Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

24 IS F EENEYISM C ATHOLIC?
profession of Faith: “For I know that my Redeemer is living, and
in the last day I shall rise out of the earth, and I shall be clothed
again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God, Whom I
myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this
my hope is laid up in my bosom” (Job 19:25-27). To see God
with the eyes of his flesh would be impossible without the Incarnation;
thus by these words Job professes his faith in God Incarnate,
Jesus Christ.
How was he instructed? In his sleep: “By a dream, in a vision
by night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, and they are sleeping
in their beds: then He openeth the ears of men, and teaching instructeth
them in what they are to learn” (Job 33:15, 16). What
God did in the Old Testament, He can do in the New Testament
too! However, one must remember that in the Old Testament,
God was using angels in a normal way, while after the Incarnation
took place, He uses men, i.e., missionaries, in a normal way: such
illuminations in a vision are certainly still possible 31 though they
are no longer the normal way of God to instruct souls. In His
goodness, God wants to associate men with this wonderful work
of redemption of souls, by making them His missionaries!
In any case, there is no baptism of desire without the supernatural
virtue of faith–the True Faith!–and a certain explicit
knowledge of the essential points of Faith.
“I WAS HUNGRY…”
I was interested in the missions not only from a practical
point of view of helping, but also from a theological point of
view. I studied and read so many things about what we used to
call “the salvation of pagans,” how are these unbelievers saved?
In the 11th century, 32 we were given the theology of baptism of
desire.
But when you travel the world, visit leper colonies, see human
beings fighting with vultures in the garbage heaps of Latin
America, when you see the poverty of the great cities of the
world, when you see 250,000 sleeping in the streets of Calcutta
31 See p.105.
32 St. Bernard, to whom Bishop Sheen probably refers here, is far from the first
to have taught this doctrine; St. Bernard himself refers to St. Augustine and
St. Ambrose (4th century), and one finds it even earlier in St. Cyprian (3rd
century).