“That’s your opinion. There is no passage in scripture that is more exact than the requirement that one must be baptized to be saved. Besides, I’m not a Protestant, if you want to discuss dogma that’s fine. If you want to discuss scripture, go and join one of the many never ending circle discussions with other YOPIOS on FR.”
I’m not arguing against the principle that baptism is a requirement. All I’m arguing is that baptism of blood and baptism of desire are valid ways by which one can achieve baptism.
Fr’instance my home parish baptises catecumenates at Easter, every year. If someone were to die in the process of entering the Church, they still would be considered baptised. In the early days catechumens studied much longer than they do now.
Baptism of blood - The theological construct called baptism of blood is a fallible theory. Cantate Domino's "even if they shed their blood for Christ" is infallible. So are the other nine ex-cathedra definitions that I posted. In total, those 9 ex-cathedra, and those many more magisterial decrees of popoes which confirm the 9 ex-cathedra, and the thousands of actual cases of people raised from the dead just to be baptized, all those stand against what? Like 5 martyrology cases of Baptism of Blood like 1500+ years ago?
If you want to believe in baptism of blood, there is nothing wrong with that, as far as I'm concerned. BUT, you'd be a rare liberal if that is all that you want to make of baptism of blood. So, where are you going with this?
Baptism of desire - another theological construct. It is a fallible theory. The requirement of the sacrament of baptism is infallible dogma:
Council of Trent. Seventh Session. March, 1547. Decree on the Sacraments. On Baptism
Canon 5. If any one saith, that baptism is optional, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema. (P. S. - Baptism of desire is not a sacrament.)
Some more observations on Baptism of desire:
1)One has the "desire" only by the grace of God. In order to believe in baptism of desire, one would have to believe that God's Grace could convert the hardened person, but God did not have the power to keep the person alive long enough to get someone to pour water on his head. You are caught in a vortex of confusion!
St. Augustine: “If you wish to be a Catholic, do not venture to believe, to say, or to teach that they whom the Lord has predestinated for baptism can be snatched away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined.’ There is in such a dogma more power than I can tell assigned to chances in opposition to the power of God, by the occurrence of which casualties that which He has predestinated is not permitted to come to pass. It is hardly necessary to spend time or earnest words in cautioning the man who takes up with this error against the absolute vortex of confusion into which it will absorb him, when I shall sufficiently meet the case if I briefly warn the prudent man who is ready to receive correction against the threatening mischief.” (On the Soul and Its Origin 3, 13)
2)The theory of baptism of desire saves no baptized Protestant or Eastern Orthodox, they are already baptized.
3) The theory baptism of desire does not save anyone who does not desire to be a baptized member of the Catholic Church.
So, these two theories don't really apply to all the Protestants and Eastern Orthodox on FR, the people that the liberalized dumb down Catholics are trying to bend over backwards to show that they are saved.