Feeneyism

Feeneyism is a pejorative name for the Christian doctrine, associated with Leonard Feeney, which advocates a strict interpretation of the dogma extra Ecclesiam nulla salus ("outside the Church there is no salvation"), which is that only Catholics can go to heaven and that only those baptised with water can go to heaven. Feeneyism opposes the ideas of baptism of desire and baptism of blood as well as the view that non-Catholics can go to heaven.

Leonard Feeney

Main article: Leonard Feeney

Feeney was a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Jesuit order. The order dismissed Feeney in 1949 for disobedience; later, on 4 February 1953, the Holy Office declared him excommunicated "on account of grave disobedience to Church Authority, being unmoved by repeated warnings."

Feeney co-founded the group known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with Catherine Goddard Clarke.

Feeney reconciled with the Catholic Church in 1972 without any recantation from his part.

Salvation and baptism

See also: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

Catholics traditionally believe that sacramental baptism ("baptism of water") is the only way to be properly baptized. The belief in water baptism and the doctrinal position that those who are outside the Catholic Church are not saved can be found in the writings of the early fathers and the rulings of ecumenical councils.

Pope Gregory XVI:

Finally some of these misguided people attempt to persuade themselves and others that men are not saved only in the Catholic religion, but that even heretics may attain eternal life.

Pope Eugene IV, in the Council of Florence:

And since death entered the universe through the first man, ‘unless we are born again of water and the Spirit, we cannot,’ as the Truth says, ‘enter into the kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]. The matter of this sacrament is real and natural water.

Pope Leo I:

For while we put off the vows of those who are not pressed by ill health and live in peaceful security to those two closely connected and cognate festivals, we do not at any time refuse this which is the only safeguard of true salvation to anyone in peril of death, in the crisis of a siege, in the distress of persecution, in the terror of shipwreck.

St. John Chrysostom:

And well should the pagan lament, who not knowing God, dying goes straight to punishment.  Well should the Jew mourn, who not believing in Christ, has assigned his soul to perdition.

Pope Siricius:

Therefore just as we say that the holy paschal observance is in no way to be diminished, we also say that to infants who will not yet be able to speak on account of their age or to those who in any necessity will need the holy stream of baptism, we wish succor to be brought with all celerity, lest it should tend to the perdition of our souls if the saving font be denied to those desiring it and every single one of them exiting this world lose both the Kingdom and life.

Feeney saw that, in the previous two centuries, the notion of "baptism of desire" had been introduced, which often included all who try to live good lives, even those who desired no relationship with the Catholic Church. Feeney argued that those who are truly sincere will be led by God to the Catholic Church. He also accepted no form of baptism as opening the way to salvation other than by water and only within the Catholic Church. He denied the salvational efficacy of the mere wish alone, even the explicit wish to be baptized, and held that God must have provided those martyrs who apparently died for the faith without being baptized with a minister and water to baptize them before their death. Feeney and his followers maintain that there is a contradiction between the Second Vatican Council's document Lumen gentium and earlier authoritative statements, which say that non-Catholics are indiscriminately damned. His followers interpret the Catholic Church's declarations that outside of the Church there is no salvation as excluding from salvation people such as the American Indians who lived between the times of Christ and Columbus, because they could not have been baptized (unless some Christian missionaries did manage to reach and baptize them in the Catholic faith).

Fr. Feeney wrote in his 1952 book Bread of Life:

[T]alking about the "soul of the Church," of "salvation outside the Church through sincerity"—apart from the teachings and Sacraments of Jesus Christ; and calling this arrangement "Baptism of Desire" and expecting men to be members of the Catholic Church without even knowing they are members.

What kind of teaching is that?

That is Christmas without any manger; Good Friday without any God bleeding; Easter Sunday without any Flesh and Blood coming out of the tomb. That is the Christian Faith without any Pope,—the most visible religious leader in the world! [...]

When the Council of Trent was discussing the problem of justification, it had to remember that it was possible for one to have been justified in the Old Testament as well as in the New, and that is why the Council allows the distinction between the actual reception of Baptism and the eager willingness to receive it. A man in the Old Testament waiting and wanting Baptism to be instituted, and a man in the New Testament waiting and wanting Baptism to be administered could both be justified. [...]

I have said that a Baptism-of-Desire Catholic is not a member of the Church. He cannot be prayed for after death as one of "the faithful departed." Were he to be revivified immediately after death—were he to come to life again—he would not be allowed to receive Holy Eucharist or any of the other Sacraments until he was baptized by water. [...]

Suppose a non-baptized person had his choice between Baptism of Water on the one hand, and what is called "Baptism of Blood" on the other. Were he not to choose Baptism of Water, the shedding of his blood would be useless and he would lose his soul.

Feeneyite groups

Further information: Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

• Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary located in Richmond, New Hampshire
• Most Holy Family Monastery