Illegitimate Children Destined to Hell?

  • Thread starter Thread starter lwest
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Are you referring to illegitimate children and unwanted children who die before being baptized?

Because God does NOT treat illegitimate children and unwanted children who die before baptism any differently than wanted, legitimate children who die before baptism.

Also, “illegitimate children” has nothing to do with God. It is simply a legal issue that was mostly dealt with inheritance rights.
 
Nothing to do with Baptism. If your parents aren’t married in the Church. Or if the child was unwanted for whatever reason.
 
lwest said:
I was wondering if this was something that was taught, perhaps pre-Vatican II.
Click to expand...
No. In fact it’s a heretical teaching akin to the Reformed notion of predestination.
lwest said:
I’m not sure why you feel a need for me to identify these people.
Click to expand...
Well, are they fellow Catholics, fundamentalist Protestants, secular people with no church background who got it off the History Channel, a teacher at a college, etc.

As for where you are hearing this: people you actually know, online on social media, in the comments section on a You Tube video.

I mean, whack a doodle stuff is prevalent on social media versus in “people I actually know”.
lwest said:
And if you don’t personally know them, what would that mean, exactly?
Click to expand...
That you are wasting your time.
 
lwest said:
Nothing to do with Baptism. If your parents aren’t married in the Church. Or if the child was unwanted for whatever reason.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that’s just wrong. The situations regarding someone’s birth has NOTHING to do with their salvation. However, baptism and their personal sins do.

Now, this might be an issue with translation into English.

There is a theological opinion children who die before baptism or die in the womb will go to limbo, where they will experience natural bliss for eternity.

And limbo means the out edge of “hell.”

But in English, there is a difference between “hell” and “Hell.”

Lowercase h “hell” means Hades, the underworld of the dead, the place where Hell (Gehenna), Limbo of the Fathers, Limbo of Infants, and Purgatory all are located.

But capital H “Hell” means “Gehenna,” the fiery pit of the damned.

So Hell and hell are not the same thing. Hell is located in hell, but not everyone in hell is not in Hell.

So there is a transaction issue in English because we use the same word for two different places.

I pray I’m making sense.
 
lwest said:
They were people I actually knew (grandmother, aunts, etc)
Click to expand...
Well I can tell you where it did not come from— the Church— because it’s a heresy.

I can’t tell you where it DID come from, that’s a question for grandma and auntie. If they are no longer alive, the source of the idea died with them.

Speculating: misunderstanding of Church teaching, seepage of Protestant ideas (particularly Reformed theology), ignorance is Church teaching, and/or some sort of cultural norm or element.
 
.
Saint Martin de Porres, the great saint of Peru, was illegitimate. And Saint Louise de Marillac the co-founder, with Vincent de Paul, of the Daughters of Charity, was also illegitimate.
This obviously is incompatable with what they said.
 
Last edited:
phil19034 said:
But in English, there is a difference between “hell” and “Hell.”

Lowercase h “hell” means Hades, the underworld of the dead, the place where Hell (Gehenna), Limbo of the Fathers, Limbo of Infants, and Purgatory all are located.

But capital H “Hell” means “Gehenna,” the fiery pit of the damned.

So Hell and hell are not the same thing. Hell is located in hell, but not everyone in hell is not in Hell.

So there is a transaction issue in English because we use the same word for two different places.

I pray I’m making sense.
Click to expand...
What you say does make sense, but is this Catholic teaching?

If we define hell (small letter h) as being “that state of being in the afterlife where a soul is separated from God”, then the Limbo of Infants (which, seemingly, would also include anyone who has died unbaptized but without personal sin, rare, but not metaphysically impossible), the Limbo of the Fathers (also called the Bosom of Abraham, but presumably righteous pagans such as Aristotle and Socrates also went there, unless Gentiles had their own Limbo as well), purgatory, and Hell (capital letter H) would fit that definition.

I am assuming that “capital-letter-H Hell” can be defined as “that place where sinners go, who have estranged themselves from Almighty God for all eternity, where they will never get out, and where there are eternal punishments and pain that can be compared to earthly fire”. In other words, what people generally think of when they hear the word “Hell”.
 
This might’ve been something they heard from their parents and grandparents as a way to keep them from getting into mischief…
 
One of my favorite saints is Martin de Porres. He was born out of wedlock to Juan de Porres, a Spanish man in Lima and his mother was a free woman of mixed race. For a number of years, Martin’s father neglected him but finally acknowledged his son and got him an apprenticeship to a barber/surgeon. Martin joined the Dominicans and became known for his charity and sanctity. His relic is in the altar at my parish. Being born out of wedlock did not prevent him from going to heaven and becoming a saint.
 
phil19034 said:
40.png
HomeschoolDad:
What you say does make sense, but is this Catholic teaching?
Click to expand...
It’s from St Thomas Aquinas.
Click to expand...
St. Thomas distinguished between lowercase and uppercase Hells? Had lowercase been invented yet?
 
Last edited:
St Thomas didn’t speak English.

The uppercase vs lowercase Hell vs hell is a specific ENGLISH issue.

St Thomas taught that limbo was part of Sheol, but not part of Gehenna. That’s actually what the word limbo means, “outer edge” of Sheol.

The point is, Sheol (Or Hades) is a too different place than Gehenna.

In English, we tend to use the word “hell/Hell” to refer to all three & capitalization tends to be inconsistent in most writings.

I pray I’m more clear now.
 
Last edited:
I would further note that the main reason why illegitimate children used to be excluded from holy orders wasn’t that the illegitimate son was considered to be a bad person, it was because the Church was concerned about the fathers, especially noblemen, pushing their illegitimate sons into the clergy or into monasteries in order to be rid of them, cover up mistakes and not have to provide for them.

The 1983 code of canon law got rid of the restrictions on illegitimate sons entering the priesthood, because society has changed and we no longer have the concern about fathers pushing their illegitimate sons into seminary, especially since in this day and age the seminaries typically take adults and do not accept young minors.
 
Last edited:
Yes so wrong. Jesus loves all especially the unwanted or unplanned.

Please know they have a special place in His Heart.
 
no, it was never taught by the church, consider that there ar canonized saints pre-vatacan II that were born out of wedlock
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top