Posted on 11/29/2005 3:42:52 PM PST by Claud
Vatican considers dropping 'limbo'
Theologians meet to look again at fate of unbaptised tots
(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 29 - The Catholic Church appears set to definitively drop the concept of limbo, the place where it has traditionally said children's souls go if they die before being baptised .
Limbo has been part of Catholic teaching since the 13th century and is depicted in paintings by artists such as Giotto and in important works of literature such as Dante's Divine Comedy .
But an international commission of Catholic theologians is meeting in the Vatican this week to draw up a new report for Pope Benedict XVI on the question. The report is widely expected to advise dropping it from Catholic teaching .
The pope made known his doubts about limbo in an interview published in 1984, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's doctrinal department .
"Limbo has never been a defined truth of faith," he said. "Personally, speaking as a theologian and not as head of the Congregation, I would drop something that has always been only a theological hypothesis." According to Italian Vatican watchers, the reluctance of theologians to even use the word limbo was clear in the way the Vatican referred in its official statement to the question up for discussion .
The statement referred merely to "the Fate of Children who Die Without Baptism" .
Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, gave the commission the task of looking at the issue again in 2004. He asked experts to come up with a "theological synthesis" able to make the Church's approach "more coherent and illuminated" .
In fact, when John Paul II promulgated the updated version of the Catholic Church's catechism in 1992 there was no mention of the word limbo .
That document gave no clear answer to the question of what happened to children who died before being baptised .
It said: "The Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God...In fact the great mercy of God, who wants all men to be saved, and the tenderness of Jesus towards children... allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who die without baptism." This view is in stark contrast to what Pope Pius X said in an important document in 1905: "Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either, because having original sin, and only that, they do not deserve paradise, but neither hell or purgatory." According to teaching from the 13th century on, limbo was also populated by the prophets and patriarchs of Israel who lived in the time before Jesus Christ .
Your ransom-note-esque rant is perfect in tone to debunk the notion that God is some jolly Santa Claus figure. He's actually pretty violent and psychotic. God was the first serial killer, and he did his work with pizzazz.
OH, REALLY.
I mean, oh, really. Besides the story of Esau (who was not eternally damned), where does it say that?
ROFLMAO! At least someone gets it. Thank You
No. The choice would be before death. The infants would have to have been given infused knowledge of some kind.
The Fathers were in Limbo because, in part, they were not yet able to choose Christ.
True, but they were able in their lifetimes to choose for or against what truth they knew. They were bound for heaven (or heaven through purgatory) but were in limbo because the gates of heaven were not yet opened.
Babies are not yet able to choose.
True. The ability to make a reasonable choice would have to be infused.
We also know that positive development occurs after death (e.g. purgatory).
Purification and sanctification. But the fundamental choice for God has already been made.
I misread your statement, I apologize. You were assuming that infants do not commit sin. Fine. The answer to your question, where do they go, the Church is saying, cannot be known. If the premise that one cannot go to heaven without the restoration of original righteousness is correctg, then they cannot enjoy the beatific vision. That's the premise behind limbo. Ratzinger was simply saying that in the case of unbaptized, subject to original sin, infants, it's better to leave it open and not try to answer the question you pose. The Church in fact left it open, as unanswerable. Aquinas and others tried to answer it. All Ratzinger is saying is that the Church has been wise to leave it unanswered and, given the degree to which Aquinas's limbo answer has been misunderstood as enjoying dogmatic status, now the Church, to eliminate confusion and misunderstanding, should more formally state that the question needs to stay open rather than be "closed" by a doctrine of limbo. Presumably Ratzinger was part of the influence behind JPII's statements on this issue and the call for a formal theological inquiry.
So, where do you go to wash yourself in this blood?
-A8
Hi, Campion - It is not about the innocent 'deserving,' paradise/Heaven. It is about the mercy of Christ and His love for the innocent. Yea, though all are born of Original Sin (save the Christ), the blood of Christ covers the innocent children. In flesh and blood he warned of those who would harm the little ones - how much more is his love for their souls...! The One that cared so much to warn against harming their flesh would not turn away their souls.
There is an age of accountability, though that is between the Lord and the individual....
God delegates free will with the certainty that you will make mistakes. Hopefully not serious ones. Mistakes that teach what not to do next time. For the serious mistakes, he offered his Son to pay for all those sins that will inevitably occur. In exchange for shouldering that burden, his Son is delegated the right to forgive sins and welcome you back into His Father's house. The principles are simple and elegant, but many will still fail to accept the offer.
Based on what, precisely? 'Limbo' is yet another example of the Catholic church making things up as they go along. There is precisely zero biblical (or other) support for the concept of Limbo or Purgatory, yet bazillions of Catholics swallow this crap - why?
-bc (another apostate Catholic)
It has taken 1600 years to overcome this false opposition.
You're the one who needs to put your brain in gear before you jump to conclusions about what those of us who believe baptism cleanses from sin believe.
see Post 102.
...and I never said otherwise! But if I'm wrong, then please point me to a source that says Limbo is part of heaven.
Again, let me reformulate the argument. Forget about whether an unbaptized baby merits hell. I'm talking about whether he can go to heaven. A perfectly sinless person yet *without* the supernatural grace of the sacraments, *still* cannot go to heaven. Period. So where does he go? That's what I'm asking.
And for goodness sake, don't ever accuse me of seeing things through Protestant eyes.
Point taken. My apologies.
Yes.
If the answer is YES, when was he baptised?
Traditional baptism is normative. The thief's act of faith was a baptism of desire. Traditional baptism would have been difficult considering the circumstances.
And what about the fate of those who died before baptism was instituted as a sacrament? And what about the fate of those who are ignorant of the importance of baptism?
The Church teaches that unbaptized people who serve truth to the best of their ability may be saved. Their salvation would be through Christ, despite their ignorance of Him.
I think the problem nowadays is that most people think we are *entitled* to heaven unless we do something to merit otherwise. Not so.
Is it even humanly reasonable that God would offer salvation to some and not to others? That's Calvinism, not Catholicism.
The First Pope, Paul the Apostle, wrote in Romans 3:10 there is NONE righteous, NO NOT EVEN ONE.
This does not exclude infants. Therefore, one must conclude that the Pope included infants as well as all others as UNRIGHTEOUS and SINNERS!
So, the Church may change a teaching, and THEREFORE the teaching was never infallible in the first place, even though it was a part of the sacred tradition, and taught by the Magesterium, for 7 centuries.
I could accept this logic if I could put my hand on a list, a real official list, in which the Church specifies which doctrines are infallible.
However, no such list exists.
So, query:
Is the prohibition on birth control infallible?
What about the doctrine of infallibility itself, of either the Pope or the magesterium?
Are the words "and from the Son" (the famous "filioque") in the Nicene Creed infallibly true?
Is the prohibition on priestly marriage in the Latin Church infallible?
Is the doctrine that masturbation is a mortal sin infallible?
Is the doctrine that whosoever takes communion in a state of mortal sin, without having first properly confessed to a priest, commits a further mortal sin, infallible?
Is the doctrine that the failure to attend mass on Sunday is a mortal sin infallible?
Is it infallibly true that people may NEVER divorce and remarry (even in the case of "pornea", to use the terms of the Gospels)?
Certainly all of these things are disciplinary matters, and binding, just as the doctrine of Limbo was binding in past history, but apparently is soon not to be binding; just as the doctrine of no meat on Friday was binding, and a sin to disobey, but now isn't.
My question is challenging, and important.
There is no official list of infallible doctrines.
But by any definition of infallibility I have ever read, Limbo is certainly within the scope. But now it's not.
I fear that this means that Infallibility really degenerates into a simple cudgel that can be wielded when convenient against those who disagree, but without the Church proper ever committing itself, infallibly and on paper for all to see forever, to ANYTHING being really, truly, infallible.
I'm also hoping you'll answer, because the issue is of crucial importance to me. It affects my view of the Church considerably.
-A8
Nope. "For you must believe...." mere words are just that...mere words.
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