Could Cardinal Kasper Be Right?

From Father Paul Nicholson comes this interesting reflection on “spiritual communion,” “baptism of desire,” and the bizarre ramifications of a non-incarnational, pseudo-sacramental Catholicism that parallels the sacramental economy that was instituted by Jesus Christ.

Some points Father Nicholson makes in the YouTube video below remind me of this passage in Father Feeney’s Bread of Life, taken from the chapter, The Purpose of Christ’s Coming:

What the Baptism-of-Desire teachers make of Our Lord’s great text, “Unless a man eat My Flesh and drink My Blood he shall not have life in him,” I am very much puzzled to know. Perhaps there is a Eucharist of Desire, as well as a “Baptism of Desire”? And why could there not be Holy Orders of Desire, as the Anglicans would like to have it, or Matrimony of Desire, which would so please the Mormons? And what becomes of the Mystical Body of Christ, made up of invisible members and a visible head — invisible branches on a visible vine? I would very much like to know!

Our priests in America now go around preaching this dry substitute of “Baptism of Desire” for the waters of regeneration. Their “Baptism of Desire” is no longer an antecedent to the Baptism of Water to come. They make it a substitute for Baptism of Water, or rather an excuse for not having it. These priests have brought our Church in the United States into a desert, far removed from the life-giving waters of Christ.

See also Brian Kelly’s From Baptism of Desire to Kasper’s Communion of Desire.