Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

S OME L IBERAL E RRORS 15
SOME LIBERAL ERRORS
Fr. Leonard Feeney reacted against the Liberals.
The insidious heresy that there may be salvation outside the
Catholic Church and that submission to the Supreme Pontiff is
not necessary for salvation has been taught by implication in
many ways but is now getting to be more and more of an explicit
teaching.
In more than one way people are made to believe that a man
may be saved in any religion provided he is sincere, that a man
may have baptism of desire even while explicitly refusing baptism
of water, that a man may belong to the soul of the Church
while persisting in his enmity to the Holy Catholic Church, indeed
even while actively persecuting the Church. 17
There was certainly need of correcting these liberal errors.
Needless to say, these errors have spread everywhere with the ecumenism
of Vatican II.
DOES SINCERITY WITH IGNORANCE SAVE?
The constant teaching of the Church is that sincerity with
ignorance does not save. It is “faith working through charity” that
counts (Gal. 5:6). Invincible ignorance of the truth of Faith excuses
from a sin against faith, but it does not forgive the other
sins. The principles of natural law are written in the hearts of all
men (who have the use of their reason), especially: “Don’t do to
others what you do not want them to do to you.”
For example, a native in New Caledonia two hundred years
ago who never heard of Christ was not guilty of a sin against faith,
but that did not excuse him from cannibalism. At the Last Judgment,
he will not be able to say: “I had no chance, I never had a
missionary.” There is no need of a missionary to know, “Thou
shalt not eat thy neighbor!”
17 Catherine Goddard Clarke, The Loyolas and the Cabots, pp.159,160.