Is the Indelible Mark of Baptism Required for Salvation?

That one can be saved by a desire for baptism (called "Baptism of Desire") without having received the actual sacrament of Baptism is an infallible doctrine of the Catholic Faith, having been taught by the Church’s greatest saints, Doctors, Popes and catechisms throughout the ages.

"If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, and that without them

or without the desire of them men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, though all are not necessary for each one, let him be anathema." Trent, Decree on the Sacraments, Canon 4.

In our day, however, when traditional Catholic doctrine is constantly called into question, if not outright denied,

1. For a comprehensive history of the Church’s perennial teaching on Baptism of Desire, see John Salza and Robert Siscoe, True or False Pope? Refuting Sedevacantsm and other Modern Errors, St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, 2016, Chapter 4.

Baptism of Desire has not been spared, unfortunately, even by some who go by the title of traditional Catholic.

The denial of this particular doctrine is due, in large part, to a philosophical error known as False Cause, which mistakenly attributes an effect to a cause that did not produce it. In this case, because the Liberals promote salvation even for non-Catholics (the "effect" being universal salvation), some Catholics have falsely attributed this effect to the doctrine of Baptism of Desire itself (the false "cause"), which actually did not produce it. In reality, the true cause of the erroneous doctrine of universal salvation is an overemphasis of Baptism of Desire (the "exception" or "possibility" of salvation without water baptism), which has led some Catholics to reject the doctrine wholesale.

In his celebrated book, On Divine Tradition, Cardinal Franzelin, who served as a peritus at the First Vatican Council, explains that perverting the meaning of a dogma by interpreting it in an extreme sense is the tactic heretics have always used in their attempt to deceive unsuspecting Catholics:

"As the Fathers often explain, whenever Catholic truth stands midway between two opposite errors, heretics always preserve the Catholic dogma only to distort it by presenting it in an extreme sense in one direction or the other. Then, what the Catholic Church does not in the least teach, is placed in this [distorted] way before the inexperienced, as though it were Catholic dogma, which can then be easily attacked."

Is the Indelible Mark of Baptism Required for Salvation?

quotation, Franzelin was addressing the error of the "Old Catholics" who claimed that every doctrinal decree of the Pope was infallible (thus exaggerating the scope of papal infallibility). The Catholic truth (that the Pope is infallible only when he defines a doctrine on faith or morals for the universal Church) stood midway between two opposite errors (the Pope is never infallible versus the Pope is always infallible).

The Old Catholics attempted to preserve the dogma of infallibility, but "distorted" it by "presenting it in an extreme sense" (extending its scope to all papal decrees). In doing so, they refuted the false teaching that the Pope is never infallible by himself (e.g., Gallicanism), but ended by attacking the Church’s true definition of papal infallibility. After all, it is easier to refute a false "dogma" (the Pope is never infallible on his own but needs the consent of the Church) than it is to attack what the Church actually defined.

As Franzelin and the council Fathers noted, heretics always retain the Catholic terminology (accidents), but infuse into the terminology a new meaning (substance), and then attack the straw man dogma they erected.

A small cadre of folks who identify themselves as traditional Catholics have fallen into the same error and, as a result, arrived at their rejection of Baptism of Desire. The Catholic truth (there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church) stands midway between two opposite errors (the error of religious indifferentism, which maintains that all religions are paths to salvation versus the error that only members of the Catholic Church, that is, the external, visible Body of the Church, are saved).

As an overreaction to the error of indifferentism (which already began revealing itself in the early twentieth century, before Vatican II), these people began interpreting "no salvation outside the Church" in an extreme sense by arguing that only "card carrying" Catholics (that is, formal members of the Church) could be saved. However, to be a formal member of the Church, one must be sacramentally baptized. Hence, their extreme interpretation of "no salvation outside the Church" finally led to their rejection of Baptism of Desire; and their rejection of Baptism of Desire led to them inventing novelties to defend their position, such as the novelty that the baptismal character is necessary for salvation.

Like the "Old Catholics’" error on papal infallibility, the people who adhere to this error on baptism attempt to preserve the dogma "no salvation outside the Church," but "distort" the dogma by "presenting it in an extreme sense" (extending its scope to mean formal membership in the Church is always necessary for salvation). In doing so, they refute the false teaching of indifferentism (that non-Catholics are also saved in their false religions) but end by attacking the Church’s true teaching on Baptism of Desire and sanctifying grace.

They End by Concluding Sanctifying Grace is Insufficient for Salvation It will come as a surprise to many who hold this error today that the pre-Vatican II promoters of the error (in the 1940s and 1950s) actually believed in Baptism of Desire, and even admitted that it was sufficient to justify man and bring him into the state of grace.

2 Unfortunately, they created a false distinction between justification and salvation, that is, between a soul in the state of grace during life, and a soul in grace which has left the body in death.

However, the Church often uses the terms "justification" and "salvation" interchangeably, and it does so in Trent’s declaration above. Because the Protestants were teaching that man is "saved" by faith alone, Trent’s condemnation of "justification" by "faith alone" clearly reveals the council was equating justification with salvation, here in regard to the efficacy of the sacraments. Just as man is not "justified" without the sacraments or a desire of them (or by "faith alone"), neither is man "saved" without the sacraments or a desire of them (or by "faith alone").

Hence, the state of "justification" and "salvation" are obtained by the "sacraments of the New law" or a "desire of them." These terms synonymously describe a soul in the state of grace, that is, filled with the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity. A soul in a state of grace is both justified and saved; the only difference is that during earthly life the grace can be lost through mortal sin. Hence, justification and salvation refer to the same work that God does in the soul of a person, washing the person’s sins away in the Blood of Christ and infusing it with the supernatural virtues.

The Council of Trent defines justification as: "[A] translation from that state in

2. See, for example, Fr. Leonard Feeney, Bread of Life, Still River, Massachusetts: St. Benedict Center, 1952, pp. 18, 42, 121, 125-126; see also Brother Robert Mary’s Father Feeney and the Truth About Salvation, Richmond, New Hampshire, 1995, pp. 61, 65, 68, 77-78.

which man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Savior." Needless to say, if someone dies in a state of justification (grace) as an adopted son of God in Christ, he receives his inheritance as a son of God, which is Heaven.

Salvation is received by the adopted sons of God who persevere in their justification until death. Again, the difference between the two regards only the temporal (during life) or eternal (in Heaven) dimension in which the state of the soul exists. The effect (going to Heaven) is the same whether justification was obtained by water or desire.

In making a false distinction between justification and salvation, the originators of this error implicitly held a heretical opinion about the doctrines of grace (defined by the Council of Trent), because they believed that sanctifying grace was insufficient for salvation without the indelible baptismal character imprinted on the soul. And today’s adherents continue to promote this error decades later, as they proclaim: "To die in the state of grace is certainly necessary, but not sufficient for salvation."

3 Thus, the fundamental error is to hold that sanctifying grace, by itself, is insufficient for salvation, and that the baptismal character (the indelible mark on the soul from water baptism) is also necessarily required.

Baptismal Character Not Necessary for Salvation The Church has never taught (anywhere!) that the baptismal character is necessary for salvation, and that is because it is not necessary for salvation. After all, the Old Testament saints who are now in Heaven do not have the baptismal character, and the grace of the New Covenant far surpasses that of the Old Covenant ( cf. Rom 5; 2 Cor 3; Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, No. 7).

So, what, then, is the purpose of the baptismal character? The theologians teach that the baptismal character is ordained to the worship of God on Earth and the reception of the Holy Eucharist. This is a very important point that is not commonly taught, much less understood, by Catholics, and certainly misunderstood by those who reject Baptism of Desire. Because in Heaven we will no longer receive Christ under the Eucharistic veil (we will instead have the Beatific Vision), the baptismal character is not necessary for admission into Heaven.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains that, through the baptismal character, "men are commissioned ( deputantur) to the worship of God according to the rite of the Christian religion."

4 He also explains that those who have the baptismal character "partake of a certain spiritual power with respect to the sacraments and to those things that pertain to divine worship."

Msgr. Joseph Fenton further elaborates by explaining that this divine worship is definitely and primarily concerned with the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice on Earth (which is why sacramental baptism is required to receive the other sacraments, on Earth). Just as the priestly character enables man to confect the Eucharist, the baptismal character makes a man capable of receiving it legitimately and fruitfully.

Thus, the baptismal character is a capacity or potentia which empowers and commissions man to participate in the worship of God on Earth and is not absolutely necessary for entrance into Heaven. Those who deny Baptism of Desire will search in vain for a teaching of the Church that makes the indelible mark of water baptism an absolute necessity for salvation. And it follows that such an opinion would come under the anathema of the Council of Trent, which condemned anyone who said that the sacraments of the New Law or "the desire of them" are "not necessary for salvation" (Trent, Decree on the Sacraments, Canon 4).

In today’s unprecedented ecclesial crisis, let us make sure we do not commit the error of excess or defect, embracing extreme positions, either on the Right or the Left. Rather, let us heed the divinely inspired instruction of St. Paul, who teaches us to "stand fast and hold to tradition" (2Thess 2:14), which, as St.

6. Fenton, "The Baptismal Character and Membership in the Catholic Church," Vol.