Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

A NSWER TO OBJECTIONS 111
hierarchical communion, is necessary re aut voto. As we have seen,
the Fathers and Doctors never considered those baptized with
their blood as being simply outside the Church, nor those “fervent
catechumens” who were prevented by death: they belong to
the Church, though their exterior bond is still incomplete.
Hence, the doctrine of baptism of blood and baptism of desire belongs
to the proper understanding of the dogma. To reject it is to
reject the proper understanding of the dogma. It goes against Vatican
I, which orders us: “Of the sacred dogmas, that sense must be
faithfully upheld, which holy Mother Church has once declared;
and one may never depart from this sense on the specious ground
of a more profound understanding” (Dz. 1800). Isn’t it precisely
what Fr. Feeney did, pretending “to improve upon the Fathers”?
This attachment to one’s own interpretation can lead some
followers of Fr. Feeney to so stress the exterior belonging to the
Church that they lose from sight the primacy of the interior
union with Christ, attributing to the exterior sacrament what the
Church says of the interior grace of the sacrament which, in exceptional
cases, can be had without the exterior sacrament,
though not without the desire of this external sacrament. As a
consequence, they arrive at positions contradictory to the very
definitions which they pretend to defend. An example: Fr. Wathen,
after having given the passage of the Council of Trent on
justification (which, as the Council says, can be had by baptism of
desire), concludes:
This disposition of soul and others equivalent to it...do bring
justification. But, since such an act and disposition do not make
one a member of the Church, they do not suffice for the reward
of Heaven. 163
Now, to pretend that one can be justified without being a
member of the Church goes against Boniface VIII, who said that
outside the Church there is no remission of sins! The truth is that we
ought to consider that baptism of desire builds a first bond with
Christ and His Church, an interior but real bond, which still
must be completed by the exterior reception of the sacrament.
However, thanks to that first bond with the Church, were such a
163 Who Shall Ascend, p.109.