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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9915 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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Not sure how they can square that with the need for baptism (even of infants).

That hasn't been a hard and fast rule ever.

In the fourth century, Roman Emperor Valentinian II was a catechumen who expressed desire to be baptized by St. Ambrose of Milan, but he was assassinated before the bishop could reach him. Ambrose consoled the mourning family by stating: "Did he not have the grace which he desired? Did he not have what he eagerly sought? Certainly, because he sought it, he received it."

Before then, St Justin Martyr developed the concept of the Logos Spermatikos ("seeds of the Word"). He argued that because Christ is the Divine Reason (Logos) that illuminates every human mind, anyone who lived righteously according to the truth they had was already participating invisibly in Christ:

"We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists." — First Apology, Chapter 46

St. Irenaeus defended the idea that God’s saving grace was not restricted to only those alive during or after Christ’s death. He argued that God has always been present to humanity, judging people based on the capacity and information they possessed in their own time.

"For Christ came not only for those who believed on Him in the time of Tiberius Caesar, nor did the Father provide only for those who are now living, but for all men altogether, who from the beginning... feared and loved God, and behaved justly and piously towards their neighbors, and longed to see Christ." — Against Heresies, Book IV, Chapter 22

The Church has held for as long as we have records that people who want to be baptized are baptized, people who would have wanted to be baptized had they known of baptism are baptized, and it's all a mystery but if you know of and want to get baptized you should.

According to the CCC, they're a little more wishy-washy on that these days:

1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.

1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery."62 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"63 allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

So basically, adult non-believers who served God to the best of their ability and who would have hypothetically desired baptism had they known of its necessity get to go to Heaven, and unbaptized children get a big question mark plus a "I really hope God has a way to save these guys."

The way out I see for tradcaths, is simply asserting that Muslims and Jews either did know of the necessity of baptism and rejected it, or that they didn't try to seek truth and do the will of God in accordance with their understanding of it, because if they had, they would have found the Roman Catholic Church and Jesus.

So basically, adult non-believers who served God to the best of their ability and who would have hypothetically desired baptism had they known of its necessity get to go to Heaven, and unbaptized children get a big question mark plus a "I really hope God has a way to save these guys."

Funnily enough that's basically the opposite of the Mormon view. We believe that babies that die are automatically saved, meanwhile we perform proxy baptisms for the dead, and those dead need to accept the baptism from the other side for it to be of any use. I.e. those who would have accepted the gospel and been baptized if they had been given the opportunity can still be saved, but it still requires an actual proxy baptism to be performed for them by the living.

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