My unbaptized baby won't go to heaven!

[CatholicGuyNY]

Now, in all my readings I find throughout church history the same topics we still talk about today have been brought up over and over and questioned, but for this topic, I have found nothing so far. I’d be interested if someone has found anything among the writings of the Church Fathers about unbaptized children.

Here is what the Catholic Encyclopedia states:
**
Pre-Augustinian tradition

There is no evidence to prove that any Greek or Latin Father before St. Augustine ever taught that original sin of itself involved any severer penalty after death than exclusion from the beatific vision, and this, by the Greek Fathers at least, was always regarded as being strictly supernatural. Explicit references to the subject are rare, but for the Greek Fathers generally the statement of St. Gregory of Nazianzus may be taken as representative:

It will happen, I believe . . . that those last mentioned [infants dying without baptism] will neither be admitted by the just judge to the glory of Heaven nor condemned to suffer punishment, since, though unsealed [by baptism], they are not wicked. . . . For from the fact that one does not merit punishment it does not follow that one is worthy of being honored, any more than it follows that one who is not worthy of a certain honor deserves on that account to be punished. [Oration 40, no. 23]

Thus, according to Gregory, for children dying without baptism, and excluded for want of the “seal” from the “honor” or gratuitous favor of seeing God face to face, an intermediate or neutral state is admissible, which, unlike that of the personally wicked, is free from positive punishment. And, for the West, Tertullian opposes infant baptism on the ground that infants are innocent, while St. Ambrose explains that original sin is rather an inclination to evil than guilt in the strict sense, and that it need occasion no fear at the day of judgement; and the Ambrosiaster teaches that the “second death,” which means condemnation to the hell of torment of the damned, is not incurred by Adam’s sin, but by our own. This was undoubtedly the general tradition before St. Augustine’s time.

Teaching of St. Augustine

In his earlier writings St. Augustine himself agrees with the common tradition. Thus in De libero arbitrio III, written several years before the Pelagian controversy, discussing the fate of unbaptized infants after death, he writes: “It is superfluous to inquire about the merits of one who has not any merits. For one need not hesitate to hold that life may be neutral as between good conduct and sin, and that as between reward and punishment there may be a neutral sentence of the judge.” But even before the outbreak of the Pelagian controversy St. Augustine had already abandoned the lenient traditional view, and 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). This means that St. Augustine and the African Fathers believed that unbaptized infants share in the common positive misery of the damned, and the very most that St. Augustine concedes is that their punishment is the mildest of all, so mild indeed that one may not say that for them non-existence would be preferable to existence in such a state (Of Sin and Merit I.21; Contra Jul. V, 44; etc.). But this Augustinian teaching was an innovation in its day, and the history of subsequent Catholic speculation on this subject is taken up chiefly with the reaction which has ended in a return to the pre-Augustinian tradition. **

newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm

 

[sidbrown]

Limbo was never taught as definitive “The place where children go is called limbo”. it was always taught as a ‘popular belief’ and a POSSIBILITY for the children. Did you not see my earlier link to the Baltimore Catechism?

Furthermore, Limbo is not specifically ‘dismissed’. There is most certainly a limbo of the Fathers and there could exist a limbo for unbaptized infants.

The Church may deepen its understanding of doctrine but never ‘change’. Since there was never an official teaching that “All unbaptized children absolutely go to Limbo and nowhere else”, the current understanding that we DO NOT KNOW what happens to unbaptized children but trust in God’s mercy that they MAY be saved is in no way a contradiction to the earlier popular belief and THEORY that the children may have gone to a comparable type of ‘limbo’ such as those before the life of Jesus did in the "limbo of the fathers.’

Catechism of Pope Piuus X 1905:
“Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either, because having Original Sin, and only that, they do not deserve paradise, but neither hell or purgatory.”

 

[why_me]

Catechism of Pope Piuus X 1905:
“Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either, because having Original Sin, and only that, they do not deserve paradise, but neither hell or purgatory.”

And this is what was taught in the 1960’s. I remember many mothers fretting over their baby to get them baptized if they were born with problems because they were concerned for their babies soul. Also, some parents baptized their own babies if death was threatened and the priest could not come in time.

And there was no talk of mercy or redemption if the baby died before being baptized.

 

[PaulDupre]

So limbo was taught from the pulpit and in Catholic schools for hundreds of years, but now all of a sudden, the Church has changed its mind? Is the same thing possible with respect to artificial birth control or divorce and remarriage or the teaching on Purgatory?

I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic schools from 2nd grade on. I never heard limbo mentioned from the pulpit, but it was taught in school as the best theory currently available to explain what happens to unbaptised infants. It was never taught as dogma or as part of the deposit of faith.

 

[KathleenGee]

Paul is correct…and the Holy Spirit is always at work with believing Catholics who in turn respond to this question with prayers for God’s mercy for the unborn.

The Holy Father was drawing on theologians of the erudite tradition. Case in point: The Franciscans always believed that Mary was born without sin. The Dominicans through St. Thomas Aquinas did not, because Thomas believed only Christ sinless and this would take away from Him…however it took the Catholic Church close to 2,000 years to define the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. But there were already believers who knew through the Holy Spirit the purity of Mary that was not like a believers.

People could not see unbaptized babies in a perpetual holding pen. Thus it is good to pray for the dead…

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Catechism of Pope Piuus X 1905:
“Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either, because having Original Sin, and only that, they do not deserve paradise, but neither hell or purgatory.”

WHERE did you find this (besides “religious tolerance”?)

I looked at the actual catechism of Pope Pius X. Under Baptism, I found NO SUCH QUOTE and in fact, the catechism stated this:

11 Q: When should infants be brought to the Church to be baptized?

A: Infants should be brought to the Church to be baptized as soon as possible.
**12 Q: Why such anxiety to have infants receive Baptism? **

A: There should be the greatest anxiety to have infants baptized because, on account of their tender age, they are exposed to many dangers of death, and cannot be saved without Baptism.
**13 Q: Do parents sin, then, who, through negligence, allow their children to die without Baptism, or who defer it? **

A: Yes, fathers and mothers who, through negligence, allow their children to die without Baptism sin grievously, because they deprive their children of eternal life; and they also sin grievously by putting off Baptism for a long time, because they expose them to danger of dying without having received it.

Where is your ‘limbo’ quote???

 

[sidbrown]

WHERE did you find this (besides “religious tolerance”?)

I looked at the actual catechism of Pope Pius X. Under Baptism, I found NO SUCH QUOTE and in fact, the catechism stated this:

11 Q: When should infants be brought to the Church to be baptized?

A: Infants should be brought to the Church to be baptized as soon as possible.
**12 Q: Why such anxiety to have infants receive Baptism? **

A: There should be the greatest anxiety to have infants baptized because, on account of their tender age, they are exposed to many dangers of death, and cannot be saved without Baptism.
**13 Q: Do parents sin, then, who, through negligence, allow their children to die without Baptism, or who defer it? **

A: Yes, fathers and mothers who, through negligence, allow their children to die without Baptism sin grievously, because they deprive their children of eternal life; and they also sin grievously by putting off Baptism for a long time, because they expose them to danger of dying without having received it.

Where is your ‘limbo’ quote???

I think it is in the 1910 edition: A Compendium of Catechetical Instruction (Also known as the Catechism of Pope Pius X), Monsignor John Hagan, 1910, English edition translated from a French version: ‘Babies dead without baptism go to Limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but neither do they suffer, because, having original sin alone, they do not deserve paradise, but neither do they merit hell or purgatory.’
Also, several secondary sources mention this quote.

 

[KathleenGee]

Jesus said in the end, He would give us a new heaven and a new earth, and all would be restored in HIm…I would think all of creation that did not willfully or passively distort itself from the calling the Creator had given it.

 

[KathleenGee]

I also think this is a good case in point showing how the Church was sliding into legalism and only drawing on one excellent source of theology, the more intellectual type. There are others who draw on the humanity of Christ and I know St. Francis even called inanimate objects brothers and sisters, and they always considered Mary sinless.

 

[gkoomen]

My daughter became pregnant, but miscarried. She had a name for the child, but I don’t know if she would have had him baptized. This is my only grandchild. I have read theses posts with some interest; and have read part of the document on the Vatican site. (I will finish it later.) It has occurred to me that, if all aborted or miscarried infants go to heaven, they are more blessed than those who live - baptized or not. They do not ever face the risk of hell as we do. This is unacceptable to me, as it makes abortion a kindness which it is not. I myself am the result of a failed abortion attempt, and am glad that legal abortions were not available when I was conceived. I am thankful to be here.

 

[Indyann]

I posted this yesterday on a different thread, but it seems very appropriate for this thread.

This is what the Preacher to the Papal Household has to say on the subject. Not infallible, of course, but the opinion held by a very learned and holy Priest.

cantalamessa.org/en/articoloView.php?id=72

Marc, I think we are allowed to speculate. This was posted waaaay back and I know we do not always have time to read the whole thread.