Do you believe in limbo?

[Struggling]

While that would certainly hold true for the children of Christians who practice infant baptism (since there would have been an explicit intention to baptize them), it’s not the case for every child who dies without baptism.

I think this idea going around that the parents’ intent has anything to do with it is ridiculous. The child is an independent being, and this “desire by proxy” thing just gets a little too Mormon for me…if anything, it is the CHURCH supplying any lack on the part of the infants, not “the parents”…

But the real explanation is that grace is a free gift and that we don’t need to explicitly will ourselves to recieve it. As long as we dont explicitly reject it…we get it, because the sacraments work ex opere operato. Just like infants in regular baptism; they don’t need to intend to recieve it…it works by the mere fact that proper form and matter are used as long as no one explicitly intended it not to work…

Since infants can recieve grace in ordinary baptism by merely being passive to it…by merely non-rejecting it…I don’t see why explicit desire on the part of any person would be needed for them to recieve grace through an extraordinary granting by God.

And since infants generally haven’t explicitly rejected God’s grace…I can hope that means they recieve it. I think God would probably give it to anyone who is receptive, though he has bound us to one revealed form which obliges us.

But the parents’ desire really doesn’t come into play, and in my mind its a ridiculously complicated and contrived theory to think that it does.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I’m convinced that it’s absolutely impossible for the Catholic Church to abandon the theological deduction known as limbo, and to teach instead that all infants dying without the sacrament of Baptism attain the supernatural happiness of the beatific vision in heaven.

I don’t agree - the CC could conceivably get round its previous ideas about Limbo by saying it is a deduction, which has (after all) not* formally* been dogmatised.​

And also by pointing out (truly enough) that “dying without Baptism” is not quite equivalent in meaning to “dying without receiving sanctifying grace”. It may seem that the one necessarily entails the other, in the way that being English necessarily entails not being Spanish - and this does seem to be the obvious meaining to see in the Church’s teaching. But, even if generations of Catholics have given & been given this impression, the Church has not committed herself until she formally states, solemnly, exactly what meaning is to be attached to what she says.

Until then, there is *always *room for manoeuvre. Don’t underestimate the ability of theologians to see endless nuances in doctrinal positions (or in the lack of these)

That’s why I disagree with your summary of the situation

I further believe that the “hope” for a “way of salvation” for these children in section 1261 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church can, and must, be undestood as the unending *natural *happiness of limbo, not the unending supernatural happiness of the beatific vision.

I doubt this, simply because Limbo is no salvation, except in the rather thin sense of not being Hell. Not to be with God in His Eternal Life, is to fall short of one’s proper vocation as a creature capable of being genuinely happy in God alone. Nothing worse is possible - this is the loss of losses, the worst lack of all.​

What I believe is that man is alienated from God by sin - hence the absolute necessity, in man’s present state before justification, of a Divine Redeemer - and that it would not be in the least an injustice if there had been no redemption for any of us; no infant deserves salvation - they are entitled to Heaven on the same terms as we all are, i.e., in virtue of our renewal by the Infinite & super-abundant merits of Christ the Saviour. And this comes to us ordinarily but not exclusively by Baptism ##

Although Catholic doctrine cannot be determined by polls, I think that it would be helpful to conduct this poll to see how much confusion there is among Catholics regarding the above points.

Please note this: those who vote for option #2 (heaven) should *also *vote for either option #5 or option #6 to indicate whether or not they believe that everyone goes to heaven.

I request that only Catholics respond to this poll.

Thanks!

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

I don’t agree - the CC could conceivably get round its previous ideas about Limbo by saying it is a deduction, which has (after all) not* formally* been dogmatised.​

And also by pointing out (truly enough) that “dying without Baptism” is not quite equivalent in meaning to “dying without receiving sanctifying grace”. It may seem that the one necessarily entails the other, in the way that being English necessarily entails not being Spanish - and this does seem to be the obvious meaning to see in the Church’s teaching. But, even if generations of Catholics have given & been given this impression, the Church has not committed herself until she formally states, solemnly, exactly what meaning is to be attached to what she says.

Until then, there is *always *room for manoeuvre. Don’t underestimate the ability of theologians to see endless nuances in doctrinal positions (or in the lack of these)

That’s why I disagree with your summary of the situation

I doubt this, simply because Limbo is no salvation, except in the rather thin sense of not being Hell. Not to be with God in His Eternal Life, is to fall short of one’s proper vocation as a creature capable of being genuinely happy in God alone. Nothing worse is possible - this is the loss of losses, the worst lack of all.​

In the context of Catholic doctrine, it is not true that “there is always room for maneuver,” in the sense that dogmas do not have immutable meanings.

The position that a dogma can pass from one meaning to another that conflicts with the sense that it first had in the Church is Modernism (which the Catholic Church has condemned as a heresy), not Catholicism (DS 3541).

The dogma that principally supports the supposition of limbo is the dogma that teaches that souls dying in original sin only are penalized for this in the next world. This dogma means something definite, and it it is not going to be revoked.

If the Church were to annul this dogma, then she could annul any dogma, and could, for instance, declare that the Blessed Trinity is a mere metaphor, that Jesus was only a human person, and that he is present in the Eucharist purely symbolically. She could further declare that abortion is not murder and that contraception is not a mortal sin. As much as some people would like to see these retractions, they are not going to happen.

The Catholic Church is not going to be transformed into the “broad and liberal Protestantism” that Pope St. Pius X associated with Modernism (DS 3465).

Limbo is *not *total separation from God, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains:

"Although unbaptized children are separated from God as regards the union of glory, they are not utterly separated from Him: in fact they are united to Him by their share of natural goods, and so will also be able to rejoice in Him by their natural knowledge and love" (Summa theologiae, appendix 1, question 1, article 2, reply to objection 5).

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Mike_Rainville]

Pope John Paul in Evangelium Vitae said that the aborted unborn are “living in the Lord.” This sounds to me like Heaven, though JP II may have wanted to leave his successor(s) some wiggle room…

Limbo is often taught as a place, but it was really only the Church’s way of saying “we don’t know.”

Of course,
assuming there were such a place, as Limbo,
apart from the Lord and filled with unborn, young sinless children and other innocents,
sinless except for original sin, of course,
then I don’t see how anyone could stop Our Lady from going there and asking Her Divine Son to provide the water for their baptism…

 

[cecilia97]

Those who have had a miscarriage should consider that Limbo is a state of very great happiness, such as the garden of Eden before the fall. It is not a bad place and those there are perfectly happy.

I’m confused by this comparison. Before the fall, Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God. So Limbo, without the beatific vision, can hardly be like Eden! scratches head

cecilia

 

[Walking_Home]

Pope John Paul in Evangelium Vitae said that the aborted unborn are “living in the Lord.” This sounds to me like Heaven, though JP II may have wanted to leave his successor(s) some wiggle room…

Limbo is often taught as a place, but it was really only the Church’s way of saying “we don’t know.”

Of course,
assuming there were such a place, as Limbo,
apart from the Lord and filled with unborn, young sinless children and other innocents,
sinless except for original sin, of course,
then I don’t see how anyone could stop Our Lady from going there and asking Her Divine Son to provide the water for their baptism…

---

Our late Pope promulgated the CCC which contains the following on page 817.

Limbo, 1261. See also Baptism;Funerals

 

[dcdurel]

It seems clear the Church has always taught limbo.

But, the Church has also always taught that at the end of the world there are only two places left, heaven and hell.

Thus, those in limbo will go to heaven or hell at the end of the world, depending on their choice of obedience to God or rebellion against Him.

 

[USMC]

Pope John Paul in Evangelium Vitae said that the aborted unborn are “living in the Lord.” This sounds to me like Heaven, though JP II may have wanted to leave his successor(s) some wiggle room…

That was retracted from the final and definitive version of the encyclical. Evidence of that is located in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 87p. 515, from 1995.

This was referenced in the article written by Fr. Harrison. The following is the quote from his article:

Fr. Harrison: "**After Pope John Paul II’s retraction, in the final and definitive version of Evangelium Vitae #99 (cf. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 87 [1995] p. 515) of the initial version’s statement that aborted babies “now live in the Lord” **(i.e., are in Heaven), it appears that the only papal statement expressly mentioning the destiny of aborted infants is that of Pope Sixtus V, whose Constitution Effrænatam of 29 October 1588 not only abstains from raising any hopes that they may attain the beatific vision, but positively affirms that they do not attain it!

… The Pope [Sixtus] begins by affirming the need for sterner measures to be taken against “the barbarity … of those who do not shrink from the most cruel slaughter of fetuses still coming to maturity in the shelter of their mothers’ wombs” ("… eorum immanitatem … qui immaturos foetus intra materna viscera adhuc latentes crudelissime necare non verentur" — my English translation.) Pope Sixtus then continues, by way of explanation (my translation and emphasis):

Pope Sixtus: “For who would not detest a crime as execrable as this — a crime whose consequence is that not just bodies, but — still worse! — even souls, are, as it were, cast away? The soul of the unborn infant bears the imprint of God’s image! It is a soul for whose redemption Christ our Lord shed His precious blood, a soul capable of eternal blessedness and destined for the company of angels! Who, therefore, would not condemn and punish with the utmost severity the desecration committed by one who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God? Such a one has done all he or she could possibly have done to prevent this soul from reaching the place prepared for it in heaven, and has deprived God of the service of this His own creature.”

 

[USMC]

It seems clear the Church has always taught limbo.

But, the Church has also always taught that at the end of the world there are only two places left, heaven and hell.

Thus, those in limbo will go to heaven or hell at the end of the world, depending on their choice of obedience to God or rebellion against Him.

Limbo is located in hell. It is the outer border hell. It is believed to have no pain of sense, like the hell of the damned, but it is still in the location that is considered hell. Something to keep in mind when debating Jehovah’s Witnesses is that the term “hell” does not always mean the place of the damned, but merely separation from God. It can mean the place of the damned, but that is not the only meaning.

When we say that Jesus “descended into hell”, we mean that he descended into the Limbo of the Fathers. Here again is another quote from Fr. Harrison’s article:

Fr. Harrison: “And it is important to emphasize that reaching Limbo does not mean reaching salvation. In another previous e-mail I mistakenly conceded to a correspondent his view that the word limbus, literally meaning “fringe”, “hem”, “margin”, or “border”, was adopted by the Church in order to indicate that Limbo (for unbaptized infants) was at the “border” of Heaven. In fact, as I soon discovered with a little more research, what was meant is that Limbo is at the “border” of Hell! This is evident both from the teaching of two ecumenical councils (Lyons II: D 464 = DS 858; Florence: D 693 = DS 1306); and Pope John XXII’s 1321 Epistle to the Armenians (D 493a = DS 926). All these authorities teach that the souls of those who die in original sin only (who could only be infants and the mentally retarded who never reach the use of reason) “go down without delay into Hell” (mox in infernum descend[unt]), where, however, they suffer “different punishments” (poenis disparibus) from those who die in actual mortal sin. In other words, if Hell is defined broadly as eternal exclusion from the beatific vision, Limbo is actually the outer “fringe” or “border” of Hell itself.”

 

[USMC]

I’m confused by this comparison. Before the fall, Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God. So Limbo, without the beatific vision, can hardly be like Eden! scratches head

cecilia

Adam and Even walked with God, but did not possess the beatific vision. If they had, there is no way they would have sinned.

They were created in the state of grace, but this was a supernatural gift that they had no strict right to. They also had other preturnatural gifts that they lost, along with sanctifying grace, when they sinned, because they had no right to these either. Like sanctifying grace, the preturnatual gifts were just that: gifts.

My comparrison to the Garden of Eden was not to be taken as exactly the same as Limbo, but only to make the point that, just as Adam and Eve were perfectly happy in the Garden of Eden, so too the souls in Limbo will be perfectly happy.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

Pope John Paul in Evangelium Vitae said that the aborted unborn are “living in the Lord.” This sounds to me like Heaven, though JP II may have wanted to leave his successor(s) some wiggle room…

Limbo is often taught as a place, but it was really only the Church’s way of saying “we don’t know.”

Of course,
assuming there were such a place, as Limbo,
apart from the Lord and filled with unborn, young sinless children and other innocents,
sinless except for original sin, of course,
then I don’t see how anyone could stop Our Lady from going there and asking Her Divine Son to provide the water for their baptism…

It has already been pointed out on this thread that the statement that the aborted child “is living in the Lord” was removed from section 99 of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium vitae when the official Latin version of the encyclical was published. Nonetheless, this statement should pose no problem for those Catholics who rightly uphold limbo, because the souls enjoying unending natural happiness in limbo are truly “living in the Lord.” Doesn’t St. Paul say to the Athenians at the Areopagus that *all *human beings “live” in God (*Acts *17:28)? Even the souls in hell continue to live in God, for without his keeping them in existence they would be annihilated.

Pope John Paul II’s second statement (also removed from the Latin version) in section 99 does pose a problem. This is the statement, addressed to the woman who has had an abortion, that “nothing is definitively lost.” On the contrary, with categorical respect for the authority of the Vicar of Christ, it must be said that the aborted infant’s chance to attain the beatific vision has been definitively lost. It *is *true, though, that nothing has been definitively lost for the aborting woman herself: owing to God’s mercy, she can experience contrition, be reconciled with God and the Church in the sacrament of Penance, seek forgiveness from her child, and save her own soul.

The bottom line is that the encyclical Evangelium vitae cannot be cited in favor of the false idea that all aborted children go to heaven. If they were to go heaven, then, logically, it would be impossible to escape the conclusion that it is better to be aborted than to be born, since being born entails the possibility of going to hell. Those Catholics who are so confused as to be willing to abandon limbo in favor of the beatific vision for all unbaptized infants should ponder this last point carefully and prayerfully.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

Those who are interested in the limbo debate have a vast amount of reading to do. If done in a spirit of acceptance of the authority of the Magisterium, and acceptance of the immutability of the truth of Catholic dogmas, this reading will be extremely beneficial.

I’d like to take the liberty of adding this item, by James Likoudis of Catholics United for the Faith, to your reading list: “Abortion and Limbo.” Here’s the link:

credo.stormloader.com/Doctrine/abolimbo.htm

My defense of the theological deduction of limbo is more emphatic than that of Mr. Likoudis, but his article is valuable.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

Limbo is located in hell. It is the outer border hell. It is believed to have no pain of sense, like the hell of the damned, but it is still in the location that is considered hell. Something to keep in mind when debating Jehovah’s Witnesses is that the term “hell” does not always mean the place of the damned, but merely separation from God. It can mean the place of the damned, but that is not the only meaning.

I appreciate USMC’s fierce, fight-till-the-last-man defense of limbo. I’d expect nothing less from a leatherneck. Still, I don’t believe that Catholics should say that “Limbo is located in hell.”

That terminology is open to misunderstanding, and it’s not going to win support for the concept of limbo, especially among parents who have lost children through miscarriages and abortions. What we should say is that limbo entails the penalty of the loss of the beatific vision (to which no human being has a strict right), while being simultaneously a state of unmerited, unending natural happiness. We should emphasize the positive and consoling side of limbo, while not denying the dogma of original sin and its sad consequences.

Moreover, in view of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, we do not have to say that the souls in limbo are *totally *separated from God. St. Thomas says that they are united to God by means of their natural knowledge and love of him.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[jmcrae]

I appreciate USMC’s fierce, fight-till-the-last-man defense of limbo. I’d expect nothing less from a leatherneck. Still, I don’t believe that Catholics should say that “Limbo is located in hell.”

That terminology is open to misunderstanding, and it’s not going to win support for the concept of limbo, especially among parents who have lost children through miscarriages and abortions. What we should say is that limbo entails the penalty of the loss of the beatific vision (to which no human being has a strict right), while being simultaneously a state of unmerited, unending natural happiness. We should emphasize the positive and consoling side of limbo, while not denying the dogma of original sin and its sad consequences.

Victims of a misguided sentimentality - the majority of human beings will go to Hell, and many of them will be relatives of ours - people that we love. But somehow there is a misguided idea that if “I” love someone, then God is somehow obliged by “my” love for the person to admit the person to Heaven - that, somehow, only people that “I” don’t love can be allowed to go to Hell.

As the mother of at least two lost children, it doesn’t bother me that they may be in Limbo, nor that Limbo may be located in Hell, because what I do know, is that where ever my babies went, they went there with God, and that the end result is the best possible thing that could have happened to them, given the circumstances.

Of course, if it turns out that they are in Heaven, then so much the better, of course, but I don’t ask their intercession in prayer.

Moreover, in view of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, we do not have to say that the souls in limbo are *totally *separated from God. St. Thomas says that they are united to God by means of their natural knowledge and love of him.

Keep and spread the Faith.

I am comforted by Psalm 139, which states that (paraphrased from memory), “even if I descend to the lowest pits of Hell, you, my God, are still with me.”

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

It may be that the Devil himself is persisting in monkeying around with my posts, trying to sabotage them by inserting mistakes, despite all my proofreading efforts. In post #71, it may have been he who filched the preposition “to” from this crucial sentence:

"If they [all unbaptized infants] were to go to heaven, then, logically, it would be impossible to escape the conclusion that it is better to be aborted than to be born, since being born entails the possibility of going to hell."

Why would the Devil try to sabotage pro-limbo posts? Because he realizes something that even some theologians fail to realize, or fail to admit openly: if the Catholic Church, by declaring, or even seeming to declare, that all unbaptized infants go to heaven, were to overturn the Lyons II-Florence dogma concerning the afterlife punishment of those dying with original sin only, then the Church could overturn *any *dogma. If the Church were to overturn any dogma, she would self-destruct.

Of course, the Church cannot overturn any dogma, nor can she self-destruct. Our Lord has promised us that these things won’t happen (*Mt *16:18).

St. Michael the Archangel, please protect us from the Devil!

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Fuerza]

I admit that I haven’t read all of the responses, so I don’t know if someone has already posted something similar. As I said in the other thread on Limbo, I don’t believe that the existence of Limbo and the possibility of salvation for the unbaptized are necessarily contradictory. I think that both can exist in harmony.

In order to accept this theory, one must also believe that God sometimes deals in hypothetical situations. Again, this is only speculation on my part, but I think that it’s possible that God looks at what the life of the infant would have been had they lived into adulthood. Those who would have followed God’s will to the best of their ability (or at least who would have repented before their death) could be said to be implicity baptized and therefore admitted into Heaven. Those who would have died in their sins or been indifferent would be sent to Limbo (Sending them to Hell proper would be unjust, since their rejection of God is only hypothetical and did not actually occur.)

One could also argue that this could extend to all non-Christians. Those who would have accepted the truth had it been explained to them clearly and accurately could also be said to be implicity baptized. Those who would have rejected it (for any number of reasons), even with this clear understanding, but had no other “actual” mortal sins on their conscience would be sent to Limbo. Of course, those who did have other mortal sins or failed to accept the truth despite clear understanding would end up soewhere else.

Of course I’m not married to this idea. These are just the speculations and ramblings of a guy who’s supposed to be doing work right now.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

I admit that I haven’t read all of the responses, so I don’t know if someone has already posted something similar. As I said in the other thread on Limbo, I don’t believe that the existence of Limbo and the possibility of salvation for the unbaptized are necessarily contradictory. I think that both can exist in harmony.

Limbo and the possibility of salvation can exist in harmony with each other only if salvation is understood in a sense broader than that of the supernatural happiness of the beatific vision. This is especially true inasmuch as limbo, in addition to being a penalty for uneffaced original sin and the absence of the supernatural life, is also a state of happiness–natural, as distinct from supernatural, happiness.

Limbo is not the beatific vision, which requires the supernatural life of sanctifying grace at the moment of death. Still, limbo can legitimately be viewed, even from the perspective of Catholic orthodoxy, as a real kind of salvation: salvation from the pains of hell.

It is in this sense that we can, and should, understood section 1261 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In that section, the Magisterium, unlike St. Augustine (I say this with great respect for St. Augustine), says that we need *not *believe that unbaptized infants suffer pains in hell. Instead, we may “hope” that they attain a “way of salvation.” This way of salvation, or quasi-salvation, is the unending natural happiness of limbo.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[stadre]

I voted for #1, 2, and 5. I believe these souls go to Limbo, but I do not believe that Limbo is “eternal natural happiness.” I believe that at the end of the world, Christ will have a way for them to enter Heaven as He did with the Limbo of the Fathers when He “descended into Hell.” After all, we know that, at the end of the world, only Heaven and hell will exist. The souls in Limbo will have to go somewhere! Thus, I also voted for #2. (And I voted for #5 because of the rules! )

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

I voted for #1, 2, and 5. I believe these souls go to Limbo, but I do not believe that Limbo is “eternal natural happiness.” I believe that at the end of the world, Christ will have a way for them to enter Heaven as He did with the Limbo of the Fathers when He “descended into Hell.” After all, we know that, at the end of the world, only Heaven and hell will exist. The souls in Limbo will have to go somewhere! Thus, I also voted for #2. (And I voted for #5 because of the rules! )

With great respect, Stadre, I must say that we do *not *know that, at the end of the world, only heaven and hell will exist. The Church has never said that. If we do not add limbo to those final destinations, we have insoluble problems on our hands. But thanks for responding to my poll!

CCC 1022, which speaks of only two final outcomes (salvation and damnation), does *not *conflict with limbo, because limbo can, as I have explained in previous posts, be considered to be a kind of damnation (deprivation of the beatific vision), as well as a kind of salvation (eternal natural happiness).

In post #77, I meant to type the following:

***"It is in this sense * that we can, and should, understand section 1261 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church."

Keep and spread the Faith.**

 

[cecilia97]

Adam and Even walked with God, but did not possess the beatific vision. If they had, there is no way they would have sinned.

They were created in the state of grace, but this was a supernatural gift that they had no strict right to. They also had other preturnatural gifts that they lost, along with sanctifying grace, when they sinned, because they had no right to these either. Like sanctifying grace, the preturnatual gifts were just that: gifts.

My comparrison to the Garden of Eden was not to be taken as exactly the same as Limbo, but only to make the point that, just as Adam and Eve were perfectly happy in the Garden of Eden, so too the souls in Limbo will be perfectly happy.

Didn’t Satan and the other angels that fell have the beatific vision? They sinned, right? Sorry this is off topic but I’m just curious about this. I’ll have to do some reading, it’s fascinating.

cecilia