ITC Nun: This Dogma Is Now Only an Expendable "Common Doctrine"

[Steve_O_Brien]

A nun–a former supporter of women’s ordination–has given an interview concerning the International Theological Commission’s April 20, 2007, statement undermining the Catholic concept of limbo. She is one of the thirty theologians who issued this statement. Please see this interview in Inside the Vatican:

insidethevatican.com/newsflash/2007/newsflash-apr27-07.htm

In this interview, Sister Sara Butler says something that should send shivers up and down the spine of every solid Catholic. She acknowledges–and for this she must be given credit–that it is a “common doctrine” that the souls of those dying in original sin only are excluded from the beatific vision. (Of course, she could hardly deny that this is a common Catholic doctrine, for it is actually a Catholic **dogma **that has been taught by two general councils, Lyons II and Florence.)

Nonetheless, in the case of this dogma, Sister maintains that there is a distinction between a “common doctrine” and “the faith of the Church.” According to Sister, since the exclusion of unbaptized infants from heaven is only a “common doctrine” rather than “the faith of the Church,” this exclusion can now be denied by saying that all unbaptized infants may go to heaven.

Please ponder the consequences of applying to a Catholic dogma the distinction between a “common doctrine” and “the faith of the Church.” If invoking this dichotomy in this manner is now valid in the Catholic Church, please identify for us any Catholic dogma or moral teaching that *cannot *be annulled in the future on the ground that the superseded position is merely an expendable “common doctrine.”

Why not say farewell to the dogmas that pose problems in our relationship with non-Catholic Christians–for example, the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption? Why not drop moral teachings that alienate many of our contemporaries from Catholicism–for example, the teachings that maintain that contraception and sodomy are mortal sins?

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[napad]

A nun–a former supporter of women’s ordination–has given an interview concerning the International Theological Commission’s April 20, 2007, statement undermining the Catholic concept of limbo. She is one of the thirty theologians who issued this statement. Please see this interview in Inside the Vatican:

insidethevatican.com/newsflash/2007/newsflash-apr27-07.htm

In this interview, Sister Sara Butler says something that should send shivers up and down the spine of every solid Catholic. She acknowledges–and for this she must be given credit–that it is a “common doctrine” that the souls of those dying in original sin only are excluded from the beatific vision. (Of course, she could hardly deny that this is a common Catholic doctrine, for it is actually a Catholic dogma that has been taught by two general councils, Lyons II and Florence.)

Nonetheless, in the case of this dogma, Sister maintains that there is a distinction between a “common doctrine” and “the faith of the Church.” According to Sister, since the exclusion of unbaptized infants from heaven is only a “common doctrine” rather than “the faith of the Church,” this exclusion can now be denied by saying that all unbaptized infants may go to heaven.

Please ponder the consequences of applying to a Catholic dogma the distinction between a “common doctrine” and “the faith of the Church.” If invoking this dichotomy in this manner is now valid in the Catholic Church, please identify for us any Catholic dogma or moral teaching that *cannot *be annulled in the future on the ground that the superseded position is merely an expendable “common doctrine.”

Why not say farewell to the dogmas that pose problems in our relationship with non-Catholic Christians–for example, the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption? Why not drop moral teachings that alienate many of our contemporaries from Catholicism–for example, the teachings that maintain that contraception and sodomy are mortal sins?

Keep and spread the Faith.

It is sad how people tend to forget dogmas and how they are proclaimed. A fellow Catholic in a vocations thread tryed to convince me that consecrated virginity is not a higher state than marriage. When it was a clear teaching of Trent and it even had a canon and an anathama attachted

 

[mark_a]

No problems here.

These people get paid the big bucks to figure out this stuff.

If she changed her mind about the ordination of women and now agrees with the Church, the infant limbo issue ought to be a no-brainer.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

What Sister said aside, the commission’s report says only–and this cannot be stressed enough–that there are grounds for hope that those unbaptized infants or others who die before baptism can be saved. Note that: This does not–and should not–mean that baptism is needless. Since baptism is the ordinary means for salvation, to ‘hope’ that unbaptized infants who die (usually through abortion) before baptism can be saved is really no different from the normative statement, that there is no salvation except through the Catholic Church.

Other ‘born’ persons who have not been baptized are still able to be saved–this is doctrine. The hope for their salvation is through the Catholic Church.

There is nothing in the statement of ‘hope’ that contradicts Church doctrine. We can always ‘hope’. In fact, the Church will not make a pronouncement even on such a case as Judas to definitely place him in hell–as we ‘hope’ for his salvation. Why can we hope for Judas, but not for an unborn unbaptized infant? Why does the Catechism of the Catholic Church say almost word for word what this commission says, right here?

1261 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,”[63] 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.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

What Sister said aside, the commission’s report says only–and this cannot be stressed enough–that there are grounds for hope that those unbaptized infants or others who die before baptism can be saved. Note that: This does not–and should not–mean that baptism is needless. Since baptism is the ordinary means for salvation, to ‘hope’ that unbaptized infants who die (usually through abortion) before baptism can be saved is really no different from the normative statement, that there is no salvation except through the Catholic Church.

Other ‘born’ persons who have not been baptized are still able to be saved–this is doctrine. The hope for their salvation is through the Catholic Church.

There is nothing in the statement of ‘hope’ that contradicts Church doctrine. We can always ‘hope’. In fact, the Church will not make a pronouncement even on such a case as Judas to definitely place him in hell–as we ‘hope’ for his salvation. Why can we hope for Judas, but not for an unborn unbaptized infant? Why does the Catechism of the Catholic Church say almost word for word what this commission says, right here?

Please check the official analytical index of the Catechism of the Catholic Church under “Limbo.” You’ll see that the index links limbo to section 1261, the section that you cite.

There’s nothing wrong with hoping that unbaptized infants may be saved from the “pain of sense” in hell. That’s what is meant by the concept of limbo. It’s in the sense of limbo that the “hope” for a “way of salvation” in *CCC *1261 ought to be interpreted to prevent a misunderstanding in which the Church is made to contradict herself. The new catechism should not be understood as contradicting the Church doctrine that unbaptized infants, since they’re burdened with original sin, are excluded from the beatific vision. This Church doctrine (taught by Lyons II and Florence) is a Catholic dogma.

One of the points of post #1 on this thread is that Sister Sara Butler, one of the people responsible for the erroneous ITC statement undermining limbo, has contradicted a Catholic dogma on the spurious ground that this dogma does not represent “the faith of the Church.” No Catholic may contradict a Catholic dogma.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Yes, that’s why I said, “what Sister said aside”. I think she was wrong there. . .but I still think that an argument can be made that saying that there is a hope for those innocent victims of abortion to gain heaven is there in the Catechism. Unbaptized infants are denied the Beatific Vision, true–but that ‘hope’ that they could somehow be baptized (as opposed to a ‘limbo’ or rather, to the definition of limbo as a place of natural happiness) does not seem to me to exclude Catholic doctrine or dogma.

I’ll admit that when I first read the ITC documents I was taken aback. But the first reading I had was in that awful AP story which had ‘garbled’ the earlier teaching about Limbo (which came from Pope John Paul II in 2002, not from Benedict XVI in 2007) along with this new documentation about ‘hope for unbaptized infants’ and thus the story did not accurately reflect what the document said.

 

[rlg94086]

Sister Butler: Those who suppose this document denies the doctrine of original sin are wrong, but so are those who presume it teaches that all unbaptized infants who die are saved, as if this were a truth of revelation. It says there are good grounds for the hope that God offers them a way of salvation. This is an important distinction: we don’t know, for there has been no revelation about this. We are only trying to assess what we don’t know from what we do know. From what has been revealed, we judge it reasonable to hope that God will bring unbaptized infants to heaven.

As to your question regarding baptism, “Does the Church now say that baptism is not necessary for children?” the answer is “no.” In the Catechism, paragraph no. 1257 says: “We do not know of any means other than baptism into eternal beatitude.” But God is not bound to the sacraments, and therefore, just as we understand there are other possible ways for adults who are in invincible ignorance of the Gospel to achieve salvation, so we presume there are other ways, known to God, open to infants who unfortunately die without baptism.

I think the last statement is the crux of the matter. There are obviously questions about how to square this with *de fide *statements that someone with Original Sin is denied the Beatific Vision. However, it is us humans trying to understand the unlimited mercy of God. We are always going to fall short.

There is a paradoxical nature to the truth that we are told we must do x, y and z; however, God can save someone (which sense of the word ‘save’?) who doesn’t do x, y and z because…well…He is God. Despite this, His unlimited mercy does not then give us a free pass to ignore x, y and z.