maryz: Wrong
Of course, just as in everything we were taught in the Catholic church while in it. /s
maryz: The Limbo of unbaptized infants (as distinct from the Limbo of the Fathers) was never more than a hypothesis, never a doctrine (though admittedly a widely accepted hypothesis).
Again, your church has some serious problems since there is so much teaching in it at the local level that you guys keep saying isn't the official position of the Catholic church. I knew Catholic parents who were terrified of taking their newborns out somewhere before they were baptized, lest something happen to them.
Limbo certainly is taught in the Catholic church. Amazing how different former Catholics remember the same *wrong* teaching. How can so many people who don't know each other and grew up in separate parishes have so many of the same (alleged) errors in belief if it weren't the pervasive teaching of the church?
Of course -- the Church always taught that baptized infants who died went straight to Heaven. Definitely. It taught that Original Sin is a bar to heaven, but also that a just and merciful God would not consign an innocent to Hell. Hence, the hypothesis of Limbo -- not a doctrine because the Church didn't claim to know the what and how of the fate of dead unbaptized infants.
"Bapstism of blood" and "baptism of desire" ring a bell?
Mrs. C_C and I aren't waiting for our baby's baptism. We're praying for our baby's regeneration unto salvation even before birth.
While we know that all Fallen Men our conceived in Spiritually-Dead Iniquity:
We also know that it is within God's power to answer our prayers and Regenerate our baby's spirit even in the womb, long before he (she?) is birthed and baptized:
How wonderful it is to know that God, in His time and in His choosing (but we know also that the prayers of His saints are incorporated into His Divine Plan, as He wills), will sometimes quicken the spirit of even a tiny baby like the unborn infant David, who was Regenerated unto Spiritual Life long before he was even old enough to make a conscious choice about anything.
“”I knew Catholic parents who were terrified of taking their newborns out somewhere before they were baptized, lest something happen to them.””
Which is ridiculous since the parents or anyone else can baptize immediately if something happens to the child
§2. An infant in danger of death is to be baptized without delay.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P2X.HTM
§2.....or in a case of necessity any person with the right intention, confers baptism licitly
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P2W.HTM
Again, your church has some serious problems since there is so much teaching in it at the local level that you guys keep saying isn’t the official position of the Catholic church. I knew Catholic parents who were terrified of taking their newborns out somewhere before they were baptized, lest something happen to them.
Limbo certainly is taught in the Catholic church. Amazing how different former Catholics remember the same *wrong* teaching. How can so many people who don’t know each other and grew up in separate parishes have so many of the same (alleged) errors in belief if it weren’t the pervasive teaching of the church?
INDEED.
Like me ..my mother in law would have killed any of us that took an UNBAPTIZED baby out of the house
Indeed Limbo was taught as IF it were doctrine to thousands of us ..and surely an unbaptized baby would go there ...so when you do away with limbo that means they would go to hell ...
From the ORIGINAL Baltimore catechism ... A CATECHISM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Prepared and Enjoined by Order of The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore
IMPRIMATUR New York, April 6, 1885. John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York.
Baltimore, April 6, 1885. "The Catechism ordered by The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, having been diligently compared and examined, is hereby approved."
+ James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Apostolic Delegate.
LESSON TWELFTH ON BAPTISM
152. Q. What is Baptism?
A. Baptism is a Sacrament which cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians, children of God, and heirs of heaven.
153. Q. Are actual sins ever remitted by Baptism?
A. Actual sins and all the punishment due to them are remitted by Baptism, if the person baptized be guilty of any, and is rightly disposed.
154. Q. Is Baptism necessary to salvation?
A. Baptism is necessary to salvation, because without it we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.
On limbo
Thus the Council of Florence, however literally interpreted, does not deny the possibility of perfect subjective happiness for those dying in original sin, and this is all that is needed from the dogmatic viewpoint to justify the prevailing Catholic notion of the children's limbo, while from the standpoint of reason, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus pointed out long ago, no harsher view can be reconciled with a worthy concept of God's justice and other attributes.
Catholic encyclopedia