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I am all in with you Catholic folks on the sinfulness of abortion. I suspect every Bible-believing Christian around here is, too (although I don't speak for all of them). It is absolutely murder, a vile and repugnant, despicable tragedy.

I am, however, curious as to what the organizational view is on the spirits of the murdered children. Is the Romanist view that all the children are saved in heaven, irrespective of not receiving the 7 sacraments? Are they vicariously anointed with some kind of replacement sacrament (the way the Mormons claim that they can be baptized for the dead). Are the children all lost? Can you fill us in on the official view?

Good post.

For starters, this thread IS NOT in the Religion Forum and I would prefer to keep it that way.

As far as I know, the Catholic Church has no official teaching on this matter; however, the Church's view has always been that baptism is necessary for salvation.

For centuries, theologians have hypothesized that there exists a "Limbo of Infants" that is similar to the Bosom of Abraham where unbaptized infants (including miscarried and aborted babies) are denied Beatific Vision, but still enjoy complete happiness. Most seem to assume that after the Last Judgment those in Limbo will be taken into Heaven.

There are others who have suggested (without necessarily using the words) that the aborted babies have been killed because of "odium fidei" (hatred of the faith) and have undergone a "Baptism of blood" and are martyrs similar to the Holy Innocents. This is based on the theory that their murders prevented God from giving justification through Baptism. This is what Pope Saint John Paul II wrote about in Evangelium Vitae when he said that the babies were "entrusted with sure hope to the Father and His mercy."

Nevertheless, were the Church to officially teach that aborted children were automatically saved, other problems would arise. Mainly, it would be suggesting that their murders were actually GOOD because it assured salvation that would not be assured had they lived.

Bottom line, I don't think any of us can definitively know right now. What we can know is that unrepentant abortionists are almost assured damnation and that the ongoing murder of the unborn is an abomination to God.

The Catholic Church does not have a defined doctrine on this. The Holy Innocents (the ones killed by Herod when he was gunning for Jesus) are believed to be in heaven and have a feast day on the liturgical calendar, because they died on account of "odium Christi" or "odium fidei" --- they were killed by people who were "aiming" to kill Christ, or to kill the faith.

Even unbaptized infants who died are given Catholic funerals, and all the priest basically says is "we commend them to the Mercy of God."

That's as far as we can go. In God's mercy they are in good Hands.