The salvation of the "good thief" (actually an unspecified type of criminal) in understood by RCs as exampling "baptism by desire" which is as close to sola fide (yet not by a faith that is alone) as Rome gets, and they also hold that this took the place of purgatory, which is another issue. But as regards paedobaptism, the Holy Spirit clearly provides the requirements for baptism:
"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. " (Acts 2:38)
"And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. " (Acts 8:36-37)
It is incongruous that the Holy Spirit would not provide at least one clear example of infants being baptized, especially considering the critical salvific importance, and reliance on tradition is an admission of the lack of actual Scriptural support for it.
In addition, while Rome charges that “parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth,” yet church “father's” as Tertullian preferred waiting, if possible, until one could understand before they were baptized (a “credo-baptist” direction).
"And so, according to the circumstances and disposition, and even age, of each individual, the delay of baptism is preferable; principally, however, in the case of little children...Let them 'come,' then, while they are growing up; let them 'come' while they are learning, while they are learning whither to come; let them become Christians when they have become able to know Christ." - Tertullian (On Baptism, 18)
Gregory Nazianzen:
"Be it so, some will say, in the case of those who ask for Baptism; what have you to say about those who are still children, and conscious neither of the loss nor of the grace? Are we to baptize them too? Certainly, if any danger presses. .For it is better that they should be unconsciously sanctified than that they should depart unsealed and uninitiated.... But in respect of others I give my advice to wait till the end of the third year, or a little more or less, when they may be able to listen and to answer something about the Sacrament; that, even though they do not perfectly understand it, yet at any rate they may know the outlines; and then to sanctify them in soul and body with the great sacrament of our consecration. For this is how the matter stands; at that time they begin to be responsible for their lives, when reason is matured, and they learn the mystery of life (for of sins of ignorance owing to their tender years they have no account to give), and it is far more profitable on all accounts to be fortified by the Font, because of the sudden assaults of danger that befall us, stronger than our helpers." (Orations, 40:28)
There is more provided on this here.
Moreover, V1 requires that her magisterium never “receive and interpret them [the Holy Scriptures] except according to the unanimous consent of the fathers,” (http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm#3) yet there is also significant disagreement about what tradition and or Scripture teaches regarding some things, even among those who make it equal (or as the same) as Scripture.
It is also of noted that it is held that we know relative little of what all that the “fathers” wrote, while in exegesis of Scripture as regards such things as celibacy versus marriage, even such a scholar as Jerome shows poor exegesis and how one can make passages to support a teaching of tradition.
a question for our Baptist friends who reject baptismal regeneration and infant baptism:
if your Baptist minister baptized an infant this Sunday in front of the members of his church, what would the reaction be? would the members sit there silently and say “isn’t that nice?” or would there be charges of heresy and the minister being fired immediately?
i think i know the answer to those questions. that being said, how is it that all of Christendom silently just accepted infant baptism without a single defense of “believers baptism” from the “true Christians”?
was Joseph Smith right that the whole Church went apostate after all the Apostles died?