I'm just pointing out the complete teaching on this topic by referencing points you seem to be ignoring. I am not "prooftexting".
The "new" theology that you oppose (Lumen Gentium and the other documents of Vatican II, Mystici Corporis, the 19thc documents I cited earlier, JPII in Crossing the Threshold of Hope) is "new" insofar as it makes precisely that distinction.
How can I be "opposing" Lumen Gentium, Unitatis Redintegratio, the new Catechism, etc. when I explicitly point to where they uphold what I am saying by quoting them and saying I agree with them?
I don't understand where you are going with this at all.
In other words, over the possiblity that the Church Christ founded upon Peter is not exactly coterminous with the visible, historic structure we call the Catholic Church here and now.
Where do you find this anywhere? Lumen Gentium says the Chruch of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. That means that the Catholic Church is the substance of the Church of Christ just like a singular human being is the substance of a particular human person. If a particular person is able to exist partly outside the substance of his own body and soul, the Church of Christ can extend beyond the Catholic Church, and this sort of explication can be harmonious with Lumen Gentium. The Catholic Church is the complete manifestation of the Church of Christ. Everything outside of her that has fallen away is only "ecclesial" - "Church-like". It partially resembles the reality of the Catholic Church, but it is not a part of the Church that is now missing.
PLEASE NOTE the underlying theological issue: the mystery of the Church--a theological mystery that cannot be utterly identical with any historical, visible structure.
I did note that. That's why I said you are dividing the Church into a physical visible reality - the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and an invisible entity - the Church of Christ. You appear to be saying what Leonardo Boff was condemned by the CDF for.
And, if the Church of Christ is not absolutely coterminous with that visible, earthly structure, then there is room for salvation outside that visible earthly structure but within the Church of Christ founded upon Peter.
Here is where you are speaking in riddles again. "No salvation outside the Church" does not mean its opposite.
You make them address the issue by your interpretation of them, but they do not explicitly address the exact nature of the "baptism of desire," the characteristics or possibliity of any non-formal membership in the Catholic Church.
By making a vow to receive Baptism, the person simultaneously makes a vow to become a member of the Catholic Church. They are of course Catholics, because to make a vow to receive Baptism, even implicitly, one must hold explicitly the rudiments of the Catholic Faith, and the resulting justification of the person unites them to Christ and His members in His spouse the Church in grace. The Catholic Church is defined as the union of all the faithful under the Pope and Bishops sharing in the Sacraments of Christ. Someone who has Baptism of Desire is sharing in the Sacraments in reality although not actually (yet), so they are in reality a member of the Church.
What seems to be confusing you here is that you appear to be trying to extend membership in the Church to people who do not hold the Catholic Faith, but explicitly uphold paganism, Judaism, or heresy. Someone who worships the demons, rejects Christ, or believes in his own fancies instead of divine revelation imparted to mankind through the Prophets and Apostles does not know Christ Jesus, and therefore does not hold the Catholic Faith.
I nowhere spoke of an invisible Church. I nowhere said that those who are not formal members of the visible church are members of an invisible church. I did not posit two churches. All I said was what JPII said in Crossing the Threshold and what the Vatican II documents say: although the fullness of the Church of Christ subsists in the visible Catholic church bounded by communion with the bishop of Rome, some can be saved who are not formal members of that visible church (are not within those visible boundaries). If such are saved they are saved through Christ and through the one single Church of Christ but they are not formal members of that Church. I cannot state it any plainer.
Because the mystery named Church of Christ does not have visible boundaries whereas the historical, visible, structured thing called the visible Catholic Church does have visible boundaries these two facts have to be kept in paradoxical tension theologically or the mystery is collapsed into non-mystery. But the reality of these two characteristics of the ONE (get that, ONE) Church of Christ means that the mysterious Church of Christ is not coterminous with the visible Catholic Church. Its fullness subsists in the visible Catholic Church but the visible Catholic Church does not and cannot, simply cannot, exhaust the unboundedness of the mysterious Church of Christ.
It's the same principle as the sacraments: the fullness of Christ, body, soul, divinity is present under the appearance of bread and wine but not present locally or sense-perceptibly. The visible Catholic Church is a time-bounded, space bounded, history-bounded reality on earth. It is the same Church as the one Church of Christ that constitutes the Corpus Mysticus of Christ himiself but the Corpus Mysticus of Christ is not and cannot be coterminous with the visible, bounded historic Catholic Church because the one is bounded and the other is not. And we are bound to believe in both and hold them in theological, mystery-paradox.
I'm sorry you perceive this to be a riddle. Sounds like invincible ignorance, again. Your interpretation is sooooooooooo obvious to you that mine seems a riddle to you. Mine is soooooooo clear to me that yours seems like a riddle to me. This will get us nowhere.
And please don't throw Leonardo Boff at me. It's very rude! ;)
Do I understand you correctly, Hermann, that a baptized (in a Protestant setting, but validly) Protestant is a capital-C Catholic Christian who fell off on the rest of the sacraments? If so, then do you not arrive at a community of Catholic Christians that is larger than the community of practicing Catholic Christians? And then, does Dionysius not speak of the same duality of boundary you do?