Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: Agrarian; kosta50
If you want to see what a church believes, watch what they do.

Exactly. And Latins are concerned about such matters as infant baptism, so there is some underlying uncertainty and the desire not to keep the little children from the Lord. But that attitude is going away, as the Church has been recently (post-Vatican 2) teaching that we don't know what happens to infants who are unbaptized, but we place them in the hands of the Lord who is Merciful. So perhaps we will take on a more Eastern Orthodox attitude in this matter.

Regards

6,883 posted on 05/19/2006 5:01:20 AM PDT by jo kus (For love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. 1Jn 4:7)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6870 | View Replies ]


To: jo kus

...."and the desire not to keep the little children from the Lord..."

So when are you doing to stop denying the saving Body and Blood of Christ to your infant and small children? :-)

It will indeed be intresting to see if now Catholics will be in less of a hurry to get their children baptized, now that Limbo has been relegated to the dustbin along with St. George, St. Christopher, St. Nicholas, and receiving communion from the hand of a priest.

I doubt practices will change much, since the practice of churching the mother and child on the 40th day died out long ago (yet another Orthodox remnant of Hebrew practices.) This, I am convinced, is a practical reason why we routinely baptize later.

Our theology just tells us not to worry about a later baptism of an infant, so there was nothing to stop the development of the practical "solution" of combining churching with baptism (similar to the practical "solutions" of combining betrothal and marriage ceremonies, and of combining in the Orthodox Church of some of the prayers at the making of catechumens with the baptism/chrismation service.)


6,890 posted on 05/19/2006 6:09:15 AM PDT by Agrarian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6883 | View Replies ]

To: jo kus; Agrarian; Forest Keeper
The Catholic Church has not completely and officially moved to the patristic position with regards to the Limbo.

CCC #1261 states:

I would like to say that some Orthodox were influenced by the Latin side in the 18th and 19th centuries, and by many American Eastern Catholics who converted to Orthodoxy later on at the end of the 19th century.

The hypothesis of Limbo is based on an attempt to synthesize, as much as possible within human concept of justice, God's mercy with the lack of grace of the unbaptized infants. Thus is concludes that God would not condemn but at the same time the lack of grace would also prevent the infants from enjoying the full bliss. It actually makes sense but then God's thoughts and not ours, and His ways are not ours and are not subject to our logic.

Unless the Church can find some Evidence of it in the Tradition and Scripture, it must resign itself to the view that was by the Orthodox side all along -- which is that we simply do not know and that God did not find it necessary to reveal.

I would also like to add that all funeral services in the Orthodox Church represent an expression of gratitude to the merciful Lord for having saved the departed, thereby expressing our unwavering belief that God's mercy triumphs over judgment and that God saves in His unlimited mercy except those who reject Him.

6,892 posted on 05/19/2006 6:24:02 AM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6883 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson