Catholic Church? By sacramental baptism, which is the “Sacrament of regeneration by water in the word”, as the Council of Trent tells us. As Pope Pius XII stated in Mystici Corporis: “Only those are to be accounted really members of the Church who have been regenerated in the waters of baptism and profess the true faith.” (emphasis added) As Christ Himself stated: “unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (emphasis added) As Ludwig Ott stated on pg. 311 of his book Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, the unbaptized are not members of the Church. It is sacramental baptism – that celerated in water – that incorporates into the Church because only sacramental baptism bestows the spiritual character that causes one to be a formal member.
Lest there be any doubt in that short paragraph of the dogmatic truth of what has been said, let’s continue. The Council of Trent defined in its 7th Session “On the Sacraments in General” that:
“If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification – though all [the sacraments] are not indeed necessary for every individual; let him be anathema.”
Some have used this definition to show that all that is necessary for the justification given by all the sacraments – and, ex hypothesi, baptism – is to desire the sacrament. But, that is not the case. In the above statement, there are two independent clauses and one dependent clause that goes with the first independent clause presented. I will write them out as such:
1st independent clause with its associated dependent clause: If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation but are superfluous…though all are not indeed necessary…let him be anathema.
In the dependent clause, the Church is affirming that one need not receive all of the sacraments to achieve salvation. Yet, in the independent clause it attaches to, it affirms that it cannot – on pain of heresy – be said that none are necessary. If not all are necessary but not none are necessary, then some are necessary. This means that at least one is necessary, for in formal logic the term ‘some’ means ‘one or more’.
2nd independent clause: If anyone says that…without them [the sacraments], or without the desire thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification…let him be anathema.
The phrase ‘without them’ stands in contrast to desiring them, illustrating that the former term speaks of receiving and experiencing the sacraments. However, it must be remembered that this definition is given when speaking of the sacraments generally, not each particular sacrament. Based upon this statement alone, it is not clear that desire for a given sacrament suffices to receive justification for some but not all sacraments, for all sacraments, or for none. However, given the 1st independent clause and its attendant dependent clause, one must conclude that to achieve salvation one must receive – not simply desire – at least one sacrament.
Continuing with the 7th Session and when speaking “On Baptism”, the Catholic Church declared in Canon 5 that: “If anyone says that baptism is…not necessary for salvation, let him be anathema.” Put simply, one must receive Baptism in order to go to heaven.
Now, what is justification? As Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary tells us, the Council of Trent stated that: “Justification is the change from the condition in which a person is born as a child of the first Adam into a state of grace and adoption among the children of God through the Second Adam, Jesus Christ our Savior.”
The Council of Trent further explains what justification is. The final cause, or the goal, of justification is the glory of God; the efficient cause – what brings justification into existence – is God in His mercy. The meritorious cause – that by which something is merited or granted to a certain being or beings – is Jesus Christ in His sacrifice on Calvary. The formal cause – the identity of justification – is the justice of God by which we are made just. The instrumental cause, the Council tells us, “is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which (faith) no man was ever justified.”
This passage is key. An instrumental cause, according to Hardon, is “a cause that does not begin an action but is applied and directed as a help to its efforts and purpose by the principal agent.” To understand this example, imagine a man, a stick, and a book. The man uses the stick to move the book. The man is the principal actor in the sequence, because it is his power that moves the book. The stick is the instrumental cause, because it is through the stick that the man applies his power to move the book. Now, the sacrament of baptism is obviously the instrumental cause by which God’s justice, the principle agent, is applied to man. Baptism is identified as the ‘sacrament of faith’. There are two ways to understand this concept: that faith is a sacrament, or that baptism is the sacrament belonging to faith, or rather faith’s sacrament. The latter isn’t true, for faith isn’t a sacrament. The latter must be the right interpretation. Now, a man does indeed need faith as a pre-condition to receiving justification, but it is by the sacrament of Baptism that God applies justification to man. Not in the least of these graces is incorporation into the Catholic Church, membership in which is necessary for salvation.
Let it be said that the transition spoken of in the above definition of justification happens only once. That is not to say that one can have only one justification; one can have several, if one falls many times away from God. However, the transition of being in the state of the children of Adam – that of Original Sin and so forth – to being adopted by God occurs only once. Once that state is wiped away it cannot be returned to, though one may return to the state of sin. Yet, as Trent’s elaboration upon the causes of justification reveals, the first justification – the one where man goes from being in the state of Adam to adoption by God – must be effected by reception of Baptism, faith being a pre-condition to Baptism and, ultimately, the justification it brings. Without Baptism one cannot escape the destiny towards Hell according to the inheritance of the children of Adam. One still can merit damnation to Hell after having received Baptism, but one cannot escape it without Baptism.
What is salvation? As that same book by Fr. Hardon tells us, salvation is “the deliverance from straitened circumstances or oppression by some evil to a state of freedom and security. As sin is the greatest evil, salvation is mainly liberation from sin and its consequences. This can be deliverance by way of preservation, or by offering the means for being delivered, or by removing the oppressive evil or difficulty, or by rewarding the effort spent in co-operating with grace in order to be delivered.”
In this life, we can be justified, but we are not secure, for we are still susceptible to the loss of justification through sin. However, salvation is when sin is no longer able to ruin us in our justified states, and we belong eternally to God. That “freedom and security” belonging to salvation comes when we’ve completed our lives in a state of grace, essential to which is reception of the sacrament of Baptism.
As Canon 2 of the same session and topic declares: “If anyone says that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism…let him be anathema.” For Baptism to be what it is, water must be used. Desire, martyrdom, milk, ginger ale, drinkable yogurt, or anything else will not suffice.
To achieve membership in the Catholic Church, one must be baptized. To be baptized, one must have received a baptism celebrated in water. Anything else is not Baptism. Anything else will not bring salvation.
With charity towards all, enmity towards none and a desire that in all things God may be glorified, I submit this brief summary for the edification of all its readers.
magnificatanimameadominum1987 