Editor’s Note: Here is a fine article by Br. Andre, discussing Father Chad Ripperger’s recent statements about the ability of those outside the Church of being saved. — Saint Alphonsus would disagree with Br. Andre on only one point, namely, that the desire to receive the sacrament (votum) of which Trent speaks is a supernatural movement, not merely a wish or whim or preference of the non-Catholic individual. Thus, that the same God who grants this grace also provides the occasion in history for this person to join the Catholic Church and receive baptism is a reasonable conclusion, for otherwise, one would have to implicate God in a deception.

I have experience of this in my apostolic work, where this truth became visible. As I was returning from the Ancient Latin Mass, celebrated at Holy Trinity German Church, in Boston, in about the year 1998, one man who gave me a ride partially back to where I was living at the time, told me of a loved one in a nursing home who could benefit by my visit. And to insist that I make such a visit, required that I promise to do so, if he gave me a ride. He left me right infront of the elderly care facility which was a former hospital. After some negotiation, I found his loved one and made a visit. And that person was so pleased that they asked me to return. So I returned on another Sunday, and on my second visit, this same person told me of another woman, bedridden, in the room next door, who could benefit by a visit.

Now this elderly woman, was an atheist her whole adult life, having been raised in the Congregational Church as a child. After making her friendship by some conversation, and seeing that I had brought some images of Jesus and Mary for her neighboring patient, she asked me to leave some for herself. I was surprised greatly at this request, because she said she was an atheist. It was then she revealed to me something she had never told anyone: that for many years she had desired to become a Catholic and did not know how to do it, as all her friends were protestants and atheists, and would ridicule her if she mentioned such a desire.

So I began to instruct her in simple terms, and when the hospital staff found out they began to do everything they could to obstruct my visits. I finally arranged with the local pastor of the Catholic Church to visit her and told him she expressly asked to join the Catholic Church, but needed to be catechized. He promised to visit and to baptize her.  So I left it with him, as the hospital staff would no longer allow me to visit.

This woman was a quadriplegic, having suffered a series of health problems that did not allow her to move at all, except her hands. She was, in her advanced age, as it were chained to her bed, and these images of Jesus and Mary were the only thing she had to look at, as I taped them to the wall opposite.

This woman did all she could to join the Church, and I prayed that she receive the grace of baptism. But she clearly had the votum, that is, the grace of God to move her to do all she could do.

As to whatever became of this woman, I called the pastor of that parish months later, and I was told by the secretary, that she was baptized into the Catholic Church and died a holy death, but that her relatives had her buried in the Congregationalist Church, against the insistence of the Catholic pastor.

The truth of this real story of this real woman makes me believe entirely the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, that for those who receive such a spiritual desire (votum), God will provide the circumstance. But I shudder to think what would have been my guilt before God, if I had omitted to do anything which was the occasion of myself arriving at the door of her hospital room, that day many years ago; because any sort of deviation would have kept me from ever meeting this woman.

So I ask my readers to never omit an invitation to visit the sick, especially if this person is not a Catholic, because we know not the depths of the providence of God for those whom He has chosen to love from all eternity.