It is impossible for me to see how these are not dogmatic definitions by the Church.
But you missed my point. What they dogmatically teach is directed at (1) Pelagians who deny original sin's gravity entirely, (2) Anabaptists who are effectively Pelagian on this point, (3) those who deny baptismal regeneration (which includes the Anabaptists), (4) or other parents who might carelessly delay baptism because they are closet-pelagians, have been mistaught about baptismal regeneration etc.--in which case the teachers who mistaught them are the target here. So, while these are dogmatic teachings they are dogmatic on the above points but not dogmatic on the theological hypothesis known as limbo. Clearly they touch on it, approach it obliquely, but they do not dogmatically resolve it because they were not intended to do so.
All of what your four prooftexts have to say about the fate of unbaptized infants (aimed at convincing parents who are able to do so, to get their children baptized in a timely manner and to refute any pelagian or non-baptismal regeneration beliefs) are modified by the loophole of "baptism of desire" that covers those infants who die under the very different circumstances of having parents who (1) do believe in baptismal regeneration, (2) do believe baptism is necessary for salvation, (3) wanted to have their children baptized but could not do so through no fault of their own.
And much the same applies to adults who desired to be baptized but were prevented through no fault of their own.
And with widespread abortion the issues is raised in a new way but it is the same issue raised in the early church--the baptism of desire question. The person who procures an abortion has committed a terrible sin and is accountable to God for it to the degree that it was deliberate (with the half-truths and lies spread so widely by false-teachers, the culpability may be shared with those who falsely instructed and lied and denied the information needed to make an informed, deliberate choice). Natural law, conscience probably in most cases means that the mother, even if falsely taught and misinformed may carry at least some level of culpability.
All that is one aspect. But the innocent child here is a different aspect that cannot be ignored. I have no good answer. Limbo was an attempt to deal with it--natural bliss, carentia visionis beatificae. Ratzinger said 20 years ago that he thought it was a theologically inadequate way to deal with it. JPII called for reconsideration of limbo before he died. Whether "baptism of desire" gets extended from parents to grandparents or bystanders (a bystander can baptize an infant in an emergency, so bystanders, nurses etc. as emergency "ministers of baptism of desire" is not an unimaginable solution) or some other way of dealing with it will be eventually proposed, I don't know.
But what is clear is that three or four doctrinal factors have to be somehow brought into relation with each other:
(1) The Church cannot abandon the "necessity of baptism" or baptismal regeneration. Protestants have challenged these teachings and, as your prooftexts show, they have been affirmed definitively.
(2) The Church cannot simply assert a highway to heaven or syncretistic "many paths to heaven" or "do your own thing" or "I'm okay, you're okay" theology. Neither JPII nor Cantalamessa nor Benedict XVI have come close to that.
(3) But recognizing how circumstances beyond the good-willed parent or adult catechumen can prevent access to baptism, the Church cannot ignore the need for some loophole like "baptism of desire."
To assert that innocent children, afflicted with original "sin" alone suffer eternal punishment is a claim that some Catholic theologians have advanced but that has been rejected by the Eastern tradition and has been rejected de facto though not expressis verbis by Western theologians since Anselm and Innocent III and yes, the Big T himself.
Right here we see how ambiguous the tradition still remains--this is the theological ambiguity that Ratzinger was concerned about. You and others insist in good faith that the tradition is clearcut about limbo being part of hell, snuggled up next to Hell and having nothing to do with heaven.
But others, equally in good faith, assert that there's another way to read the same prooftexts: as the tradition, even in your own prooftexts, found more and more ways to minimize the "poena" aspect (distinguishing between poena damnis and poena sensus, introducing carentia visionis beatificae language, introducing "natural bliss") the content of this intermediate state was de facto moving away from Hell-Hell and toward heaven even if they could not bring themselves to delink it from the term Hell entirely.
Yes, of course, Hell consists in alienation from God and loss of beatific vision. But if there is another status that is short of the b.v. but lacks all external torment and is "natural bliss" then just how "alienated" and how "hellish" is that?
So we were left with the situtation of two camps interpreting Limbo almost in opposite ways--associating it closer to Hell-Hell or closer to Heaven. And Aquinas' "natural bliss" etc. made this equivocation possible.
You see things black and white. Limbo is part of hell, cannot be interpreted otherwise; tough luck, but unbaptized infants (lacking even baptism of desire) end up in hell, deprived of the vision of God--people should realize this, get their babies baptized fast, evangelize the world so no one ends up in this horrible fate to which God rightly and justly condemns them because of the sin of Adam and Eve.
Calvin and Jansenius made their peace with such a God, with calling those acts of God, just. But what if, there were some other way to reconfigure this assortment of theological principles? What if the "natural bliss" of Limbo were in fact closer to the Beatific Vision than the "tough line" believed it to be? Deprivation of b.v. moves toward hell, yes; natural bliss moves back toward heaven. Thomas's Limbo is by its very nature ambiguous and has been. You would like to read the tradition in such a way as to make it unambiguously an antechamber to hell. But that simply is not the case--it has been read otherwise.
And this sort of ambiguity is what dissatisfied Ratzinger as a theologian and led to JPII's call to reexamine things. (I assume that JPII's call to do so and his earlier comments at the end of Evangelium Vitae in part grew out of consultation with Ratzinger and undoubtedly others.)
I do not begrudge you your having raised these issues, only the manner in which you have done so--quick on the heresy trigger. I think by raising them (as others obviously have--a chorus of criticism must have led Cantalamessa to issue his "clarification") you do the ITC, Benedict, Cantalamessa and likeminded theologians a service--reminding them to be careful in their theological work not to lapse into a syncretistic "highway to heaven" theology.
But what I dispute is (1) your claim that Limbo and the fate those infants who die without baptism through no fault of their parents has been unambiguously clarified by theologians and councils of the past, and (2) the wisdom and Christian charity of leaping to accuse Cantalamessa (and by implication, Ratzinger and JPII) of overturning past definitive and settled dogma on this matter or, much worse, of heresy.
I would propose that the matter has not been settled, remains ambiguous, and precisely because efforts to address the topic have aroused such a firestorm, needs to be the subject of serious theological exploration.
But if that is true, then the theologians addressing it cannot helpfully enter the discussion with their minds already made up--with the presupposition that the matter has been dogmatically settled by the councils you cite.
And so I would ask that we kibbutzers on the sidelines of the ITC and Benedict's rexamination of the topic pipe down, pull in our horns, and let them give the topic the sort of careful attention it has not yet had, despite it's tangential treatment by councils in the past.
So, once more, can we desist from using the term heretic?
Baptism of Desire is not a "loophole" to the necessity of the Sacrament. It is a way of receiving the grace of the Sacrament prior to the actual reception of the Sacrament. You are speaking in a very loose way here.
Calvin and Jansenius made their peace with such a God, with calling those acts of God, just.
Right here is the root of all your problems. Damnation and salvation are not "acts" of God. They are acts of man either accepting or rejecting what God gives freely to all.
I said this before, and you ignored it.
At death, everyone comes into the presence of God, and is bathed in His divine energies, most especially the energy most constituitive of His Being, His Love, for "God is Love" (1 St. John 4.16). God's Love is experienced by us as fire, for "Our God is a consumming fire." (Hebrews 12.29). This is why we pray:
"Veni, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende." - "Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love." (Roman Missal, Alleluia Chant, Pentecost)
And:
"Ure igne Sancti Spiritus renes nostros et cor nostrum Domine; ut tibi casto corpore serviamus et mundo corde placeamus." - "O Lord, set aflame our reins and our hearts with the fire of the Holy Spirit, that we may serve Thee with a chaste body, and please Thee with a pure mind." (Roman Missal, Prayers Before Mass).
Having been transformed in Christ through divine grace infused into the soul, the blessed see in this fire of Love as the Light of Glory, the vision of Almighty God. "In Thy light we shall see light." (Psalm 35.10)
On the other hand, being deformed in sin, the damned die an eternal death being burned in this same fire. The suffering of the damned is not caused by God, for God loves them and gives them the same light He also gives the blessed. Rather, the different quality of their existence, their suffering, is caused by themselves, having kept themselves apart from Him, and worsening their own first seperation through further crimes.
From this, the middle condition of the unbaptized innocents becomes obvious. They are not wicked, since they are not deformed in actual sin. Therefore, they do not experience the Fire of Love as eternal death out of their own hatred of God. They are also not good, since they exist deprived of grace by their very nature, therefore they cannot see God in His Light since nothing unites them to God. God is not depriving them of Light, they simply do not exist in a condition that would allow them to enjoy it, just as we here on earth cannot see it while clothed in sinful flesh.
Seen this way, its silly to speak of God doing things to them, depriving them of heaven, etc. God deprives no one of anything. Everyone dies, and God reveals Himself to everyone, and the result of this experience for their soul determines their eternity.
To speak of somehow saving all the unbaptized infants means that God must actively intervene to make them accept grace. But this completely destroys the notion of salvation as a gift we either accept or reject by our actions, and makes it something God can impose upon us even against our will or without our will, or by forcibly modifying our will. God then is imposing love of Himself upon us, which is a contradiction, since love must be free, not forced. The very grounding of why we are free and in the image of God is so that we can love if we so choose. Love cannot be imposed.