Father Feeney on "Desire"
Father Feeney saw the inevitability of such a catastrophe unless the Church settled, once and for all, this whole question of "desire," and how it relates to the sacraments. Here are his thoughts as presented in Bread of Life:
"Desire is a splendid diabolical word with which to confuse people. Up until recent times, even the most ambitious of the theologians of the Church never dared to use it in connection with Baptism except in a study of the nature of justification, which still left the problem of salvation unsolved — salvation by "Baptism of Desire."*
[* Father Feeney was speaking here of the official and formal teaching of theologians of past centuries, as expressed in Regional Synods and official catechisms emanating therefrom. He was not speaking of the private speculations of theologians who, like Saint Thomas Aquinas, considered possibilities that, though sometimes written in personal treatises, went beyond the scope of strict dogmatics.]
