Introduction
In Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation, Anthony Lusvardi, SJ, offers both a historical and theological recovery of a frequently neglected doctrine—baptism of desire—as the Church’s most coherent response to the enduring problem of salvation for the unbaptized. Arguing that it “leaves out the least and cuts the fewest corners” (3), Lusvardi shows how this teaching, deeply rooted in Scripture, theology, and sacramental practice, addresses so-called “hard cases” without undermining the necessity of baptism. Tracing its development from patristic figures like Ambrose and Augustine to modern disputes involving Karl Rahner and Leonard Feeney, he reveals how the doctrine has been both misunderstood and overlooked. At the heart of Lusvardi’s proposal is a call to rediscover baptism not as a mere formality but as “theologically central to the Church’s understanding of salvation,” a sign of “God’s merciful desire to save” (7).
What follows is a chapter-by-chapter summary highlighting three key insights I gleaned from each, aimed at clarifying the development and theological significance of baptism of desire.
Chapter 1: Patristic Precursors
1. Baptism was experienced as absolutely necessary for salvation, even before it became formal doctrine.
Early Christians interpreted baptism not merely as a symbol but as a real participation in Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom 6:3–5). Lusvardi emphasizes that “faith, sacrament, and the salvific encounter with Christ were inseparable realities—pulling one strand would unravel the entire garment” (11). The Church’s instinct was always to affirm baptism’s necessity (Jn 3:5, 1 Pet 3:21), even as it explored “hard cases” like martyrdom or catechumens dying unbaptized.
2. Creative but theologically cautious responses emerged for “hard cases.”
From 1 Corinthians 15:29 (“baptism on behalf of the dead”) to the Shepherd of Hermas, the Church explored ways to reconcile baptism’s necessity with pastoral dilemmas, like unbaptized catechumens or the righteous dead. For example, Hermas imagines apostles baptizing the dead (“a kind of baptismal harrowing of hell” (17)), yet still “emphasizes that salvation comes only through baptism” and shows skepticism toward vague or merely emotional desires (16). These explorations never denied the sacrament’s centrality—they tried to safeguard its grace and creatively expand its application.
3. The Church Fathers, even when flexible, did not separate salvation from the sacrament.
From Tertullian and Cyprian to Irenaeus and Gregory Nazianzen, the patristic tradition held that baptism was indispensable—though some acknowledged that martyrdom or sincere desire could potentially mediate grace. Lusvardi notes: “Before it was a doctrinal principle or Church regulation, the necessity of baptism was part of early Christians’ experience of salvation” (61). Even those who speculated about God’s mercy, like Origen or Cyprian, treated the rite of sacramental baptism as the normative and irreducible means of union with Christ.
Chapter 2: The Birth of the Doctrine
1. Ambrose gives the first formal articulation of baptism of desire, rooted in prayerful desire and urgent necessity.
Responding to the death of the unbaptized Emperor Valentinian II in 392, Ambrose argued that the emperor’s explicit desire for Baptism, penitent heart (“prayerful poverty”), and invocation of the Church’s ministry sufficed for the reception of baptismal grace (God would not reject this prayer). Ambrose’s funeral oration, De obitu Valentiniani, marked the doctrine’s birth—not as innovation but as the flowering of earlier theological instincts. Ambrose insisted this was not an exception but a different “mode of [the sacrament’s] fulfillment,” comparable to martyrdom and Old Testament anticipation.
2. Augustine clarified and cautiously extended the doctrine, emphasizing faith, charity, and necessity.
While upholding the sacrament’s ordinary necessity, Augustine affirmed that a catechumen “spiritually superior” to a morally corrupt baptized heretic could be saved by desire in articulus necessitatis—a moment of unavoidable urgency—provided there was no contemptus religionis (contempt for religion). Later, Augustine acknowledged ambiguity in cases like the Good Thief but never revoked the principle: baptism of desire remains valid “when coupled with charity, necessity, and absence of contempt” (107).
3. The patristic doctrine held baptism as necessary, while allowing rare, grace-filled exceptions through desire.
Although not universally accepted—figures like Chrysostom denied it outright—others like Theodore of Mopsuestia cautiously supported intention-based salvation in exceptional cases. Yet even these exceptions did not present “a pathway to salvation that could in any way be in competition with the sacrament” (108). For the Fathers, baptism of desire was not a loophole but a witness to the Church’s belief that God’s mercy could reach the sincerely willing when sacramental reception was impossible.
Chapter 3: The Medieval Crucible
1. Peter Lombard canonizes baptism of desire in scholastic theology—but weakens its liturgical coherence.
In Book IV of the Sentences—the 12th-century compendium that became Christendom’s standard theological textbook for centuries—Peter Lombard formally integrated baptism of desire into scholastic theology by embedding it within his sacramentum/res framework: some receive both the sign and the grace (sacramentum et res), others only the sign (sacramentum), and a third group—such as martyrs and catechumens—receive the grace without the sign (res) (152). Drawing on Ambrose and Augustine, Lombard affirmed that faith and contrition “where the sacrament is not held in contempt” could suffice for justification, as in the case of the Good Thief. Yet his rationale for still requiring water baptism—such as its role in remitting temporal punishment—lacked liturgical depth and biblical resonance. The result was a theology increasingly “cerebralized” (154), reducing baptism from a lived, sacramental participation in Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom 6:3–5) to a more abstract mechanism for dispensing grace.
2. Aquinas deepens and refines the doctrine—but the unresolved issue of baptismal character strains coherence.
Aquinas inherited Peter’s framework but shifted the focus: baptism of desire, he argued, is not a bypass of the sacrament but a participation in it, ordered to the same grace through will and charity. He clarified the varying necessity of the sacraments—distinguishing between absolute necessity and fitting means—and treated baptism—given Christian revelation—as “simply and absolutely” necessary for salvation. Yet Aquinas also drew a hard line: baptism of desire does not confer the sacramental character, the indelible seal that configures the soul to Christ and enables full participation in the Church’s sacramental life. This created a theological dissonance: how can one be saved without being sealed?
3. Late medieval consensus accepts the doctrine legally but hollows it existentially.
By the 13th century, baptism of desire had wide support—from papal decrees (e.g., Gregory IX’s recognition of an unbaptized priest saved by desire) to standard Parisian theologians like Peter the Chanter and Alan of Lille. Yet this growing acceptance masked deeper ambiguities. Scotus conceded the doctrine’s truth but reduced it to a question of obligation: if one dies, the duty is excused; if one lives, the command still binds. The liturgical imagination faded, and the doctrine was no longer a testimony to the sacrament’s inward grace, but a juridical concession. As Lusvardi concludes, what began as a bold witness to grace became “a marginal legal category that had lost its urgency” (187). The living sense of baptism’s inward grace gave way to abstraction, as juridical concerns replaced liturgical imagination. Once a testimony to God’s merciful initiative, baptism of desire now lingered on the periphery of theology—acknowledged in principle, but largely divorced from the sacramental heart of Christian life.
Chapter 4: The Crosscurrents of Early Modernity
1. Baroque theology fractures over the “minimum” required for salvation—detaching baptism of desire from its sacramental roots.
Baroque scholastics like Suárez sought to define the least content required for a salvific act of faith, but in doing so, they “set aside the sacrament as furnishing any relevant theological data,” reducing baptism of desire to an abstract, mental construct (252). Their focus on “the minimum of truths to which we must absolutely adhere” (245) veered away from baptism’s sacramental fullness and created an “alternative rite to baptism”—the very error Cajetan had been accused of at Trent. As Lusvardi notes, “Theology of baptism of desire works only because, by its very nature, it resists proposing an alternative to that profession” (243). The more theologians tried to isolate the minimum, the more they obscured the sacrament’s concrete, symbolic depth.
2. The Jansenist controversy intensified theological rigor—but offered little constructive development for baptism of desire.
Jansenists like Arnauld pressed hard against the idea that moral monotheism or natural religion could save. He insisted that reducing implicit faith to “the mere knowledge of a just and merciful God” amounted to “Pelagianism or Deism” (248). Arnauld’s polemic against Enlightenment deists like Le Vayer rightly exposed the insufficiency of natural virtue apart from Christ. Yet he also rejected baptism of desire too bluntly, dismissing it by analogy: “The grace of faith is not sufficient to obtain the Kingdom of heaven […] before they are incorporated into the church through participation in the sacraments” (249). Despite his strong critique of laxism, Arnauld ignored Thomistic notions of implicit faith and misunderstood the sacrament’s role in the doctrine he was attacking.
3. Attempts to clarify the doctrine led to abstraction and confusion, leaving baptism of desire marginalized.
Despite Trent’s affirmation of baptism in voto, post-Tridentine theology lost its liturgical and symbolic imagination. “Part of the problem,” Lusvardi writes, “was that, while these thinkers used the in re/in voto distinction articulated by Aquinas, they set aside the sacrament as furnishing any relevant theological data” (252). Even optimistic theologians like Suárez ended up “degenerating into a question of how much of Christianity could be left unprofessed” (245). Meanwhile, Roman interventions during the Jansenist period focused more on grace and freedom than sacramental theology: “As far as our question is concerned, the sound and fury of Jansenism had changed almost nothing” (251). The net result was not development but a retreat: “The Enlightenment was dawning, but baptism of desire was fading into the shadows” (252).
Chapter 5: The Long Nineteenth Century
1. Rahner’s theory of Anonymous Christianity universalizes salvation—but empties baptism of sacramental necessity.
To safeguard the universality of God’s salvific will, Karl Rahner posits that every person, even atheists, can be saved by following conscience—because all are imbued with a “supernatural existential” from birth. In this view, even an explicit rejection of God might be an act of implicit faith. But this “always and already” theology undermines the symbolic and transformational nature of baptism: “salvation cannot really depend on anything categorical and particular, such as sacraments or beliefs with any specific content” (306). Rahner attempts to root this theory in Ambrose, but he evacuates Ambrose’s appeal to desire—a desire born of poverty and absence, not presumed presence. Ultimately, Rahner’s approach “preserves something of the intellectual framework” of sacramental theology while replacing baptism with a metaphysical assumption (312).
2. Vatican II upheld tradition while expanding tone and scope—but left the doctrine of baptism of desire underdeveloped.
Despite theological shifts, Vatican II did not adopt Rahner’s theory. Lumen Gentium and Ad Gentes affirm salvation is possible for those outside the Church—but also emphasize the necessity of baptism, faith, and the Paschal Mystery, and the need for missionary work. Most crucially, Lumen Gentium warns that the ideal conditions for salvation outside the Church are “more often” (saepius) not met (322). The Council also introduces the concept of “preparation for the Gospel” (LG 16) as a way to relate non-Christians to Christ—reconnecting salvation to baptismal desire (through the Paschal Mystery). But lacking a liturgical or symbolic theology, Vatican II retained the moralistic and legal categories of the Long Nineteenth Century. The result: a status quo that left baptism of desire intact, but conceptually static.
3. The erosion of baptism’s necessity has led to missionary crisis and creeping religious indifference.
As Rahner’s theory gained influence, missionary motivation waned. By the late 20th century, even John Paul II had to defend the very need for evangelization in Redemptoris Missio. But his encyclical, like Rahner’s work, could not resolve the dilemma: if people can be saved without hearing the Gospel, what is the point of preaching it? Meanwhile, baptism became “a formality,” stripped of its awe and urgency. “The structure of Catholicism dictates that, when the necessity of the Christian sacraments disappears, the necessity of Christ himself will not be far behind” (330). Lusvardi concludes that “optimism about the salvation of the world [was bought] at the cost of pessimism about Christianity’s relevance” (330). Only Benedict XVI’s Spe Salvi began to reverse course, pointing back to the lex orandi—the rite of baptism itself—as the source of theological renewal. Lusvardi ends the chapter by calling for a return to the theology of desire, rooted not in abstraction, but in liturgy.
Conclusion: Water, Blood, and Desire
1. Baptism is a concrete help to salvation—not merely a legal obligation—because salvation demands total, bodily participation in Christ.
Lusvardi pushes back against views that treat baptism as a formal command rather than a formative sacramental participation in the Paschal Mystery. “Salvation is not an offer of partial truth,” and baptism is no mere packaging—it enacts what it signifies: “a total immersion” of the human person (342). The sacrament’s material specificity is a participation in the Incarnation, and the rite gives human freedom a real, embodied way to say ‘yes’ to Christ. Therefore, “the choice to be baptized allows us to make a decision… in a way that is truly human” (342).
2. Baptism of desire remains a necessary doctrine for salvation’s “rough edges”—but must be closely tethered to the sacrament, not seen as an alternative.
The doctrine of baptism of desire emerges from hard pastoral cases, not abstract speculation—“not from speculation about Platonic forms, but in a moment of pastoral crisis” (360). Lusvardi insists that the desire required is the same desire needed for the sacrament itself—not a vague openness or hypothetical preference. The sacrament is irreplaceable, and any concept of baptism of desire must safeguard its centrality: “baptism of desire can never be understood to create an alternative to baptism” (346).
3. The lex orandi, not theological optimism, provides the foundation for believing in the salvation of catechumens and certain infants—but offers only cautious hope for non-Christians.
While Lusvardi affirms baptism of desire for catechumens and infants of Christian parents (356), he urges epistemological restraint for others. Implicit desire must be “strong enough to lead to action” (349), and he critiques generic hopefulness detached from liturgical and doctrinal grounding. For non-Christians, salvation is “possible but unlikely” without explicit or implicit baptismal desire (353). The doctrine thus affirms the urgency of missionary evangelization, not its redundancy: “precisely because God wishes for all to be saved, we have no grounds for diminishing or reducing our missionary efforts” (360).
Review: A Profound and Timely Gift to the Church
Fr. Anthony Lusvardi, SJ, has done the Church a great service with Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation. This book is both theologically rich and remarkably readable—a rare combination. Lusvardi traces the development of baptism of desire from the early Church through Aquinas, Trent, and modern debates with clarity, depth, and pastoral insight.
What struck me most was how he recovers the doctrine not as a salvation loophole, but as a witness to God’s merciful desire to save precisely through the necessity and beauty of sacramental baptism. He shows how the doctrine arises from lived pastoral situations—especially the death of catechumens—and remains vitally relevant in today’s theological and missionary context.
This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how salvation works in the Church’s tradition—especially in “hard cases” like the unbaptized, non-Christians, or infants. Lusvardi manages to be both intellectually rigorous and spiritually moving. I came away with a renewed awe for the sacrament of baptism and a deeper confidence in God’s mercy.
Highly recommended—especially for priests, catechists, and anyone serious about the faith.
Prodigal Catholic 
Great work Fr. Conlin for summarizing and reviewing the book. I read it as well and even had a conversation with Fr. Lusvardi. Such a timely and scholarly book that eveyrone wanting to know the role of faith-baptism-church in salvaiton.