Posted on 12/02/2005 7:13:17 AM PST by billorites
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Limbo -- the place where the Catholic Church teaches that babies go if they die before being baptized -- may have its days numbered.
According to Italian media reports on Tuesday, an international theological commission will advise Pope Benedict to eliminate the teaching about limbo from the Catholic catechism.
The Catholic Church teaches that babies who die before they can be baptized go to limbo, whose name comes from the Latin for "border" or "edge," because they deserve neither heaven nor hell.
Last October, seven months before he died, Pope John Paul asked the commission to come up with "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing the fate of such innocents.
It was then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected Pope in April. It is now headed by his successor at the Vatican's doctrinal department, Archbishop William Levada, an American from San Francisco.
The commission, which has been meeting behind closed doors, may make its recommendation soon.
In his Divine Comedy, Dante passes limbo on his way into hell and writes: "Great grief seized on my own heart when this I heard, because some people of much worthiness I knew, who in limbo were suspended."
I am not Catholic so I have never really understood the concept of limbo though I am familiar with it. On what basis did Catholics determine there was a limbo? From the Bible?
Isn't that a redundacy?
Good idea. I've strained my back doing the limbo a few times.
I'm so confused!
No, otherwise it would read "Theologians to ask Pope to limbo?"
I'm Reformed Protestant, and we've been taught that babies of believing parents go to heaven and that the Bible does not say what happens to babies of non-believing parents. I don't understand how the pope can just make a proclamation changing a belief, unless he or the church comes to understand the Bible differently from what they did in the past.
I am a Lutheran, but I've always thought that the Lutheran (and Christian generally, for that matter) teaching on Baptism is a little strange. I've always thought that it makes God into a lover of technicalities, when I don't get that sense at all from the Bible. Certainly the Bible says that Baptism is important, but where does it give us exact guidance as to what constitutes "Baptism"? My guess is that "Limbo" was a concept devised in order to get around the discomforting possibility that a baby could be condemned because his parents didn't have a Priest pour water on his head.
So Limbo is in limbo?
Suspend Limbaugh?
(Oh...nevermind.)
The question of what happens to unbaptised souls who die before they commit actual personal sin is the subject of speculation. Limbo was never an official teaching, just a theory. What is supposedly happening now is that this theory is being rejected.
The Pope need not do anything as there is no official Catholic "seal of approval" on the limbo theory.
SD
The (Southern) Baptist teaching of baptism is that it has no bearing on your entrance to heaven (only believing that Jesus rose from the dead, is the Son of God, and is your savior can do that). Baptism is a way of showing obedience to his teaching, by following his demonstrated path. Further, there are two baptisms: by water, in obedience and imitation of Christ, and by spirit which is a personal experience where the believer feels moved/convicted by the Holy Spirit.
I. LIMBUS PATRUM
Though it can hardly be claimed, on the evidence of extant literature, that a definite and consistent belief in the limbus patrum of Christian tradition was universal among the Jews, it cannot on the other hand be denied that, more especially in the extra-canonical writings of the second or first centuries B.C., some such belief finds repeated expression; and New Testament references to the subject remove all doubt as to the current Jewish belief in the time of Christ. Whatever name may be used in apocryphal Jewish literature to designate the abode of the departed just, the implication generally is
that their condition is one of happiness,
that it is temporary, and
that it is to be replaced by a condition of final and permanent bliss when the Messianic Kingdom is established.
In the New Testament, Christ refers by various names and figures to the place or state which Catholic tradition has agreed to call the limbus patrum. In Matt. 8:11, it is spoken of under the figure of a banquet "with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven" (cf. Luke 8:29; 14:15), and in Matt. 25:10 under the figure of a marriage feast to which the prudent virgins are admitted, while in the parable of Lazarus and Dives it is called "Abraham's bosom" (Luke 16:22) and in Christ's words to the penitent thief on Calvary the name paradise is used (Luke 23:43). St. Paul teaches (Ephesians 4:9) that before ascending into Heaven Christ "also descended first into the lower parts of the earth," and St. Peter still more explicitly teaches that "being put to death indeed, in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit," Christ went and "preached to those souls that were in prison, which had been some time incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah" (1 Peter 3:18-20).
It is principally on the strength of these Scriptural texts, harmonized with the general doctrine of the Fall and Redemption of mankind, that Catholic tradition has defended the existence of the limbus patrum as a temporary state or place of happiness distinct from Purgatory. As a result of the Fall, Heaven was closed against men. Actual possession of the beatific vision was postponed, even for those already purified from sin, until the Redemption should have been historically completed by Christ's visible ascendancy into Heaven. Consequently, the just who had lived under the Old Dispensation, and who, either at death or after a course of purgatorial discipline, had attained the perfect holiness required for entrance into glory, were obliged to await the coming of the Incarnate Son of God and the full accomplishment of His visible earthly mission. Meanwhile they were "in prison," as St. Peter says; but, as Christ's own words to the penitent thief and in the parable of Lazarus clearly imply, their condition was one of happiness, notwithstanding the postponement of the higher bliss to which they looked forward. And this, substantially, is all that Catholic tradition teaches regarding the limbus patrum.
II. LIMBUS INFANTIUM
The New Testament contains no definite statement of a positive kind regarding the lot of those who die in original sin without being burdened with grievous personal guilt. But, by insisting on the absolute necessity of being "born again of water and the Holy Ghost" (John 3:5) for entry into the kingdom of Heaven (see "Baptism," subtitle Necessity of Baptism), Christ clearly enough implies that men are born into this world in a state of sin, and St. Paul's teaching to the same effect is quite explicit (Romans 5:12 sqq.). On the other hand, it is clear from Scripture and Catholic tradition that the means of regeneration provided for this life do not remain available after death, so that those dying unregenerate are eternally excluded from the supernatural happiness of the beatific vision (John 9:4, Luke 12:40, 16:19 sqq., 2 Corinthians 5:10; see also "Apocatastasis"). The question therefore arises as to what, in the absence of a clear positive revelation on the subject, we ought in conformity with Catholic principles to believe regarding the eternal lot of such persons. Now it may confidently be said that, as the result of centuries of speculation on the subject, we ought to believe that these souls enjoy and will eternally enjoy a state of perfect natural happiness; and this is what Catholics usually mean when they speak of the limbus infantium, the "children's limbo."
excerpt
All right! Purgatory next. It's existence in not supportable.
It can't be the cash cow nopw that it was in the 1500s before Martin blew the whistle.
Thank you.
That was my preview. Here's my comment.
All right! Purgatory next. It's existence is not supportable.
It can't be the cash cow now that it was in the 1500s before Martin blew the whistle.
God extends grace to who He wills. Their age is essentially irrelevant.
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