Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

100 IS F EENEYISM C ATHOLIC?
sufficient to be saved. Now, perseverance includes the fulfillment
of one’s duties. Thus if one neglects to receive the sacrament of
baptism (or of confession), he loses the grace he may have received
through baptism of desire (or perfect contrition), as the Fathers
and Doctors have so well said above.
This is exactly what the Council of Trent teaches:
It is necessary to believe that the justified have everything
necessary for them to be regarded as having completely satisfied
the divine law for this life by their works, at least those which
they have performed in God. And they may be regarded as having
likewise truly merited the eternal life they will certainly attain
in due time, if they but die in the state of grace… 145
The distinction between justification and salvation is easily
understood with the Old Testament: the Hebrews were slaves in
Egypt, image of the kingdom of Satan, of the state of sin. They
were delivered from it by the crossing of the Red Sea. But they
were not yet in the promised land: they had to walk forty years,
following Moses, and still had to cross the Jordan, and only then
entered into the promised land. The crossing of the Red Sea is the
image of baptism; 146 the crossing of the Jordan is the image of the
death of the just. In between you have the whole Christian life, of
fidelity to Christ and walking in the path of the commandments
of God.
In the Bread of Life, Fr. Feeney teaches that salvation requires
more than perseverance in the state of grace, that it requires something
of “flesh and blood,” and he concludes that this thing of
“flesh and blood” required for salvation is the water of baptism:
“Justification is now being turned into salvation with the aid of
water” (p.118). He concludes (p.25): “It is now: baptism of water,
or damnation! If you do not desire that water, you cannot be justified.
And if you do not get it, you cannot be saved.”
Not only is it false to say, “justification is now being turned
into salvation with the aid of water,” but it is also very dangerous
for the spiritual life and leads to Protestantism! Indeed, as seen
145 Sess. 6, Chap. 16, Dz. 809, TCT 573.
146 According to St. Paul: “All our Fathers were baptized in the cloud and in the
sea” (I Cor. 10:2).