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Iscool: Of course, you are ignoring the fact that the Church, broadly considered, is what Catholics call the Mystical Body of Christ of which you, as a Christian, are part. Extra Ecclesia Nulla Salus is the doctrine of which you write. It got Leonard Feeney, SJ, in a LOT of trouble with Richard Cardinal Cushing and the Vatican in the 1950s when he advocated that it meant only baptized and practicing Catholics could be members of the Church for the purposes of salvation. IIRC, extra ecclesia, nulla salus is biblical but did not mean what Feeney (who later repented) and you seem to imagine. Dismas, the Good Thief, crucified with my Savior and yours, was promised by the Savior that he would be in paradise with Him on the original Good Friday, no muss, no fuss, no baptism of the ordinary sort. We Catholics would say that he underwent the baptism of desire but you might well disagree. I have enough on my hands speaking as a Catholic without trying to speak for other Christians as to their respective faiths.

I really do not care what Catholics look like in the eyes of those who do not share the fullness of our Faith. The only audience I seek to satisfy is the triune God.

This discussion arises because I chose to answer a respectful question of a reformed Christian as to the Catholic view of the matter. I have no reason to believe that he was inviting a bar brawl over the respective theologies. I have no special competence at Cathlic theology just mpre than a half century of experience.

I have no desire to preach at you nor to be preached at by you. I am a Catholic. I have always been a Catholic and I hope to die a Catholic. Your desires may differ from my own. That is your business. My Catholicism is my business and I don't HAVE to do anything such as you state. Nor do I have to spend endless time in theologocal haggling contests on a POLITICAL website and I won't.

Now, I am going to return to my original conversation with CharlesWayneCT and will not trouble myself further with iscool chewing his old slipper.

I have no desire to preach at you nor to be preached at by you.

By posting this diatribe on a public forum you ARE preaching to me and everyone else...

Perhaps you should take it to email or a caucus thread if you don't want to be interrupted and inconvenienced with the truth of the God of the Scriptures has to say about the issues...

And to respond to your post,

Dismas, the Good Thief, crucified with my Savior and yours, was promised by the Savior that he would be in paradise with Him on the original Good Friday, no muss, no fuss, no baptism of the ordinary sort. We Catholics would say that he underwent the baptism of desire but you might well disagree.

Well of course...You have no choice but to say that to bolster your church's position that you at least have to WANT to get wet as a requirement for salvation...

And of course as well, the thief was admitted to Paradise because he BELIEVED in Jesus as the scripture states and NOT anything to do with Baptism...