Was limbo a doctrine?

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JimG said:
It wasn’t abolished. Since it was never a doctrine, there is nothing to abolish. It was and is a theological speculation.
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The reason so many articles said “abolished” is that the Church allowed Limbo to be taught in Catholic school and it was part of the Baltimore Catechism. Therefore, generations of Catholics grew up believing it was a doctrine of the Church.
 
Doctrines are infallible if they are taught by the universal ordinary magisterium.
 
It was in all the catechisms and everyone was taught it. That seems to me to be universally taught, and therefore it is infallible.
 
To be fair, the Church still allows it to be taught (the ITC essay even notes this fact), it just isn’t as often (and this happened well before that ITC essay came out). So even in that sense, “abolished” was misleading. The ITC essay just reiterated and expounded upon what was already the state of things.

EDIT: Just to add, the Baltimore Catechism just called it a “common belief.”
 
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whyeyeman said:
It was universally taught. Therefore it has been infallibly defined. Am I wrong?
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This is incorrect. If it hasn’t officially been defined as dogma, then it is not Dogma, period. It doesn’t matte how many people believe it, belief is not what defines Dogma.
 
whyeyeman said:
It was in all the catechisms and everyone was taught it. That seems to me to be universally taught, and therefore it is infallible.
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I’d be careful with using words like “all” and “everyone”. Just because it was perhaps in all the catechisms we encountered and was a familiar concept to all the Catholics we knew does not mean it was universal. It’s a big, global church.

The Baltimore Catechism—as ubiquitous as it was in the U.S. prior to Vatican II—was still a local catechism, not a universal one. The universal catechism we have now does not even mention the word limbo at all.
 
Was it always taught as just a common belief? If so, this would answer my queries.
 
The local catechisms did not present them as church teachings, but only as a common/pious belief. The Baltimore says as much. Phrasing counts, big time. Local catechisms do not constitute the Magisterium.

No magisterial document, ordinary or otherwise, throughout the history of the Church, ever proposed Limbo as teaching.

The official position of the Church is essentially, “we don’t know.”
 
Dogmas are only one part of the Church’s infallible teachings. Doctrines can also be infallible if they have been defined by the universal ordinary magisterium.
 
You are also correct on this one, and this is what many also fail to realize. Infallible teachings are not limited to those pronounced ex cathedra, but also those that have been universally held by the Church’s ordinary teaching authority.
 
porthos11 said:
The local catechisms did not present them as church teachings, but only as a common/pious belief. The Baltimore says as much. Phrasing counts, big time. Local catechisms do not constitute the Magisterium.
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When you are learning the Baltimore Catechism as a kid preparing for confirmation and the nun or the priest is telling you this is the correct answer and memorize it, it’s kind of hard for a young person to differentiate.
 
Just to add, I just checked and it is definitely not the the Catechism of Pius X and I could not find it in the Catechism of Trent (I can’t say definitely because it wasn’t an easy control + F like the other one!) They are silent on the issue.
 
Genesis315 said:
The Church has always allowed for the possibility of God granting the grace of the sacraments outside of the actual reception of the sacraments–He just has not promised to do so.
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However God has promised to give every man the necessary graces required for salvation. The fact that these people’s lives are so short as to exclude the possibility of their obtaining the sacrament of baptism suggests that God will provide them a special way to be saved.
 
Erm no, thats not how it works. People used to think the earth was in the center of the universe. They don’t anymore. Would that mean that it was infallibly defined that the earth was in the center ? No because that would be a contradiction.
 
The shape of the earth is not a matter of faith and morals. If a matter concerning faith and morals is universally taught by all the bishops, then it is infallible. This is called the universal ordinary magisterium.
 
Thanks! I have an electronic copy of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and I did a word search for limbo and it came up empty as well.
 
I have an book titled My Catholic faith. In it the author writes of the possibility of the child receiving baptism of desire through the desire of the mother. Later the author writes that some of the pious doctors of the Church believed that an angel baptized the infants.Lastly the author writes of Limbo.
The author points out that a parent is mortally sinning by not baptizing their child(ren).
 
All of which are not supported in Scripture, Tradition, or Magisterium.

We naturally seek a solution because we cannot stomach the idea of an unbaptized infant suffering in hell. But all we know is this:

God desires that all be saved.
God provides sufficient grace to all human beings.
Christ made clear the absolute necessity of baptism.
The justifying effects of baptism are also attained by blood or desire, both of which require the will of the person, not his parents.
Baptism is a sacrament, which is an economy of human beings, not angels.

Because of all these, and the simple fact that God has not revealed the answer to this question, “we don’t know and entrust them to the mercy of God” is the only thing we can say.

Proferring limbo infantorum or any other opinions one way or another as absolutes is not called for, broken hearts notwithstanding. We can hope. We can entrust. But this is just one thing we cannot pronounce on. We simply do not know. One can only say, “I hope God has mercy on my child and welcomes him to heaven”, but one cannot say with absolute moral certainty, “My child is definitely in heaven.” It may be comforting to a grieving mother. It does not, make it, however, certain. The Church says, “we don’t know.” That’s also all we can say.

Oh, and for those who favour limbo, you might not really realize this, but limbo infantorum is not a third state. Limbo infrantorum is part (the limbus—rim; edge, hence, limbo) of hell. Outside of heaven and hell, there is no third final state.
 
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