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."
I stand corrected. Anselm was the key theologian to begin the process of distinguishing original sin from actual sin in the West, describing orginal sin as privation of righteousness, not as actual, freely chosen sin. He laid the groundwork for further distinction between the two by the scholastics of the 12th and 13th centuries. But he did not take the next logical step and argue for a non-hell limbo fate. That step came in the 1200s with Innocent III and the scholastics.
Regarding Innocent III--at issue is whether what the CE quotes from the Decretum refers to hell or not--not suffering pain, being deprived of the vision of God-- is that a description of the antechamber of hell or of the antechamber of heaven. I say the latter.
Regarding Innocent III, here's the quote from Denzinger: "Poena originalis peccatis est carentia visionis Dei actualis, vero poena peccati est gehennae perpetuae cruciatus." He contrasts the penalty of perpetual hell with the penalty of the lacking of actual vision of God. If you want to assign Limbo to the hell side of the equation rather than the heaven side, be my guest. To me the language suggests exactly the opposite.