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There are a few different ways that a person might receive an implicit baptism of desire.

1. Persons who love God, might not know about the Sacrament of baptism, such as the Israelites who lived before Christ. Their desire for baptism is partially implicit, since they do know and desire God in love. They explicitly love God, and implicitly desire baptism.

[1 Corinthians 10]
{10:1} For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and they all went across the sea.
{10:2} And in Moses, they all were baptized, in the cloud and in the sea.
{10:3} And they all ate of the same spiritual food.
{10:4} And they all drank of the same spiritual drink. And so, they all were drinking of the spiritual rock seeking to obtain them; and that rock was Christ.

2. Persons who know about the Sacrament of Baptism, but who — with a sincere but mistaken conscience — do not believe that Christianity and baptism are the path to salvation. If they love God, they explicitly desire the path to God and to salvation, which implicitly includes baptism. Again, this type of baptism of desire is only partially implicit. They explicitly love God, and implicitly desire baptism.

3. Persons who do not believe in Christianity or God — due to a sincere but mistaken conscience — but who love their neighbor selflessly. Their true love of others implicitly includes the love of God, and all who truly love God desire the path to salvation, which includes baptism. This type of baptism of desire is fully implicit, since the person implicitly loves God by loving their neighbor and implicitly desires baptism.

Saint Thomas taught the implicit baptism of desire in Summa Theologica III, Q. 68, A. 4.

Reply to Objection 2. As stated above (1, ad 2; 68, 2) man receives the forgiveness of sins before Baptism in so far as he has Baptism of desire, explicitly or implicitly; and yet when he actually receives Baptism, he receives a fuller remission, as to the remission of the entire punishment. So also before Baptism Cornelius and others like him receive grace and virtues through their faith in Christ and their desire for Baptism, implicit or explicit: but afterwards when baptized, they receive a yet greater fullness of grace and virtues. Hence in Psalm 22:2, “He hath brought me up on the water of refreshment,” a gloss says: “He has brought us up by an increase of virtue and good deeds in Baptism.”

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Moral Theology, Book 6, Section II (About Baptism and Confirmation), Chapter 1 (On Baptism), page 310, no. 96:

“Baptism of desire is perfect conversion to God by contrition or love of God above all things accompanied by an explicit or implicit desire for true baptism of water, the place of which it takes as to the remission of guilt, but not as to the impression of the [baptismal] character or as to the removal of all debt of punishment.”

Therefore, a baptism of desire can also be obtained by implicit perfect contrition for past sins. The baptism of desire does not imprint the baptismal character on the soul, nor does it forgive all temporal punishment due for sin. So the formal Sacrament is better.

Pope Pius IX in the encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moerore:

“There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.”

A person can only be sent to eternal punishment in Hell by deliberate sin, and, as Pope Benedict XII taught in On the Beatific Vision of God (1336), that sin must be “actual mortal sin”. So non-Christians do not go to Hell for refusing, out of invincible ignorance, a formal Baptism into the Christian Faith.

Pope Pius IX Singulari Quadam:

“For, it must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood; but, on the other hand, it is necessary to hold for certain that they who labor in ignorance of the true religion, if this ignorance is invincible, are not stained by any guilt in this matter in the eyes of God.”

Persons who receive an implicit baptism of desire are non-formal members of the Church; they can be saved by the same Ark of Salvation as all Christians can be saved.

The Catechism of Pope Saint Pius X:

The Creed, Ninth Article, The Church in Particular: 29
“Q. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved? A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God’s will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation”

Baptism, Necessity of Baptism and Obligations of the Baptized: 17
“Q. Can the absence of Baptism be supplied in any other way? A. The absence of Baptism can be supplied by martyrdom, which is called Baptism of Blood, or by an act of perfect love of God, or of contrition, along with the desire, at least implicit, of Baptism, and this is called Baptism of Desire.”

Letter of the Holy Office to Archbishop Cushing of Boston, approved by Pope Pius XII, August 8, 1949: “The Supreme Pontiff, His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, has given full approval to this decision”.

Therefore, that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing. However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, “On the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ” (AAS, Vol. 35, an. 1943, p. 193 ff.). For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are actually incorporated into the Church as members, and those who are united to the Church only by desire.

Pope Saint John Paul II, All Salvation Comes Through Christ, General Audience, May 31, 1995:

Since Christ brings about salvation through his Mystical Body, which is the Church, the way of salvation is connected essentially with the Church. The axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus” — “outside the Church there is no salvation” — stated by St. Cyprian (Epist. 73, 21; PL 1123 AB), belongs to the Christian tradition. It was included in the Fourth Lateran Council (DS 802), in the Bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII (DS 870) and the Council of Florence (Decretum pro Jacobitis, DS 1351). The axiom means that for those who are not ignorant of the fact that the Church has been established as necessary by God through Jesus Christ, there is an obligation to enter the Church and remain in her in order to attain salvation (cf. LG 14). For those, however, who have not received the Gospel proclamation, as I wrote in the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, salvation is accessible in mysterious ways, inasmuch as divine grace is granted to them by virtue of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, without external membership in the Church, but nonetheless always in relation to her (cf. RM 10). It is a mysterious relationship. It is mysterious for those who receive the grace, because they do not know the Church and sometimes even outwardly reject her. It is also mysterious in itself, because it is linked to the saving mystery of grace, which includes an essential reference to the Church the Savior founded.

The dogma “outside the Church, there is no salvation” cannot be used to deny an implicit baptism of desire. Some persons attain membership in the Church, implicitly (“without external membership”), even though they “outwardly reject her”. Their baptism must be implicit, since they reject the Church (out of invincible ignorance).

Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives: “An act of love is sufficient for the adult to obtain sanctifying grace and to supply the lack of baptism.”

This love need not be an explicit love of God; it can be a selfless love of neighbor. For all love of neighbor is implicitly a love of God and a desire to be united with God, which only occurs by baptism.

[1 John]
{4:20} If anyone says that he loves God, but hates his brother, then he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he does see, in what way can he love God, whom he does not see?
{4:21} And this is the commandment that we have from God, that he who loves God must also love his brother.

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