Is Feeneyism Catholic? - Society of St. Pius X

T HE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH 89
Either there is an objective contradiction, incompatibility between
the Canons of the Council of Trent as the Church understands
them, and the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor on baptism
of desire. In this case, it was seen by none of the Bishops members
of the Council of Trent, 128 none of the most famous Saints who
applied the Council of Trent such as St. Charles Borromeo and St.
Robert Bellarmine, who both hold baptism of desire. The teaching
of the holy Doctors posterior to the Council of Trent thought
St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine on baptism of desire so little in
opposition with the Council of Trent that St. Alphonsus Liguori
affirms that the doctrine on baptism of desire is “de fide–of Faith,”
basing himself explicitly on the Council of Trent! The Canon Law
itself prepared by St. Pius X teaches that catechumens ought to be
given ecclesiastical burial. Thus all of these saints, Doctors, holy
popes were wrong, and at last came Fr. Feeney who was first to
see.
Or there is no objective contradiction.
There is no way you can escape these dilemma: either all these
Saints were right and you are wrong, or they were all wrong and
you alone are right. I know a follower of Fr. Feeney who did not
fear to write that they were all wrong. I hope you realize the enormity
of such a claim, and correct yourself.
Not only given the respect due to the holy Fathers of the
Church, holy Doctors and popes, but above all given the fact that
the unanimous Tradition of the Church is the sure sign that a
doctrine belongs to the deposit of Faith, every Catholic is bound
in conscience–as soon as he knows that so many Fathers, Doctors,
popes and saints have taught both–to hold that both the necessity
of Baptism and the doctrine on Baptism of Blood and Baptism of
Desire are not in contradiction, but rather are both necessary to
understand properly the dogma “outside the Church there is no
salvation.”
128 The Council Fathers at Trent had put St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa
Theologica on the altar, together with the Holy Bible, to be their reference
book for sound doctrine.