Abortion and Limbo

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Why would God allow some women to be pregnant if he knows the babies will be aborted with Original Sin?
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Why would God create (the aborted) children if He knows they will end up in “Limbo”?
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Why should “Limbo” be considered a possibility if God knows the babies didn’t have any Free-will in this?
 
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SFV said:
Why would God allow some women to be pregnant if he knows the babies will be aborted with Original Sin?
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Why would God create (the aborted) children if He knows they will end up in “Limbo”?
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Why should “Limbo” be considered a possibility if God knows the babies didn’t have any Free-will in this?
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It is clear that the traditional teaching on this topic has concentrated on the theory of limbo , understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible theological hypothesis. However, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), the theory of limbo is not mentioned. Rather, the Catechism teaches that infants who die without baptism are entrusted by the Church to the mercy of God, as is shown in the specific funeral rite for such children. The principle that God desires the salvation of all people gives rise to the hope that there is a path to salvation for infants who die without baptism (cf. CCC , 1261), and therefore also to the theological desire to find a coherent and logical connection between the diverse affirmations of the Catholic faith: the universal salvific will of God; the unicity of the mediation of Christ; the necessity of baptism for salvation; the universal action of grace in relation to the sacraments; the link between original sin and the deprivation of the beatific vision; the creation of man “in Christ”.
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http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...aith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
 
SFV said:
Why would God allow
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SFV said:
Why would God create
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It is called Free Will, something that people want God to selectively do away with, and they refuse to accept, that we make choices. At the bottom of all of the question(s) is a desire that God do away with fre will, so there is no sin. But that is not how God Designed the world, nor how He designed humans.

He gives us all the rope we need; but it is up to us to either use it to pull ourselves up to meet Him, or hang ourselves.
 
The most recent popes have all said that babies slain in abortion go directly to Heaven, so that’s the stance I’m taking as well.

In fact, I’ll go a step further and state that anyone who claims children don’t go to Heaven has no right to call himself a Christian.
 
The Church hasn’t formally defined that such children go to the “Limbo of Children”. Fr Flader (in his work “Question Time 1”) discusses other options too (the work has the nihil obstat and imprimatur):

Does the Church believe in Limbo?

I read recently that the Pope has asked a group of theologians to examine to the question of Limbo. Does the Church have an official teaching on this topic?

To begin with, you do well to ask whether the Church has an official teaching on Limbo since, strictly speaking, it does not. The idea of Limbo came rather from theologians, who started from Christ’s words to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” ( Jn 3:5). These words imply that some form of Baptism is necessary for salvation. In the case of adults, the Church has always taught that Baptism of desire, whether explicit desire as in the case of catechumens, or implicit desire, is sufficient. But infants cannot have this desire and so the theologians concluded that if infants are not baptised with water they cannot go to heaven. But neither are they deserving of hell. Therefore, they must be in a state of natural happiness, much greater than our happiness here on earth, but without the joy of seeing God face to face, a state the theologians call the “Limbo of children”.

Over the centuries, different views were expressed to explain possible ways by which unbaptised infants could still go to heaven. For example, Cajetan spoke of vicarious baptism of desire, where the infant would be saved through the desire by the parents or the Church of the child’s Baptism. Klee spoke of infants being given the use of reason in the moment of death so that they could choose for themselves for or against God. And Schell suggested that the suffering and death of the infant were a sort of “quasi-sacrament”, so that the infant would be saved by a “Baptism of suffering”.

More recently the then Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in The Ratzinger Report : “Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally – and here I am speaking as a theologian and not as Prefect of the Congregation – I would abandon it since it was only a theological hypothesis. It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for faith, namely, the importance of Baptism. To put it in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” ( Jn 3:5). One should not hesitate to give up the idea of ‘Limbo’ if need be (and it is worth noting that the very theologians who proposed ‘Limbo’ also said that parents could spare the child Limbo by desiring its baptism and through prayer); but the concern behind it must not be surrendered. Baptism has never been a side issue for faith; it is not now, nor will it ever be” (p. 147).

continued….
 
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church sums it up: “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,” ( Mk 10:14) 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” ( CCC 1261).

The International Theological Commission – the “group of theologians” you mentioned in your question – had been entrusted by Pope John Paul II in 2004 with a study of the possibility of salvation of unbaptised infants. On 19 January 2007 their report was made public by Cardinal William Levada, President of the Commission, with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. Their conclusion is very similar to that expressed in the Catechism: “Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered above give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptised infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasise that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge … 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 baptise them into the faith and life of the Church” (International Theological Commission, “The hope of salvation for infants who die without being baptised”, 19 January 2007, 102-103).

In summary, we have great hope that unbaptised infants can be taken to heaven by God. But we do well to have them baptised as soon as possible after birth, in order to have the certainty of their salvation.

https://www.amazon.com/Question-Time-Questions-Answers-Catholic/dp/1921421053
 
I’m not aware of any pope who claimed that souls of aborted babies go directly to heaven.

Reference please.
 
Given that those killed by abortion go to heaven, and given that a percentage of people who reach adulthood do not one of the consequences of abortion must be that more people go to heaven than otherwise, assuming an average number of <1 others involved in each abortion and unrepentant.

Even if the total number of perpetrators exceeds the number of abortions in total those aborted surely have a substantial advantage over those not aborted since they are at no risk of hell.
 
I do not believe there is a concrete teaching on what happens to aborted babies. I could be wrong.

I have heard it said that even if Limbo were true, it may not really be a place of suffering like we often depict Hell. More like those who are there just don’t receive the beatific vision.
 
Why do people still believe Limbo is a teaching of the Church? (it isn’t).
 
BornInMarch said:
The most recent popes have all said that babies slain in abortion go directly to Heaven, so that’s the stance I’m taking as well.

In fact, I’ll go a step further and state that anyone who claims children don’t go to Heaven has no right to call himself a Christian.
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That is not the teaching of the Church and how dare you insult us with your comment about not being Christian.
 
SFV said:
Why would God allow some women to be pregnant if he knows the babies will be aborted
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Mankind has free will, which means God permits man to choose moral behavior or sinful behavior. Sinful behavior has consequences for innocent people too, not just for the sinner. This is called the “Problem of Evil” and we have many past threads on it.
Why would God create (the aborted) children if He knows they will end up in “Limbo”?
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Limbo for unbaptized infants is not and never has been an official teaching of the Church. Although we cannot know for sure what happens to the souls of unbaptized babies, including those who die of abortion, we can have hope that God in his mercy would save these helpless souls.
 
Its not God that keeps unbaptized babies from heaven its church doctrine.
 
As limbo isn’t a teaching and has its problems it would be best if we non-aborted or miscarried sinners focus on pleading to God for our own justification, and leave the business of His salvific will to Him.

Psalm 131:1-2:
My heart is not haughty nor my eyes arrogant .
And I do not concern myself
with things too great and difficult for me.
Rather I have soothed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother,
like the weaned child is my soul with me.
 
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You have to be baptized or you can’t enter heaven because of original sin - church doctrine.
 
Water, desire, and blood. I believe God somehow gives them the third, but no one knows. Trust in the divine mercy and pray the chaplet for their cause.
 
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