Good exists - a Catholic comments

[Bucky Ball]

No one needs to actually get baptized by water, according to the RCC. 

I used to help run the RCIA program at Holy Trinity.   Let me show you what the Catechism says about this.

1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude

But by all means come to an atheist forum and teach error.  This is expected of believers. 

Unfortunately, you never read the entire Catechism. 
Baptism includes Baptism of Desire, and Implicit Baptism of Desire. 
1257 specifically does NOT address those to whom the gospel has NOT been proclaimed.  

Let me show YOU what the Catechism says about this.
Read 1258. 
“The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.”


https://ronconte.com/2015/02/01/roman-ca...of-desire/
"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:[/font][/size]

“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.

I'm not a believer. I'm simply pointing out that according to THEIR theology, honest sincere atheists are "saved" in their system, by THEIR authority.