IS FEENEYISM HERESY?

This is an opinion. Something implied from reading the Letter of the Holy Office 1949. The Letter does not state Fr.Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for heresy.

The liberal media says Fr.Leonard Feeney was in heresy for denying the baptism of desire and being saved in invincible ignorance which are exceptions to his 'rigorist interpretation' of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

1. Th secular media assumes we know cases of persons saved in invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire, who are known exceptions.Irrational.We cannot see the dead.So these cases are irrelevant to the literal interpretation of the dogma.

2.If Fr.Leonard Feeney was in heresy then so are the Church Councils which defined the dogma, also the popes in the ordinary magisterium and numerous saints.

3.In the book The Bread of Life we read that a catechumen could have a genuine desire, an implicit desire which could lead to salvation.So in principle he acknowledges implicit desire.Whether it led to justification or salvation was another issue.He did not deny implicit desire, leading to salvation, followed with the baptism of water, in a manner known only to God.

He denied that implicit desire and being saved in invincible ignorance was an exception to the dogma. There were no exceptions.

Since implicit desire is known only to God it is not an exception to the dogmatic teaching.

So is 'Feeneyism' heresy ? No.Since Fr.Leonard Feeney affirmed the dogma.He did not deny implicit desire. He rejected any known exceptions to extra ecclesiam nulla salus.This was the traditional teaching on extra ecclesiam nulla salus for centuries.So how could Fr.Leonard Feeney be in heresy.

The Letter of the Holy Office says he was excommunicated for disobedience. The Letter mentions 'the dogma'. The text of the dogma does not cite any exceptions. -Lionel Andrades