Willing Blindness Part Two

Continuing with the teachings of the Church surrounding baptism, one reads these points in the CCC. Again, my comments in blue.

VI. THE NECESSITY OF BAPTISM

1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.⁶⁰ He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them.⁶¹ Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.⁶² The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are "reborn of water and the Spirit." God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.

Those of us who are baptized are given the task, not the option, of evangelizing all people and baptizing them in the Trinitarian form. Once a person has heard the Good News of the Gospel, they must decide yay or nay for baptism. To walk away after hearing the Gospel and being given, as all people are, sufficient grace for salvation, and the grace of conversion, is a serious omission.

Of course, we all know of baptism of desire and baptism of blood. Those who wanted baptism but could not get it and die desiring baptism, and those who die for Christ without it, have come into the fullness of the sacrament. These set of circumstances have happened in the Church. 

1258 The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.

1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.

To believe that all men and women who ever lived since Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection, since the Harrowing of Hell, have not been given the chance to join Christ, is a heresy.

Those who have never heard the Gospel, and in these days of the Net and global communication, these people in complete ignorance would be rare, are blessed by God if they seek the truth and try to live moral lives according to natural law.

1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery."⁶³ Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

Now, here is a sticky wicket for some British Catholics. We give aborted children to God's mercy. We do not know what this means. But, we cannot presume that they experience the Beatific Vision like those children who are baptized.

The mercy of God is boundless. But, we must never deny the efficacious nature of baptism.

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"⁶⁴ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

In Part Three, I shall return to the discussion of grace and baptism.