Baptism of Blood

Giotto's painting: Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

The Communion Prayer of Dec. 28, Feast of the Holy Innocents reads:

"Lord,
by a wordless profession of faith in your Son,
the innocents were crowned with life at his birth."

So the Church considers those who die for the sake of Christ as martyrs even if they never had a chance to receive baptism of water. This is possible because Christ is the Primordial Sacrament or the visible manifestation of God's love for mankind in his humanity.

Baptism of Desire

Encounter with the humanity of Christ is sacramental. This becomes evident on the Cross where the thief repenting for his wrongdoing asked Christ to remember him when he entered his kingdom and Christ said that "This day you shall be with me in paradise." (Lk 23:43) Further, Jesus did not baptize his apostles. Baptism of water did not take effect till Christ's (Death-Resurrection-Ascension) which is considered one event.

The Catholic Church mindful that Christ died for all and that mankind has one destiny states:

"Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church,
but seeks the truth and does the will of God
in accordance with his understanding of it,
can be saved.
It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly
if they had known its necessity."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1260)

What about children who die before receiving the Sacrament of Baptism?

From the gospels accounts it is evident that Christ had great affection and care for children because He said, "the kingdom of God belongs to such as these".(Mk10:14) and further affirmed that "their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father". (Mt18:10) God wills the salvation of all men and for those children who died before baptism, there is a way in God's plan of salvation. What that way is precisely, we do not know.

At one time we spoke of Limbo or a state of natural happiness for unbaptized children. It is now recognized that all mankind has a supernatural destiny in God, therefore, the final end of unbaptized children will either be the vision of God or damnation. How will God achieve this? We can only theorize. I envision a dimension of the universe where unbaptized children go. There they will grow up psychologically and somehow be presented with the mystery of Christ. They will either accept the love of Christ or reject it thereby achieving their destiny in God's plan.