To whom it may concern:

Baptism of desire generally means, one who has the desire to know and love God but he doesn’t know who he is. This means that God has already given him this Grace in the first place as one can not obtain it himself.

This comes from Christ, the Apostles (Acts 17:23 To the Unknown God,) and has been always taught by the Universal Church, as I point out in the article below. This in it self makes it De fide, and is Ex Cathedra because it is to be held by the whole Church and therefore carries INFALLIBILITY.

You see it’s water and spirit. In spirit one has to have the desire to know and love God. This is in Session VI chap. 8.”Faith is the beginning of man’s salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God and attain to the fellowship of his children.” Denz. n. 801. Also Session 6 canon 4. If one is justified, he can
not go to hell or limbo but purgatory, this means their saved. This grace is given to a person by God.

Now lets go to the canons that were pointed out to me.

You can tell by these canons that the council is directing them to the protestants. Check # 7 on the same page…debtors to faith alone, but to the observance of the whole law of Christ, let him be anathema… But,

The Council of Trent, stated the baptism of desire very clearly, albeit without defining the limits of the doctrine. In the 7th session, canon 4. The English and Latin texts are given here: The English:

“This translation however cannot, since the promulgation of the Gospel, be effected except through the laver of regeneration or its desire, as it is written: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” John 3:5

The Latin: “Quae quidem translatio post evangelium promulgatum sine lavacro regenerationis aut eius voto fieri non potest, sicut scriptum est: Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiirtu Sancto, non potest introire in regnum Dei.” John. 3:5

1917 code of canon law on Ecclesiastical Burial (Canon 1239.2)

Catechumens who, through no fault of their own, die with without Baptism, are to be treated as baptized.”

Water and Spirit brings one into the faith. The water brings one in the physical Church and Spirit brings them in Spiritually, provided all the conditions are meet, as is explained below. Whenever a Pope writes an encyclical to the whole Church and is explaining a meaning of a previous council that is the same as an amendment to the council and has to be accepted on the same level as a DOGMA. Not to accept a universal teaching puts you outside the Church.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia 1912 Imprimatur, John C. Farley,
ArchBishop of New York

Under Baptism page 265 and 266 we read. Substitutes for the Sacrament:

The Fathers and theologians frequently divide baptism into three kinds: the baptism of water (aquce or fuminis), the baptism of desire (flaminis), and the baptism of blood (sanguinis). However, only the first is a real sacrament. The latter two are denominated baptism only analogically, inasmuch as they supply the principal effect of baptism, namely, the grace which remits sins. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that when the baptism of water becomes a physical or moral impossibility, eternal life may be obtained by the baptism of desire or the baptism of blood.

This is the sense in which it has always been understood by the Church, and the Council of Trent (Sess.IV, cap.vi) teaches that justification cannot be obtained, since the promulgation of the Gospel, without the laver of regeneration or the desire thereof (in voto)… 7th session.

The council does not mean by votum a simple desireof receiving baptism or even a resolution to do so. It means by votum an act of perfect charity or contrition, including, at least implicitly the will to do all things necessary for salvation and thus especially to recieve baptism.

The same DOCTRINE is taught by Pope Innocent III (cap. Debitum, iv, De Bapt), and the contrary propositions are condemned by Popes Pius V and Gregory XII, in proscribing the 31st and 33rd propositions of Baius.

In alluding to the funeral oration pronounced by St. Ambrose over the Emperor Valentinian II, a catechumen. The doctrine of the baptism
of desire is here clearly set fourth.

Paul III (can. 5 de bapt.), Canons on Sacraments in General (Can.4).
St. Pius V, Natural law # 6. Denz. 1006.
Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadam,
Pope Pius XII , Mystici Corporis.

This Encyclopedia has sixteen pages on Baptism and I read every page and no where do I find a contrary opinion. Also Canon Law 632 Baptism (or at least desired). Again this is all supported in Scripture in just the few that passages I quoted in my last letter.

Baptism of desire and blood in the scriptures.
1 Cor. 1:17, Luke 9:49, Acts 8:14-18, 10:34, 10:44-47, 17:23, 1 John
3:2-5, 5:24, James 1:21, Apocalypse 7:14

There are hundreds of Saints that never were baptized with water.

A few Saints not Baptized with water. St. Emerentiana, One of the “Forty Holy Martyrs”. Emperor Valentinian II, St. Dismas. The Holy Innocents.

If one doesn’t hold to these teachings set fourth by the Church he takes himself out of the book of life.

In Christ, Joseph B.D. Saraceno