Are invincible ignorance and baptism of desire well-substantiated, or is there room for doubt?
Robert Sungenis answers that there is no room for doubt: Pius IX taught invincible ignorance in Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863), and the Council of Trent names baptism of desire in Session 6, chapter 4. He rejects Father Leonard Feeney's distinction between justification and salvation as an oxymoron, since the Church has never taught they are separate.
A viewer says he has learned that some Catholics reject invincible ignorance and baptism of desire, and asks whether these concepts are well substantiated or whether there is room for doubt.
Answer
There is no room for doubt. Invincible ignorance is a term used by Pius IX in his 1864 encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moerore, so it is clear Catholic teaching. Baptism of desire is named with that exact phrase in chapter 4 of Session 6 of the Council of Trent. Some object that it appears in a chapter rather than a canon, so they say we need not believe it, but you do have to believe it; there is such a thing as baptism of desire. The people who reject it follow Father Leonard Feeney, who invented a distinction between justification and salvation, saying baptism of desire justifies but does not save. That is an oxymoron, because you cannot be justified unless you are saved and not saved unless justified; the Church has never taught they are two separate things. Feeney then used 'there is one baptism' from Ephesians 4:5 to deny any exception, and when Trent taught otherwise, his followers simply concluded Trent was wrong at that point. That is not how you do Catholic theology; you gather all the evidence and then conclude. Feeney was wrong, and his material, which I have read, does not hang together.