CatholicOnline: Lucy Hussey-Bergonzi was 13 years old when she collapsed with a brain hemorrhage in February of 2009. At the hospital, her parents called for a Catholic priest to baptize her before she died. As the holy water touched her forehead, Lucy’s arm shot up in the air and within 24 hours she was taken off life support. Read full report here.

Perish the thought that a person predestined to eternal life could be allowed to end this life without the sacrament of the mediator. (Saint Augustine)

This article will focus on the question of explicit baptism of desire — as it was understood by most western doctors of the Church from the time of Saint Augustine (+430) until Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (+1787), the last declared theological doctor who wrote in favor of its saving efficacy. The subject matter will deal specifically with the origin of the theological speculation, as given by Saint Augustine in one of his early doctrinal letters, and then move on to prove from authoritative testimony that the African doctor reversed his opinion in his later anti-Pelagian writing. Read More »

This is a most astounding story of the heroic kind of fortitude God gives in time of danger to those ordinary Catholics who love the Faith. May 18, 1959.  Search Time.com. “Looking down on the ocean from the Presidio, San Francisco’s history-encrusted Army post, Master Sergeant Leo P. Day saw what happened next. ‘I could see the boy in the foaming red water, shouting and signaling someone to ‘go back, go back.’ Then I saw the girl, swimming toward him, completely ignoring his warning. It was the greatest exhibition of courage I have ever seen.’” Read the whole story here.

Whenever the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism are enumerated, one of the most common items on the list is “Faith and Good Works.” The role of good works in human salvation was one of the crucial issues of the Protestant Revolt of 1517, Martin Luther going so far as to interpolate his own spin on the matter right into the Bible. Read More »

As a corollary to the necessity of Faith and Baptism for salvation, St. Thomas also taught that unbaptized babies went to the Limbo of the Children (Summa Theologica. III, Q. 52, a. 7). But later the rigorist Jansenists taught that unbaptized babies rather went to the fires of hell, and they called the Limbo of the Children a “Pelagian Heresy.” Read More »

LET’S HAVE A LITTLE TALK, my young friend, just you and I. It is private, yes. Read More »

(240K PDF version of this same article. )

Introduction. Mr. Thomas Sparks, of Bedfordshire, England, has posted an “Open Letter” to me on his web site. The present offering is my reply. Read More »

Modern liberalism, which makes membership in the Catholic Church unnecessary for salvation, undermines something more than the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. In postulating the existence of an Invisible Church, or in suggesting that membership in the Visible Church can be invisible and purely internal, liberals are actually, whether they realize it or not, endangering the doctrine of the Incarnation. Read More »

Contents :

1. Baptism is Absolutely Necessary for Salvation.

2. Is Baptism by Itself Sufficient for Salvation?

3. Baptism of Blood and Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Read More »

Contents :

1. Explicit Faith in the Catholic Church and in Her Teaching is Necessary for Salvation.

2. there Two Kinds of Membership in the Church?

3. Can a Person Who Remains Separated from the Church be Saved?

4. Are Protestants Formal Heretics?

5. Pope Pius IX’s Real Teaching with Regard to the Salvation of Non-Catholics

6. Concerning the Question of Ignorance

Read More »