*Thesis III: The lot of unbaptized infants, though difficult to reconcile with the universality of God’s saving will, furnishes no argument against it.*
Proof. The most difficult problem concerning the divine _voluntas salvifica_—a real _crux theologorum_—is the fate of unbaptized children. The Church has never uttered a dogmatic definition on this head, and theologians hold widely divergent opinions.
Bellarmine teaches that infants who die without being baptized, are excluded from the divine _voluntas salvifica_, because, while the non-reception of Baptism is the proximate reason of their damnation, its ultimate reason must be the will of God.
a) This rather incautious assertion needs to be carefully restricted. It is an article of faith that God has instituted the sacrament of Baptism as the ordinary means of salvation for all men. On the other hand, it is certain that He expects parents, priests, and relatives, as his representatives, to provide conscientiously for its proper and timely administration. Sinful negligence on the part of these responsible agents cannot, therefore, be charged to Divine Providence, but must be laid at the door of those human agents who fail to do their duty. In exceptional cases infants can be saved even by means of the so-called Baptism of blood (_baptismus sanguinis_), _i.e._ death for Christ’s sake. On the whole it may be said that God has, in principle, provided for the salvation of little children by the institution of infant Baptism.
b) But there are many cases in which either invincible ignorance or the order of nature precludes the administration of Baptism. The well-meant opinion of some theologians(491) that the responsibility in all such cases lies not with God, but with men, lacks probability. Does God, then, really will the damnation of these innocents? Some modern writers hold that the physical order of nature is responsible for the misfortune of so many innocent infants; but this hypothesis contributes nothing towards clearing up the awful mystery.(492) For God is the author of the natural as well as of the supernatural order. To say that He is obliged to remove existing obstacles by means of a miracle would disparage His ordinary providence.(493) Klee’s assumption that dying children become conscious long enough to enable them to receive the Baptism of desire (_baptismus flaminis_), is scarcely compatible with the definition of the Council of Florence that “the souls of those who die in actual mortal sin, or only in original sin, forthwith descend to hell.”(494) A still more unsatisfactory supposition is that the prayer of Christian parents acts like a baptism of desire and saves their children from hell. This theory, espoused by Cardinal Cajetan, was rejected by the Fathers of Trent,(495) and Pope Pius V ordered it to be expunged from the Roman edition of Cajetan’s works.(496)