Vatican Considers Dropping "Limbo"

ANSA.it ^ | 11-29-2005 | unknown

[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 .

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

The problem is that "no one" may refer only to those who have committed actual sin or may refer to original-sin-saddled infants. The entire Eastern Fathers surely understood "no one" to refer here to those who commit actual sins; Cyprian and Augustine took the other path, assuming it includes infants (based on a misleading translation of Romans). The Western Church rapped Cyprian and Augustine and their followers on their knuckles on this point (and this point alone). So you can read this prooftext the way you do, with Augustine and Cyprian, but if you do so, you are in direct conflict with the dogmatic tradition of the Western Church which, since Innnocent III, has openly taught that infants are not condemned to hell by original sin; only actual sin, freely chosen after the age of reason, condemns to hell. Even your hero Aquinas would not agree with you. Statements about "all" or "everyone" can be meant absolutely, without exception or they can be meant with exceptions; qualifiers may be understood but not stated. In the case of Jn 3, the context certainly shows that Nicodemus thought Jesus was referring to adults, not to infants, hence Jesus was assuming that no one who has truly sinned can be saved except by rebirth. Moreover, all the Fathers allowed for baptism of desire and the virtuous pagans etc. Take the Jansenist-Calvinist route if you prefer, but you set yourself at odds with the Catholic tradition. Is the doctrine of Limbo really worth all that?

[Aquinasfan]

And yet the Catholic Church recognizes the Holy Innocents -- none of whom could have been much more than two years old -- as saints in heaven, and assigns them their own special feast day during the Octave of Christmas (on December 28th).

Good point. Although martyrdom is an additional factor here, I think.

[trisham]

bookmark

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

Nonsense. Part of the anti-Augustine slander industry. Read Margaret Miles, _Augustine on the Body_--and she's a feminist--but she was honest as a young scholar, and the evidence of Augustine's positive view of the body was so overwhelming that she couldn't deny it. The more she read of Augustine the more she realized that he fully realized that anyone who believed in the Incarnation could not hate the body. So enough already with the Augustine bashing.

[NYer]

Catholic Ping
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[silverspurs]

Wow. What was done to you or someone else that you blame on God??? Such anger as yours is often frustration at Someone you know to be Just, but yet you cannot figure out why He allows things to happen.

[Zetman]

"In your dreams. Schismatics like this gambit--you schismatics, Protestants originated as johnny-come-latelys, teaching doctrines unheard of for a millennium and, when challenged about your recent innovations, you respond by telling your challengers that they are just as new (did not exist until you came into being) as you are.
Nice try, it works only if one already starts from your premises. So it will work if you are talking to yourself. As an argument toward someone who disagrees with you, it's useless. You're going to have to make a case for the validity of your premises, not merely assert them."

I am somewhat confused by your response. I don't recall saying anything about "new doctrines" in either Catholic or non-Catholic churches. What premise of mine are you talking about (this is why it helps to copy in the text of the poster that you are reponding to)??

I am not sure what you are talking about when you refer to my words as being those which are used by "schismatics". The jist of my words were I have heard that there are other non-Catholic "mainstream" Christian churches who also have concepts similar to purgatory, although they do not call it that. My point being that if what I have heard is correct, the Catholic church is not alone in it's belief of a purgatory-like place/state. In what way is that "schismatic"?? I simply said that the Catholic church does not have a corner on the purgatory market. Perhaps you misread what I wrote (or maybe I miswrote what you read!!).

[Aquinasfan]

All Ratzinger is saying is that the Church has been wise to leave it unanswered

A wise decision, as was the Church's decision not to choose between the Thomist and Molinist positions regarding predestination. The Church is a wise Mother.

[Kolokotronis]

OK, lets set aside the original sin concepts, which, by the way, I think have been distorted by Protestantism in the West. From an Orthodox perspective, there is nothing we can do to effect the "amount" of God's grace shed upon us. God's grace falls equally on the good and holy and the evil. The issue really is how we respond to that grace. If we accept it, we are lead to a life in which we die to the self and become more and more focused on Christ. By gradually dying to the self, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts, the eye of the soul becomes clear and focuses our complete being on Christ. +Symeon the New Theologian put it well, and in accord with the Fathers thusly:

"'Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?' (Prov. 6:27) says the wise Solomon. And I say: can he, who has in his heart the Divine fire of the Holy Spirit burning naked, not be set on fire, not shine and glitter and not take on the radiance of the Deity in the degree of his purification and penetration by fire? For penetration by fire follows upon purification of the heart, and again purification of the heart follows upon penetration by fire, that is, inasmuch as the heart is purified, so it receives Divine grace, and again inasmuch as it receives grace, so it is purified. When this is completed (that is, purification of heart and acquisition of grace have attained their fullness and perfection), through grace a man becomes wholly a god."

+Gregory Palamas teaches us:

"The grace of deification thus transcends nature, virtue and knowledge, and `all these things are inferior to it.[+Maximos]' Every virtue and imitation of God on our part indeed prepares those who practice them for divine union, but the mysterious union itself is effected by grace. It is through grace that `the entire Divinity comes to dwell in fullness in those deemed worth,' and all the saints in their entire being dwell in God, receiving God in His wholeness, and gaining no other reward for their ascent to Him than "God Himself."

But:

"Three realities pertain to God: essence, energy, and the triad of divine hypostases. As we have seen, those privileged to be united to God so as to become one spirit with Him (as St. Paul said, 'He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with Him') are not united to God with respect to His essence, since all theologians testify that with respect to His essence God suffers no participation.

Moreover, the hypostatic union is fulfilled only in the case of the Logos, the God-man.

Thus those privileged to attain union with God are united to Him with respect to His energy; and the 'spirit', according to which they who cleave to God are one with Him, is and is called the uncreated energy of the Holy Spirit, but not the essence of God..." +Gregory Palamas

"Now, supposing there is a soul who dies without these supernatural gifts AND who has not by *actual and personal* sin sentenced himself to the torments of Hell. What happens to this soul?"

Some in Orthodoxy would say that he is condemned. Others, and I think they are a majority, maintain that we do not know what would happen and to firmly declare otherwise is to assert some limitation on the power of the Holy Spirit.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

What do you mean "no list" of infallible or dogmatically defined teachings? It's called the _Catechism of the Council of Trent_, the _Catechism of the Catholic Church_; these teachings are all collected in Denzinger-Schoenmetzer, _Enchiridion Symbolorum_, translated (I don't have the title at hand) and in countless other ways. Or get a copy of Ludwig Ott, _Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma_--he listes precisely what is defined at the highest level (_de fide_) and what is to be held at various levels below that etc.

[RightWinger]

What about purgatory?

[Vicomte13]

"So what's the big deal with limbo? If God can use His extraordinary Divine Power on the Thief on the Cross, He can certainly use His Extraordinary Divine Power on the infants.
I believe He uses His Extraordinary Divine Power to send His Only Begotten Son to the Cross to take OUR SINS on Himself so we might be saved. It was His Extraordinary Divine power to turn His Face on Christ causing Christ to cry out 'My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?'"

Ok, but then why did God decide to go and have His Only Begotten Son tortured to death most horribly in order to take on "OUR SINS"? If God can use His Extraordinary Divine Power to simply save the thief on the Cross, why can't He do it to simply save people from their sins if they turn to Him and pray to Him? Why go through the horror of sending His Only Begotten Son to be murdered?

I suppose the only answer is that He DIDN'T have to send Jesus. He could have just chosen to save whoever turned to him, as many Churches believe He does with non-Christians (and unbaptized babies). Why, then, the blood and horror of the Cross for Jesus? And why all of the animal blood and burnt fat for a millennium before that?
The answer can only be: to make a theatrical impression.
Sending a boy by virgin birth, and then having him die by just about the most rigorous series of tortures over as long a period as possible: this was not necessary for salvation at all. It WAS necessary to make an impression on us of two things: One is that God is serious about us wanting to pay attention to Him, and Two is that God is utterly ruthless and horrid - willing to send his own innocent son to be horribly tortured to death for no NECESSARY reason...and therefore we'd best sit up and take notice and understand that when he says "Do this or else", there's no "saving throw" or "well, if I have the best intentions". It's DO THIS OR I'LL BURN YOU IN HELL FOREVER. Why? Because He's God and it pleases Him to do so.
That's a pretty alarming portrait, but what else can one make of it?

[sinkspur]

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.

Not according to the Catholic Catechism:

1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery." 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.

[adiaireton8]

Actually, I am pointing out that your claim is a non sequitur. The fact that many people disagree about an issue does not prove or demonstrate that no one is right. It may mean that the subject matter is difficult and that it takes some significant bit of research and training in order to grasp the truth of the matter. The fact that children get so many math questions wrong does not show that there are no mathematical truths.

-A8

[Bushman2]

Paul also wrote in Romans 3:23, "ALL have sinned and come short of the Glory of God."

Therefore, all are sinners (even infants) and beed the Grace of God for Salvation.

Neither you or I can say FOR SURE that the infants are in Heavenor Hell. It is SOLEY the CHOICE OF GOD, and we cannot cause Him to Chnge, for "In Him there is no Shadow or Turning.

[silverspurs]

I did not mention Augstine in any of my replies.... Wrong person, maybe?

[Aquinasfan]

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.

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.

This is pretty comprehensive. So now you know.

[Vicomte13]

"For the serious mistakes, he offered his Son to pay for all those sins that will inevitably occur."

To pay whom, precisely?
And why does this person need to be paid?

[Aquinasfan]

I appreciate your reply, and agree with you for the most part, but this seems too Cartesian to me. I would think that natural physical development would be necessary in order to choose, even if this development were to take place in an expedited fashion after the resurrection. -A8

There's no easy or obvious solution to this one, which is why the Church is leaving it as an open question.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

My point is that the Catholic Church (like the Orthodox) understand themselves to go directly back to the Apostles--they are out of fellowship but they recognize that each goes back all the way. The claim that the Catholic Church only began in the sixteenth century when the various Protestant groups began is an effort to do an end run around the question of whether the Catholic/papal/apostolic succession Church is legitimate or not--if you can tar your opponent as discontinuous with the past, as an innovator, then you deflate the charge that you yourself are an innovator and at the same time, open the way to claim the earlier period for yourself. It's a typical Protestant gambit.

If you were unaware of this and simply assumed that the Catholic church is one denomination among many, then you unwittingly were adopting a Protestant viewpoint, one that is widespread because of the dominance of Proetestantism. So if you adopted it without realizing, now you can decide if you want to continue in it.