Posted on 06/06/2015 7:48:08 AM PDT by Salvation
Souls of Aborted Children
Msgr. Charles Pope The Catholic Answer
Q. What does the Church teach about the souls of aborted children and those unborn children who die as a result of miscarriages? They have souls, right? Should they all receive funerals? Should parents name their miscarried children? Name withheld by request, via e-mail
A. “Should” is a word that is too strong here. Parents may both name and have funeral services for miscarried or aborted children. But they are not required to do this, and each case will be unique. How far along the child was is often a factor. In some cases there are remains that can be buried, in other cases not. If there are no remains that have been collected for burial, a memorial Mass may be celebrated. The Sacramentary contains prayers for children who die before baptism and these may be used along with other prayers from the Rite of Christian Burial. Yet another possibility is that one of the general parish Masses can be offered in memoriam.
Yes, children who die before birth and baptism have souls. While there is no definitive teaching by the Lord or the Church as to what happens to their souls if they die before baptism, it is clear that they did not merit hell. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say: “As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism” (No. 1261).
Further, the International Theological Commission, at the request of Pope Benedict XVI, studied the question of infants who die without baptism. It issued a lengthy report (“The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized,” 2007) and concluded as to what the Church can say with these words: “What has been revealed to us is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the Sacrament of Baptism. None of the above considerations should be taken as qualifying the necessity of baptism or justifying delay in administering the sacrament.
Rather, as we want to reaffirm in conclusion, they provide strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the Church” (No. 103).
Msgr. Pope column ping!
The Bible says we are born in sin.
If one is not born, one is free of sin.
Although the state of being sinless may not be sufficient to qualify one for Heaven, it certainly excludes one from the punishment of sin, Hell.
Abortionist try to blur when life begins. When does a soul begin?
We even hear of babies breathing outside the mother’s body in abortion clinics. Does that breathing baby have a soul? I absolutely believe so. Abortionists are reckless with their very own souls.
“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” — C. S. Lewis
God bestows the soul upon conception. He takes the precious soul back home, when we murder the body.
A soul is that which makes a thing what it is. It is the life-giving principle or "form" of the body, to use Aristotle's terminology.
This is why the moment of death is binary. While there is very little difference in the parts of the body in the moment before and the moment after death, the transition point from life to death is sharp, like the turning off of a light switch. Death occurs when the spiritual soul separates from the body.
The living body is a composition of form and matter. This is why we say that the body decomposes after death. The form is no longer united with the body. This is an unnatural state, inasmuch as this was not the case before the fall, and this is why death naturally appalls us.
On the other end of our lifespan, the beginning, we can determine ensoulment by determining when a body becomes an independent being. Individuation occurs at fertilization. This new entity is not a part of the mother, but an independent being, with its own pattern of development and DNA distinct from that of the mother and father. Sometime during fertilization the soul is united with the body.
God will protect the unborn with His Love, Mercy and Justice.
It was a theological speculation then, and it still is. Catholics are still permitted to believe in Limbo. But it never was dogmatic teaching, and it still is not.
The idea of limbo does provide us with additional motivation to stop abortion. I believe that God has not allowed us to know definitively the fate of the unborn so that we will continue to try to save these babiess from the horror of abortion.
Q. 632. Where will persons go who -- such as infants -- have not committed actual sin and who, through no fault of theirs, die without baptism?
A. Persons, such as infants, who have not committed actual sin and who, through no fault of theirs, die without baptism, cannot enter heaven; but it is the common belief they will go to some place similar to Limbo, where they will be free from suffering, though deprived of the happiness of heaven.
So according to traditional Catholic teaching, unbaptized babies can not go to Heaven. Therefore, the teaching in the JPII Post Vatican II Catechism that "allows us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism" clearly contradicts such teaching.
Aborted babies aren’t sinless. We aren’t just born in sin, the Bible says we are CONCEIVED in sin. And it also says the wages of sin is death. If they weren’t in sin, they wouldn’t die.
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5)
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
The soul starts at conception. That’s one reason they say that we are created in the image of God.
Are you even Catholic? I need to know whether I should bother responding to the question.
Chicken.
It’s worse than that. Even in the absence of induced abortions, approximately 2/3 to 3/4 of pregnancies do not result in a live birth.
Some people on this thread seem quite happy with the thought that all those babies go straight to Hell.
Doesn’t strike me as very Christian of them, but then who am I to judge?
The following seems to suggest that aborted children go to heaven over limbo, however the word, heaven is not stated:
In describing his conversion, Adasevic [an abortionist] “dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint. He didn’t recognize the name”
“Why don’t you ask me who these children are?” St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.
“They are the ones you killed with your abortions,’ St. Thomas told him.
“Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions,” the article stated.
If not Heaven, at least not Hell.
There are people on this very thread who seem to find that unacceptable.
*sigh*
Nobody on this thread has proposed that aborted babies go to Hell. But the Church's recent proposition that these babies could very well go the Heaven, rather than a Limbo of the Unborn, certainly is not helping to prevent abortions. It was Cardinal Ratzinger who first made this radical proposal and I think he has done tremendous harm to the unborn.
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