Pope revises limbo, says there is hope for babies who are not baptized
Vatican panel condemns limbo to eternal dustbin
All this begs the question "can unbaptized MSM headlines writers be saved?"
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12 comments
There’s a reason that Jesus never ate with journalists.
O.K. So..help! I’ve always maintained that doctrine doesn’t change.
Was Limbo ever doctrine?
How do I respond to people who maintain that the Pope can just change whatever he wants and uses this as an example?
Thanks! I just want to defend the faith well.
Betsy,
The idea of Limbo is only a theological speculation and has never been held as a doctrine for the Church. It was a speculation as to what happens to unbaptized children and while accepted by many for a time it never held the status of something to be definitively held.
Betsy- I seem to recall the logic of it was:
God is good, thus he wouldn’t hurt folks.
Babies are born with original sin, and thus need to be baptized to be saved.
Babies that die without being baptized aren’t saved.
Unsaved people don’t go to heaven, but innocent babies just *can’t* go to hell– they didn’t do anything wrong.
Thus, they must go somewhere else… call it “limbo”.
Not binding, just Theo-logic.
The Pope DIDN’T CHANGE ANYTHING.
He can’t make ANY authoritative statement on a matter such as this. He DID NOT say that babies who aren’t baptized go to heaven.
Let’s be perfectly clear for those who take any of the stupid MSM headlines seriously.
The theological commission that produced this document is a consultative panel of experts, not an instrument of authoritative Church teaching, so Catholics are just as free to accept the concept of a Limbo for unbaptized innocents as they were last week.
There’s a reason that Jesus never ate with journalists.
I’m not sure that’s true. Since journalists are a subset of prostitutes, it stands to reason that some of the prostitutes that Jesus ate with were, in fact, journalists.
Yes, Catholics are as free to believe in Limbo as they are in unsubstantiated miracles. But no, it was never Doctrine. Learned that in my class on Dante taught by an almost-priest. Wasn’t even Catholic then. And the idea of not ruling out God’s mercy in the case of unbaptized innocents follows similar reasoning as Baptism of Desire. So really, nothing new, but it is kind of interesting that it is regarded as newsworthy and that it’s one less thing that Protestants can condemn Catholics for. Something else will have to fill in the gap…
If one gleans the wheat from the chaff so to speak, what can be inferred from the articles is the fact that Limbo was never authoritatively taught as doctrine by the Church but was taught as a widely accepted belief that could be logically inferred from other doctrines that are taught by the Church, such as original sin and the necessity of Baptism. It would appear that the Church is basically stating that one may believe that God may have some other means for unborn children who were aborted, stillborn or die shortly after birth to attain salvation that has not been revealed to us. This is consistent with prior teaching of the Church that God chooses whom He wishes to bestow His grace upon.
The fact that so many Catholics are confused about Limbo’s status, and thought it was doctrine instead of an educated guess — well, no wonder the Pope thought he’d better get the whole thing revisited. I’m glad to find out better, myself.
My local paper ran the AP version of the story:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VATICAN_LIMBO?SITE=ORAST&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
(note: the referenced article is the same article but not from my paper)
I’m hoping the paper will publish my response:
Idiotic Article on Limbo
Ref: Decision revises view on limbo (April 21, News, page 24)
Catholic author and commentator Mark P Shea has a rule: deduct 50 IQ points every time the secular media discusses religion. This Associated Press article is a prime example. The first sentence-paragraph is an outright fabrication. Pope Benedict XVI did not reverse anything. All he did was approve the publication of a study of a theological commission.
The second paragraph is an editorial masquerading in a news item. The study says nothing about Pope Benedict’s “willingness to buck a longstanding tenet of Catholic belief”
Next the article quotes dissident theologian Fr. Richard McBrien.
“Baptism does not exist to wipe away the ‘stain’ of original sin, but to initiate one into the Church”
The quote used does not come close to what the study says. Compare the article quote to Catholic New Service article, Vatican commission: Limbo reflects ‘restrictive view of salvation’
“The document said the church clearly teaches that people are born into a state of sinfulness — original sin — which requires an act of redemptive grace to be washed away.”
Only towards the end of the article does the writer get it right.
“We can say we have many reasons to hope that there is salvation for these babies,” said the Rev. Luis Ladaria, a Jesuit who is the commission’s secretary-general. He stressed that there was no certainty, just hope.
To get an accurate view of what transpired, read the referenced Catholic News Service article.
Brian Day
Garden Grove, CA
Betsy, this article from Catholic News explains things very well:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0702216.htm
Generally, Catholic News is a much more accurate source than the newspapers.