The Pope Banishes Limbo

ap wire ^ | April 21, 2007 | ap

[varina davis]

Sorry if this was already posted. I didn't see it. Thought it was very interesting.

[SevenofNine]

OH MONK

[Paleo Conservative]

[kinoxi]

Misleading title.

[llevrok]

[woofie]

Dang ...I always liked Limbo

[Rudder]

Do the Limbo baby! How low can you go?

[Saundra Duffy]

Babies get a free ride back to Heavenly Father’s arms, baptized or not.

[sageb1]

I’m not sure my mother-in-law will accept this easily. How long anyone waits to have a new baby baptized provides her with phone gossip.

[NYer]

Sorry if this was already posted. I didn't see it. Thought it was very interesting.

Indeed a most interesting topic with lots of comments on yesterday's thread:

Pope revises limbo for babies

[Radix]

Is Rome trying to move back into Biblical teaching reality?

That is a good sign if so.

[tsowellfan]

What will happen to all the people that were there? Do they get Amnesty?

[George W. Bush]

It stressed, however, that "these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge." No one can know for certain what becomes of unbaptized babies since Scripture is largely silent on the matter, the report said.

This is the view of most Baptists and evangelicals. The pope, intentionally or not, is being pretty ecumenical here. I prefer to think he's just being honest.

It stressed that none of its findings should be taken as diminishing the need for parents to baptize infants. "Rather ... they provide strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the church."

Well, they are still hardened baby-splashers. No surprise.

Vatican watchers hailed the decision as both a sensitive and significant move by Benedict. "Parents who are mourning the death of their child are no longer going to be burdened with the added guilt of not having gotten their child baptized," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

More of this deluded idea that the bathing of your infant by clergy will open the gates of Heaven.

He said the document also had implications for non-Christians, since it could be seen as suggesting that non-baptized adults could go to heaven if they led a good life.

No, the document did not say that! Let this pope speak for himself and stop twisting his words.

---

Along with his recent statements on evolutionism, this statement by Benedict makes it clear why he is a far more scholarly and thoughtful pope than his predecessor. He is a more broadly orthodox leader of his church, one who is removing thoughtfully some of the unnecessary theological barriers between us all. It's kind of disconcerting for a Rome-bashing Baptist like me to admit but Benedict seems to be, as popes go, a most reasonable pope.

[Rameumptom]

Tertullian (ca. A.D. 200) and Gregory of Nazianzus (late fourth century) both held that baptism should wait until the child was old enough to be accountable.

[Radix]

According to the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, a man must repent, in order to be born again.

Of course this invites a dialogue which I am simply not prepared for at this particular time. I have to get ready for work soon, and so my time is short.

Child baptism is completely unscriptural.

Tertullian and Gregory had a few things right.

[Red Badger]

Why? Was it full of illegals?.....

[Popman]

The Pope Banishes Limbo

Wow, for a minute I thought it Rush Limbo

As in the way Maxine Waters says it.

[Caramelgal]

"If there's no limbo and we're not going to revert to St. Augustine's teaching that unbaptized infants go to hell”

Augustine wrote that such infants do go to hell, but they suffer only the "mildest condemnation."

"Parents who are mourning the death of their child are no longer going to be burdened with the added guilt of not having gotten their child baptized”

Wow! I not so amazed that the Catholic Church came to the conclusion that unbaptized infants don’t deserve to go to hell. I’m amazed that they just came to this conclusion in 2007.

[what's up]

The teaching on limbo was ridiculous.

About time they saw the light.

[SuziQ]

Interesting that limbo was never an official teaching of the Church. I always believed that these babies were in the hands of a loving and merciful God, and that their inability to have been baptized would not be held against them by Him.