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 .
The Church would do well to drop the concept of papal infallibility next. Amazing how that lingers in official doctrine, no matter how many pronouncements of various past popes get neutralized.
Limbo is the original gray area.
The Four Last Things have always been death, judgement, heaven and hell. Even purgatory will not exist at the end of time, since all souls in purgatory will eventually enter heaven.
For this reason, "Limbo" was probably a poor hypothesis.
The difficulty in "placing" unbaptized infants is that they have not been cleansed of original sin through baptism, seemingly disqualifying them from heaven, yet they have not had an opportunity to exercise their free will (informed by reason) in favor of Truth (God).
It seems most likely to me that God, in some mysterious manner, provides for unbaptized infants an opportunity to choose for or against Him before their deaths.
I'd be surprised if "the Limbo of the Fathers" was dropped. The doctrine makes sense to me.
Limbo's a less-than-adequate response to "what to do with unbaptized infants"? Can't put them in hell, since they never committed any actual sins.
But, limbo says they can't go to heaven either, substituting an absurd notion of a place of "natural happiness" for souls that were made for God.
More and more, theologians are adopting the notion that God gives every soul, at the end of its life, the "option" of choosing God or refusing him. They extend that to unbaptized infants and adults as well.
Ultimately, they have to be left to the mercy of God, and that is a very good and positive thing.
I admire the piety of your husband's grandmother 8-)
That is incredibly absurd.
The Church is now realizing the error of their ways in regards to this. So you might be glad, even as an ex-Catholic, to know that. Every time I look the Church is fixing itself in various ways (click here, for example).
I can only say Hooray! and Praise God!
Sainthood is another one. No church can "confer" sainthood. Ya either is or ya ain't one.
|
|
There is a limbo picture I could post, but as far as my status on FR, I'd be in purgatory. |
LOL
How low can you go.
There are various levels of Catholic teaching, varying from infallibly defined dogmas and Catholic truths (doctrines which follow with necessary logic from dogmatic teachings) which must be believed by all Catholics, to common teachings, down through pious belief and theological speculation.
The limbo of the infants dying without baptism has always been a theological speculation. The problem of the fate of these infants remains formally unresolved.
A study of the history of doctrines indicates that Christians in the first centuries were up in arms (sometimes quite literally) if anyone suggested the least change in beliefs. They were extremely conservative people who tested a doctrine’s truth by asking, Was this believed by our ancestors? Was it handed on from the apostles? Surely belief in purgatory would be considered a great change, if it had not been believed from the first—so where are the records of protests?
They don’t exist. There is no hint at all, in the oldest writings available to us (or in later ones, for that matter), that "true believers" in the immediate post-apostolic years spoke of purgatory as a novel doctrine. They must have understood that the oral teaching of the apostles, what Catholics call tradition, and the Bible not only failed to contradict the doctrine, but, in fact, confirmed it.
It is no wonder, then, that those who deny the existence of purgatory tend to touch upon only briefly the history of the belief. They prefer to claim that the Bible speaks only of heaven and hell. Wrong. It speaks plainly of a third condition, commonly called the limbo of the Fathers, where the just who had died before the redemption were waiting for heaven to be opened to them. After his death and before his resurrection, Christ visited those experiencing the limbo of the Fathers and preached to them the good news that heaven would now be opened to them (1 Pet. 3:19). These people thus were not in heaven, but neither were they experiencing the torments of hell.
Some have speculated that the limbo of the Fathers is the same as purgatory. This may or may not be the case. However, even if the limbo of the Fathers is not purgatory, its existence shows that a temporary, intermediate state is not contrary to Scripture. Look at it this way. If the limbo of the Fathers was purgatory, then this one verse directly teaches the existence of purgatory. If the limbo of the Fathers was a different temporary state, then the Bible at least says such a state can exist. It proves there can be more than just heaven and hell (excerpt).
http://www.catholic.com/library/Purgatory.asp
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
