Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

T HE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH 49
lieves, professes, and teaches that...” Hence both paragraphs have
the very same degree of authority.
COUNCIL OF TRENT
As the Council of Florence made its own St. Thomas’s teaching
on Baptism of Desire, so did the Council of Trent. The very
famous expression “re aut voto–in deed or in desire” 67 was used
twice by the Council of Trent, once in the explanation (“chapter”)
explicitly applied to the necessity of baptism and once even in an
ex cathedra canon on the very necessity of sacraments in general.
Here are the texts of the Council:
Session 6, Chapter 4: Justification is a passing from the state
in which man is born a son of the first Adam, to the state of grace
and adoption as sons of God (see Rom. 8:15) through the second
Adam, Jesus Christ our Savior. After the promulgation of
the gospel this passing cannot take place without the water of
regeneration or the desire for it, as it is written: “Unless a man be
born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:5).
Session 7, Canon 4 : If anyone says that the sacraments of the
New Law are not necessary for salvation, but that they are superfluous;
and that men can, without the sacraments or the desire
of them, obtain the grace of justification by faith alone, although
it is true that not all the sacraments are necessary for each individual,
let him be anathema (Dz. 847).
These texts are so strong an approval of the doctrine of baptism
of desire that a doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori,
states that “it is de fide that there are some men saved by baptism
of desire” and explicitly refers to these texts to support his affirmation.
However, the followers of Fr. Feeney try to escape the Council’s
doctrine by a false reasoning. In a leaflet entitled Desire, Justification
and Salvation at the Council of Trent put out by Saint
Benedict Center, they set their reasoning in five points68 :
1) The Catholic Faith is the foundation of all justification.
[Session 6, Chapter 6, 7, 8] 2) A person who has the Catholic
Faith can attain the state of justification69 if that person receives
67
ST, III, Q.68, A.2, see p.73.