"Dead" means unfruitful, too. Your/Catholicism's interpretation is that "dead" means going to hell. Jesus said whoever believes in Him is NOT condemned but is passed from death to life. (John 5:24)
To have a dead faith, which does not manifest "things which accompany salvation, esp. a sacrificial love of the brethren, (Heb. 6:9,10) is to not have saving faith.
Which best describes the overall fruit of Rome, which is liberal, and whose works (along with liberal Prot. denoms) in treating even proabortion, prosodomite pols as members in life and in death, making them all brethren, testifies in part to what she really believes versus what is on paper.
Imagining an infant, who cannot obey the stated requirements for baptism, (Acts 2:38; 8:36,37) is born again because the very act effects this, means they are never challenged to to come to the Lord Jesus as contrite, damned + destitute sinners, and trust Him to save them by His blood-expense and righteousness, not at all by their merit or the power of the church and a postmortem purgatorial work.
If Caths actually did so and realized the profound effects in heart and life of regeneration, as i did while still a Catholic and know the vast essential difference btwn that and institutionalized religion (not that i do not need growth in grace), then we could actually have some fellowship of the Spirit centered on Christ and His word, not an elitist church, to some degree, as we can with evangelicals from various churches.
What “dead” exactly means St. James explains in the same passage: “Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only?” (James 2:24).