[GonzoII]

"Well sure, the CURRENT version of the catechism. It really all depends on who you ask and when you asked it."

So where is the official teaching on the fate of unbaptized infants?

Theological speculation is one thing Magisterial teaching another.

Showing different opinions amongst the Fathers in no way proves error in the Magisterial teachings of the the church.

[T Minus Four]

You tell me

[T Minus Four]

Magesterial teachings

[T Minus Four]

So where is the official teaching on the fate of unbaptized infants?

I'll say it again - depends. Popes of the Roman Catholic Church have taken four contrary positions regarding the fate of infants who die without baptism.

The lot assigned by popes to the infants has gradually changed from including hell fire, through involving the pain of loss only and then no pain at all, to full beatitude in heaven.

1. Popes of the patristic era infallibly defined the doctrine of Augustine that unbaptized infants have the eternal torments of the damned in the fires of hell with the devil. We cite Pope Gregory the Great, Pope Zosimus and Pope Innocent I amongst others who taught this.

2. Pope Innocent III adopted the position of Abelard in the twelfth century that unbaptized infants will have the pain of loss but not the pain of fire.

3. Pope Pius X was the first pope to teach that unbaptized infants have no sufferings in his 1905 Catechism.

4. Recent popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have given us to “hope” that all unbaptized infants, and indeed all of humanity, will go to heaven.