If water Baptism saved then the repentant thief on the cross could not have been saved. Sorry, but that's a logical fallacy. It's exactly like saying, "If a Ford could drive to Cleveland, then my uncle, who owns a Plymouth, could never have driven to Cleveland, as I know he did."
If only water baptism ever saved, without exception or qualification, then you would be right.
But that isn't what the Catholic Church teaches. What she says is that water baptism is the normative means of conferring justification, not the only one.
The accepted process back then was to acknowledge Christm ask for his forgiveness for your sins, ask him in to your life and then get water baptzed.
Which is precisely the process followed by adult Catholic converts today. Why do you object to it?
No, Baptism is the symbolic putting off of the old man and taking up the new man. It was not meant to be a means of CONFERRAL of Salvation by church leaders, it is to be an example of an individual's Obediance to Christ, to show publically that he has internally accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour and allowed his Holy Spirit to regenerate his inner man. To "become a new creature in Christ Jesus" having the living dynamic of the Holy Spirit in his heart!
This regeneration is what happened to the thief on the cross, I'm sure if circustances were other wise he would have also followed his Lord's example by being Baptized by water!
A man is BORN first by water, by the gushing of fluids from the amniotic sack. He is born spiritually by the flooding of his soul by the Holy Spirit...or born again. Read Acts 8:26 thru 39 as to how the Ethiopian Eunuch was saved.
And did I say that all Catholics don't follow the process of confession followed by Baptism? No!....What I'm saying is that many Protestants and Catholics focus on the ritual part of Baptism, with-out understanding (or from the heart accepting) that there must be an internal work of the Spirit as well. That was what Chewbacca was talking about that got him in so much hot water a few posts back.