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 .
It was Protestants who revived the "original-sin-condemns-to-hell" falsehood and even then, Arminius challenged that from within Protestantism.
So, "Biblically, the East wins" is silly. All sides in this debate were biblical. The issue was proper interpretation of the Bible and the Orthodox East and Catholic West agree; Calvin agrees with Augustine and Cyprian on this point agree but on very little else.
While not predictible at the atomic (daily) level we are very predictable in aggregate over our lives. Generally only sudden or tramatic events truly change a person and alter their outlook on life.
I think they should drop purgatory.
Heard this on FoxNews today.
"Either we avail ourselves to the merits of Christ or we don't."
So, infants go to Hell when they die?
Once a Catholic always a Catholic. You can come back at any time. You are always welcome.
God knows everything. Even the number of hairs on your head.
So what you're saying is that a perfectly well-mannered, charitable, kindly person who doesn't happen to be a Christian will end up in the same place as Hitler, who killed millions?
Where'd you pick this up - some plastic-haired snakefondler in a tent?
It's like a buffet. You can pick and choose which doctine you like and there will be a denomination to fit.
Very good point!
Bingo!
:0)
No unclean thing can enter into the presence of God (see Rev 21:27). The payment is not due to a person, it is due to the concept of justice. If you sin, justice demands that you be excluded from the presence of God. Jesus was punished for sins he never committed. That was unjust. To satisfy justice, God ceded the right to extend mercy (not being punished for something you did do) to Jesus. Jesus has the right to forgive sins committed (mercy) and return you to the presence of God. You still have free will. You can accept the forgiveness or go your own way. Unlike the retail stores, this one doesn't come with a 30 day free trial. You have to make the decision for yourself.
Beginning with Anselm and then Innocent III, it was made clear that original "sin" does not condemn to hell.
54 posted on 11/29/2005 4:23:27 PM PST by Dionysiusdecordealcis
Augustine was wrong about very little. This was one of them--that unbaptized infants go to hell. He was corrected on this matter by Anselm and Innocent III etc.
169 posted on 11/29/2005 5:32:52 PM PST by Dionysiusdecordealcis
Saint Anselm and Pope Innocent III never held the opinion that unbaptized souls do not go to hell.
See Catholic Encyclopedia: Limbo
II.3. "On the special question, however, of the punishment of original sin after death, St. Anselm was at one with St. Augustine in holding that unbaptized children share in the positive sufferings of the damned...."
"Pope Innocent's teaching is to the effect that those dying with only original sin on their souls will suffer 'no other pain, whether from material fire or from the worm of conscience, except the pain of being deprived forever of the vision of God' (Corp. Juris, Decret. l. III, tit. xlii, c. iii -- Majores)."
Is there any connection between this new stance on limbo and the church's stance on abortion?
19 posted on 11/29/2005 3:58:17 PM PST by Noachian
I think there is a desire by many pro-life Catholics to forget that the true horror of aborticide is that it prevents these souls from ever being baptized and saved (except perhaps in the rare cases I have heard of where assisting nurses secretly baptize the remains of the child). They prefer to think wrongly that "all babies go to heaven because they are innocent of actual sin."
Being a softy that the innocent cannot see God has always been the one main exceptions I have taken with Catholicism.
I only hope that this change in thinking does not somehow open the door to the acceptance of abortion.
But the Church was right for the first 13 centuries and will be so from here on. A trifle in eternity.
Under present belief the souls of aborted children cannot know the presence of God.
The trip to heaven, hell or in-between starts on judgement day. Judgement day could not occur prior to the resurrection of Christ. It still hasn't happened. Everyone is still waiting for that day..including Moses and Abraham.
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