***Council of Lyons II: “…The souls of those who die in mortal sin or with original sin only, however, immediately descend to hell, to be punished with different punishments…-- (Denzinger 464)
Council of Florence: “…Moreover, the souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin or in original sin only, descend immediately into hell but to undergo punishments of different kinds.— (Denzinger 693)
Pope John XXII: “It (The Roman Church) teaches… that the souls… of those who die in mortal sin, or with only original sin descend immediately into hell; however, to be punished with different penalties and in different places.” (Denzinger 493(a).
“It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: “In my father’s house there are many mansions”(JN14:2): that it might be understood that in the kingdom of heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere where the blessed infants live who departed from this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is eternal life, let him be anathema. For when the lord says :“Unless a man be born of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God”(Jn3:5), what Catholic will doubt that he will be partner of the devil who has not deserved to be a co-heir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will without doubt run into the left” (Denzinger 102 fn.2; 30th edition)***
**St. Augustine … in the course of the controversy he himself condemned, and persuaded the Council of Carthage (418) to condemn, the substantially identical Pelagian teaching affirming the existence of “an intermediate place, or of any place anywhere at all (ullus alicubi locus), in which children who pass out of this life unbaptized live in happiness” (Denzinger 102).
Tradition holds that Zosimus published the canons of Council of Carthage as his own making them infallable in his famous Tractoria", in which Pelagianism and its authors were condemned.
“Thus, finally, the occupant of the Apostolic See at the right moment maintained with all authority the traditional dogma of the Church, and protected the truth of the Church against error.” (catholic Ecyclo. “Zosimus”)That is Why Denzinger 102 under the section of Zosimus in the Denzinger**
My advice to you, given your posting history: strengthen your faith first, learn exactly what the Catholic church teaches and assent to it before delving into complex theology like this.
Second, the Church has not contradicted itself. It merely now says she entrusts unbaptized infants to the mercy of God. That is not incompatible with the theories presented above.
Finally, we know that God desires the salvation of all, so we know he will not torment unbaptized infants for eternity. But we also know the baptism is an absolute necessity for heaven. We cannot say for sure that they will be in heaven, which is why “limbo” was theorized, but it was never defined as a dogma of faith so there is bound to be change. The simple fact is, we do not know for sure, but we know that God will deal mercifully with them.
This is lifted directly from the old Catholic Encyclopedia on “Limbo”:
• we must not confound St. Augustine’s private authority with the infallible authority of the Catholic Church; and
• if allowance be made for the confusion introduced into the Pelagian controversy by the want of a clear and explicit conception of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural order one can easily understand why St. Augustine and the Council of Carthage were practically bound to condemn the locus medius of the Pelagians. St. Augustine himself was inclined to deny this distinction altogether, although the Greek Fathers had already developed it pretty fully, and although some of the Pelagians had a glimmering of it (see Coelestius in August., De Peccat. Orig., v), they based their claim to natural happiness for unbaptized children on a denial of the Fall and original sin, and identified this state of happiness with the “life eternal” of the New Testament.
• Moreover, even if one were to admit for the sake of argument that this canon of the Council of Carthage (the authenticity of which cannot be reasonably doubted) acquired the force of an ecumenical definition, one ought to interpret it in the light of what was understood to be at issue by both sides in the controversy, and therefore add to the simple locus medius the qualification which is added by Pius VI when, in the Constitution “Auctoreum Fidei”, he speaks of “locum illium et statum medium expertem culpae et poenae.”
• Finally, in regard to the teaching of the Council of Florence, it is incredible that the Fathers there assembled had any intention of defining a question so remote from the issue on which reunion with the Greeks depended, and one which was recognized at the time as being open to free discussion and continued to be so regarded by theologians for several centuries afterwards. What the council evidently intended to deny in the passage alleged was the postponement of final awards until the day of judgement. Those dying in original sin are said to descend into Hell, but this does not necessarily mean anything more than that they are excluded eternally from the vision of God. In this sense they are damned; they have failed to reach their supernatural destiny, and this viewed objectively is a true penalty. 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.
