Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

A NSWER TO OBJECTIONS 99
Baptism is the sacrament of the beginning of spiritual life 141 :
it is a birth. If that life is later lost by mortal sin, it can be recovered
by the sacrament of penance, which is thus like a spiritual
resurrection: it was indeed instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ on
the day of His Resurrection.
Bro. Robert Mary erroneously writes: “All sacraments justify.”
142 No, only baptism and penance. 143 The others must be received
in the state of grace: they increase that grace, but do not
give it. If one receives them without the state of grace, far from
being justified, he adds a sin of sacrilege to his previous ones.
It follows clearly that baptism is the sacrament of justification.
To claim the sacrament of baptism necessary “for salvation,
not for justification” is to misplace it at the end rather than at the
beginning of the spiritual life. No, we should rather hold with the
Council of Trent that the sacrament of baptism (of water) is necessary
for justification, re aut voto–in fact or in desire. Baptism is
necessary for salvation because and only because it is necessary for
justification. Thus it is necessary for salvation in the same way as
it is necessary for justification, re aut voto–in fact or in desire. 144
What then is needed for salvation? Perseverance in the state of
grace: “He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Mt.
24:13). In one word, to die in the state of grace is necessary and
141 St. Thomas wrote: “Baptism is the beginning of the spiritual life, and the
door of the sacraments, whereas the Eucharist is, as it were, the
consummation of the spiritual life.” See p.38.
142 Op. cit., p.202.
143 Exceptionally, Extreme Unction for someone contrite for his sins but too
sick to be able to confess them could also restore sanctifying grace.
144 Bro. Robert Mary pretends that here we “circumvent” Canon 5 of the
Council of Trent, which says: “If anyone says that Baptism is optional, that
is, not necessary unto salvation, let him be anathema.” But, as the honest
reader can see, we do not say that it is not necessary; we say with the Council
of Trent that it is necessary re aut voto! Bro. Robert Mary’s criticism on this
chapter is of the same kind: it falls off the mark, it is not to the point. And
his last one turns against him: indeed, he who “constructs premises from
which it follows that dogmas are historically false or dubious” (decree
Lamentabili) is not me, but rather Fr. Feeney, from whose faulty exegesis and
construed premises on the baptismal character it follows that the Church
erred in teaching baptism of blood and desire, and had a false understanding
of the dogma extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.