Pope: No Limbo for Babies, Only Heaven (dreadful misreporting of Catholic Traditional Beliefs)

Pope: No Limbo For Babies, Only Heaven Protestants have never believed in limbo. Limbo is where babies who have not been baptized go when they die as infants. That was taught for many years in the Roman Catholic Church.

Therefore, Protestants, with that biblical information from the lips of God incarnate, have never held to a limbo state for unbaptized babies. Instead, they have always believed that infants who die go directly into the presence of the loving God. The children have had no power of choice, deciding right or wrong, for their cognitive powers have not matured to that level. Therefore, in their innocence, they are welcomed into eternal bliss.

Catholics have formed limbo as an hypothesis, according to the present Pope. He says that the teaching does not have a firm footing; therefore, he is about to abandon the belief held for years by Roman Catholics. Instead, he agrees with the Protestant conclusion, that is, that infants who die are entranced into heavenly portals.

Some Protestants wonder then if purgatory is the next Roman Catholic position to be eliminated. There is not much talk today about purgatory in many Catholic parishes.

Protestants have held that purgatory too is an hypothesis with no biblical data. Instead, there is only a heaven to gain and a hell to avoid, they preach. Protestants hold to these two dimensions of eternity for that is all that is stated in the divine revelation - the Holy Scriptures.

Further, because Protestants believe that one is saved by faith alone and not works, there is no need for a purging place to burn off sins not dealt with in earthly existence. Protestants hold that Jesus' sacrificial death on the Calvary cross is all sufficient to erase every sin when sincerely repented of; therefore, there is no need for a purging state for sins to be burnt off after death.

Roman Catholics have held that salvation by Jesus' death alone is not enough. There must be human works that help the soul get into heaven. Since few persons accumulate enough works in this life to go directly to heaven, there must be a purgatory where sins are burnt off the soul in order for the soul to be fit enough to enter heaven.

Protestants point that this is a dogma manufactured by the Roman Catholic Church, without base in the Bible. Roman Catholics state that they don't care if it's not in the Bible. They believe in two means of authority for deciding dogma - one being Scripture and the other being church tradition. Therefore, if church tradition has pronounced a dogma, then it is on the par with the Holy Scriptures.

In fact, if church tradition contradicts the Bible, church tradition holds precedence over God's Word. For instance, the Assumption of Mary is not mentioned in the Bible; however, it is believed by Roman Catholics. Another example: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary is not mentioned in the Bible; instead, Mary is stated as having other children after Jesus was born (Matthew 1:25; Mark 6:3). Nevertheless, though the Perpetual Virginity of Mary is cancelled out by the Bible, Roman Catholics still hold to that dogma.

Protestants protest such positions. They do not hold that traditions of mankind can be equal to or supersede divine revelation. In other words, if the teaching has no biblical base in God's Word, then it does not exist for Protestants.

Regarding limbo, The Scotsman's Stephen McGinty reports that "the Catholic Church is preparing to abandon the idea of limbo, the theological belief that children who die before being baptized are suspended in a space between heaven and hell.

"The concept, which was devised in the 13th century and was depicted in numerous works of art during the Renaissance, such as Descent into Limbo by the painter Giotto, and in Dante's masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, is of a metaphysical space where infants are blissfully happy but are not actually in the presence of God.

"The idea of limbo was developed as a response to the harshness of early Church teachings which insisted that any child who died before he or she was baptized would still be stained by Original Sin and so would be condemned to hell.

"The belief, which is unique to the Catholic Church, has fallen out of favor over the past 50 years. It is rarely mentioned and until recently has been left in its own kind of limbo. However, an international commission of Catholic theologians, meeting in the Vatican this week, has been pondering the issue and is expected to advise Pope Benedict XVI to announce officially that the theological concept of limbo is incorrect.

"Instead, the new belief is expected to be that unbaptized babies will go directly to heaven. Pope Benedict had already expressed his doubts about limbo when, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's doctrinal watchdog.

"In an interview in 1984, he said: 'Limbo has never been a defined truth of faith. Personally, speaking as a theologian and not as head of the Congregation, I would drop something that has always been only a theological hypothesis.'"

Several misconceptions:

1. Limbo was never taught by the church as a place where babies go. Perhaps some Catholic school nuns had a misunderstanding, but saying the Church taught it means that it was a Catholic doctrine. Limbo refers to an unknown status. What Catholics would say is that the soul of unbaptized babies who die is in limbo; meaning that it is unknown, just like the state of a TV show that hasn't been renewed for the fall season yet.

2. Limbo was only ever taught as relating to the unbaptized babies of believers. Baptized babies go to Heaven.

3. Unlike Limbo, Catholics have always asserted that there is a scritural basis for purgatory.

4. Works are a means of expressing contrition and a willingness to serve God. Purgatory is a consequence of the temporal effects of sin. Jesus' death bought for us release from the eternal effects of sin, but the fact that we still face temoral effects are obvious, since Christians still face concupiscence, suffering and natural death. The sinless soul has no need for atonement, so has no need for purgatory. Saints "skip" purgatory not because they have done sufficient works, but because they abandoned all sinfulness.

5. Catholic theology is that Tradition cannot contradict the bible. Scriture is the ultimate test for all doctrines. While Tradition may inform us where scripture is ambiguous, it cannot be asserted apart from scripture.

I will presume FReepers are familiar enough with refutations of nonsense about the perpetual virginity, etc.

An imperfect, but better story:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Vatican_Limbo.html

Thursday, December 1, 2005 · Last updated 12:09 p.m. PT

Vatican theologians study issue of limbo

By FRANCES D'EMILIO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

VATICAN CITY -- Vatican theologians this week have been wrestling with limbo. Archbishop William Levada, the San Francisco prelate who earlier this year became the Vatican's guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, told Pope Benedict XVI and a Vatican panel of theologians that a document on the issue might be published soon.

Limbo is the place where Catholics believe unbaptized babies go after they die.

The question was one that was important to Pope John Paul II, Benedict reminded the theologians who are part of the Holy See's International Theological Commission.

Catholics long believed that children who die without being baptized are with original sin and thus excluded from heaven. Theologians have taught that such children enjoy an eternal state of perfect natural happiness, a state commonly called limbo.

"In today's season of cultural relativism and religious pluralism, the number of non-baptized babies is increasing considerably," Levada said. "In this situation, the paths to reach the way of salvation appear ever more complex and problematic," he said.

"The church is aware that salvation is uniquely achievable in Christ by means of the Spirit," said Levada. "But it cannot renounce reflecting on, in its role as mother and teacher, the destiny of all the men created in God's image, and in a particular way, on the weakest and those who are not yet in possession of the use of reason and of freedom," he said in reference to infants.

"The discussion in this sense has been very useful and one can well hope that in reasonably brief times, the study undertaken by the Theological Commission will yield a positive result, even in view of possible publication of a document about it," Levada said.

The Rev. Luis Ladaria, a Jesuit who is secretary-general of the commission, told Vatican Radio that "there isn't any binding Catholic doctrine" on the question of children who die without baptism.

"We know that for many centuries, it was thought that these children went to limbo, where they enjoyed a natural happiness but did not have the vision of God," Ladaria said in a radio interview.

"This belief, today, from recent developments not only theological, but also magisterial (teaching authority), is in crisis," Ladaria said. "We, thus, are now studying this problem knowing that it is a point upon which there has not been a definitive pronouncement."

Benedict is continuing his campaign to safeguard doctrinal orthodoxy in the Catholic Church, saying its theologians must follow church teaching and submit to its authority.

Benedict was the Vatican's top guardian of orthodoxy for two decades as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, before becoming pope in April. He named Levada as his replacement in that post.

Theology "always exercises itself in the church and for the church," Benedict told the commission. "The work of the theologian, must, therefore, be carried out in communion with the living voice of the church, that is, with the living magisterium of the church and under its authority."

Magisterium refers to church authority to teach truths. "To consider theology a private affair signifies disregarding its very nature," the pontiff said.

Under John Paul II, the Vatican cracked down on dissident theologians.

The commission this week has also been grappling with the concept of natural moral law.

That argument "is of special relevance in understanding the basis of rights rooted in the nature of the person and, as such, derived from the very will of the God creator," Benedict said.

I went to an all girl Catholic School. We were taught that unbaptized babies went to limbo which was a short term penalty..the result of original sin. It never made sense to me. They could never be guilty of anything and God would not punish anyone for someone else's sin.

They also taught us that Jews could not get into heaven because they were not baptized.....And that we shouldn't be dating Jews or Protestants. We were the only true religion!!!

Occasionally, I got kicked out of these Religion classes....like when I protested that being Catholic was not sufficient reason to vote for Kennedy!! They said being Catholic meant he was "better than everyone else". I remember my Dad telling me about Joe Kennedy and telling me "Don't believe everything you read".

Instead, [Protestants] have always believed that infants who die go directly into the presence of the loving God. The children have had no power of choice, deciding right or wrong, for their cognitive powers have not matured to that level. Therefore, in their innocence, they are welcomed into eternal bliss.

This is the Pelagian heresy. What Mr. Swank is saying is that babies are "good enough" and "innocent enough" to merit salvation on their own without Christ's help through grace.

Incidentally, he's absolutely wrong when he claims that this is what Protestants "have always believed". Puritans in New England buried babies in the same cemetery with unbelievers, not with Christians, for example.

Gamecock, as an official Calvinist swarm representative, have Protestants "always believed" that babies are guaranteed heaven on account of their "innocence", or do they believe with St. Paul that all men have died in Adam?

LIMBO

Limbo is the adobe of those souls excluded from heaven through no
fault of their own. The word comes from the Latin "limbus," meaning "edge,"
from the early belief that it was on the edge of Hell proper. There are
actually two limbi referred to.

The Limbus Patrum, or Limbo of the Fathers, was the abode where the
souls of the just that died before Christ were detained, until heaven, which
was denied in punishment for the sin of Adam, was opened through the
Redemption. The Limbo of the Fathers is the Paradise referred to in Luke
23:43, so called because it was a place of rest and joy, though imperfect.
It is also referred to as "the bosom of Abraham."

In the Apostles Creed, "descendit ad inferos" (He descended into
Hell), refers not to the Hell of the Damned, but the Limbo of the Fathers, to
which Our Lord descended to free the souls of the just by the application of
the fruits of the Redemption, which included the communication of the
Beatific Vision. The Limbo of the Fathers ceased to exist from the time of
Our Lord's resurrection from the dead.

The Limbus Infantium, or Limbo of Infants, is the abode where the
souls of those who die in Original Sin, but without personal (actual) sin,
are deprived of the happiness that would come to them in the supernatural
order, but not of the happiness of the natural order.

It is an article of faith that those who die without Baptism, and in
whose case the want of Baptism has not been supplied in any other way, cannot
enter heaven. Nothing imperfect can be in the presence of God, as we know
from the Apocalypse: "There shall not enter into it [the glory of God] any
thing defiled" (21:27/DRV). The great majority of the authoritative
theologians of the Church, among them Peter Abelard, St. Bonaventure, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, teach that infants dying in Original Sin suffer
no "pain of sense," but are excluded from heaven.

This opinion is no modern invention, for it is found in St. Gregory
of Nazianzus (Or. in Sanct. Baptism 23, PG XXXVI:389), one of the Great
Eastern Fathers of the Church. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that such souls do
not suffer pain of sense because pain of punishment is proportioned to
personal guilt, which does not exist here. He says that those in limbo do
not grieve because they cannot see God any more than a bird grieves because
it cannot be a king. "No, they rejoice because they share in God's goodness
and in many natural perfections," he says. The unbaptized in limbo know and
love God by the use of their natural powers, and have full natural happiness.
(De Malo, 5:3; Sent. II d. 33 Q. 2 A. 2)

This is the common teaching of the Church and cannot be capriciously
denied, having behind it both antiquity from Patristic times (e.g., the Great
Eastern Doctor St. Gregory of Nazianzus) and the support of the Church's
principal theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. Pope Pius VI censured those who
denied the teaching.

http://www.traditio.com/tradlib/faq10.txt

I can relate to what you were taught re unbaptized babies going to limbo. Yes, the nuns taught this along with everything else we were required to believe as Catholics. I do not remember limbo, for one, as being separated from the other teaching. It was not presented as a "theory" to be believed or not.

I don't recall the teaching of whether Jews could enter heaven but I don't doubt you at all.

I came home from grade school one day in a very sad state. We were told in religion class that those who were not baptized could not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Thanks, sister. You made my day. My Dad, whom I loved so much, was a Protestant, and I was just told that he was not going through those pearly gates when he died.

I don't recall what plans the Catholic Church had for him at that point, but he would not be with God!

For anyone who chooses to excuse or deny the pain caused (and believe me, I know those who suffered other pain and humiliation), by passing it off as "that's the way the nun's could be"...well, all I can say is, those people are the ones with the closed, trapped minds. They will somehow, somewhere find any excuse because their conscience will not allow them to have an independent thought on this subject.

Whatever the nuns taught in their schools was the responsibility of the Church. The nuns shouldn't be the only fall guys for what was permitted, sanctioned.

Perhaps some Catholic school nuns had a misunderstanding..."

The Catholic school nuns taught under the auspices of their local Catholic diocese and the parish pastor. The Catholic Church held the responsibility for what thousands of parish school children were taught.

I see your view as a lame way to excuse the Church as a whole for what parish school children learned in their religion classes.

"Limbo was only ever taught..."

Yes, limbo was only ever taught to instruct school children that unbaptized babies would never enter the kingdom of heaven. Nor, apparently, will Jews or Protestants or anyone not baptized in the Catholic faith.

I believe that God is all-loving and all-just. I'm leaving it all up to Him.

Considering that we believe we all descended from Adam and Eve, who did their children marry to bring about the continuance of the human race?

Just thought I'd throw in an interesting question.

The fact that many of these nuns were neither very bright nor very educated was revealed once the restraints came off after VatII and they felt they could go berserk and start on enneagrams and warmed-over feminism. Those girls still aren't very bright, but now they are teaching an entirely different type of error. I don't know if you spend much time around churches anymore, but if you do, you will see that the same dim but power-crazed sister is now virtually in charge of the parish and spends her time hosting little "sharing services" where people hold hands and stare into candle flames or sing about peace and luv.

One of the great hopes at the start of the Council was that it would produce a sort of Trent-style renewal of Catholic teaching and teachers. Doctrines were not going to be changed, of course, but they were to be expressed in a better way and the teachers who taught them were going to be helped to understand and convey them somewhat better. Unfortunately, just the opposite happened: doctrine virtually disappeared and the teachers (religious or lay) were allowed to wing it with content-free books and no supervision from anybody with an IQ over 50.

I have hopes that this will again change, and that after 40 miserable years, we will finally get to some genuine renewal. It looks to me as if the teaching area is something that this Pope is very interested in developing.

Protestants never bought into limbo because there is no mention of limbo in the Bible. In fact, the Bible says that Jesus stated that babies go to heaven. As He was ministering to little children, Jesus said of the children: ". .of such is the kingdom of heaven."...Therefore, Protestants, with that biblical information from the lips of God incarnate, have never held to a limbo state for unbaptized babies. Instead, they have always believed that infants who die go directly into the presence of the loving God. The children have had no power of choice, deciding right or wrong, for their cognitive powers have not matured to that level. Therefore, in their innocence, they are welcomed into eternal bliss.

There are misconceptions on the Protestant side as well. This was never the original Protestant view. Luther and Calvin carried over the tradition of baptizing babies from the Roman Catholic Church but the position was that it was up to God whether a baby made it to heaven.

A quick search turns up this short passage:

http://www.saint-mike.org/Apologetics/QA/Answers/Faith_Spirituality/f0302210168.html

The actual teaching is reflected accuratedly in the article on Limbo in the Sunday Visitor Catholic Encyclopedia:

"The word (Limbo) comes from a Latin word meaning 'border' or 'edge'. It is the state or place, according to some theologians, reserved for the dead who deserved neither the beatific vision nor eternal punishment...
"...This belief was held by many throughout the Middle Ages and into the twentieth century. It should be noted, however, THAT NO OFFICIAL TEACHING EVER ADVOCATED THIS NOTION." (my emphasis)"

Because some idea is commonly held and even commonly taught in Catechism class, does NOT mean that it is automatically an OFFICIAL teaching.

The famous Baltimore Catechism (#3) makes this distinction when it says in answer to Question 632: "but it is COMMON BELIEF (my emphasis) that they (unbaptized infants) will go to some place SIMILAR (my emphasis) to Limbo...."

The Baltimore Catechism does NOT say they will go to Limbo, but some place LIKE Limbo. This is referring to the Limbo of the Old Testament -- Abraham's Bosum -- in which the rightious dead of the Old Testament remained until Jesus brought them into heaven in the three days between his death and ressurrection.

The notion of an infant's Limbo is a medieval notion, not one that dates back to the Apostles; however, the Limbo of the Old Testament saints does have Scriptural evidence. The Baltimore Catechism merely acknowledges the theological theory that unbaptized infant may go to a place similar to the OT Limbo.

In any event, while it was a popular notion and commonly believed, it was never an official teaching.

I'm unaware of any belief that is an 'article of faith' because lots of theologians speculated that it might be true or because teachers (or more likely students) misunderstood the actual words in the Baltimore Catechism.

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.