What should the Church "drop" besides limbo?

[Tom317]

The catechism is only binding on the Latin church. The eastern CATHOLIC churches have their own catechisms, as well as their own canon laws. They also believe in original sin, but understand it differently. The Vatican, I believe, has modified the entry of original sin in their new catechism to be promulgated to be more in line with this fact.

Sooooo, explain the difference between the Latin Rite and the Eastern Rite Churches understanding of OS.

 

[JimO]

This is an airtight argument. It has only two escape hatches: you can either (1) deny the dogma of hell by saying that *everyone *goes to heaven, or (2) abandon the Faith altogether.

Bill, respectfully and fraternally, I challenge you and those who agree with you on limbo to disprove this common-sense conclusion: if all unbaptized infants are guaranteed heaven, then it is better to be aborted than to be born.

At the risk of being berated again for offering speculation regarding alternatives to your two “escape hatches”, I will restate something I offerred earlier. First, a few premises:

1. Limbo is not a dogma of the Church, but has been described as a “theological speculation” and is a theory that attempts to explain a mystery, that is - what happens to the unbaptised after death?
2. As Catholics, we are free to speculate on matters that are not dogmatic, provided we do not hold to concepts that are contrary to other dogma.
3. The Church recognizes alternatives to water baptism - by blood and desire.

A third “escape hatch” is that God, in His mercy, allows for unbaptized children a form of baptism, such as by blood or by desire (I offer this as a speculative possibility - an alternative to your absolute statements). He has not revealed to the Church what happens in such circumstances, hence the “speculative” nature of limbo. God’s provision for aborted children or children that are miscarried might not be absolute, in that all go straight to heaven, but He also has not seen fit to reveal this to us, so the Church is left with placing these souls in the hands of a merciful Father. That is enough for me and I don’t need to have limbo as a way of explaining what provision God has made. He might have made some provision that has not even occurred to us because it is not His will for us to know.

Now, this does not mean that abortionists are doing the baby a “favor” any more than someone killing a child after baptism is doing them a favor. We are put on this earth for a reason. It is God’s will that each of us spends a certain amount of time on earth to “work out our salvation in fear and trembling”. C.S. Lewis once said that it is a mystery why some people die young and why others are left to struggle for 80 years or more. However, if God wills a child into being and we cut that short through abortion, we are not doing the child any “favors” even if they go straight to heaven, because something is missing. God had plans for that soul’s growth and development that could only be achieved through living in a sinful world. It’s like an artist having his painting taken away before it was completed.

I simply don’t agree with you and Tom that limbo is absolutely necessary to keeping the Faith from crumbling around us.

 

[Woodstock]

Sooooo, explain the difference between the Latin Rite and the Eastern Rite Churches understanding of OS.

It looks like you’ll be able to follow this discussion for that.

 

[JimO]

Yes, of course is only my opinion. Yet, I firmly believe the Church will not get rid of Limbo for the reasons (and many more) that I and Steve have posted here and in other threads.

The danger that I see in your statement is that you might be deeply affected if the Church does change its position on Limbo. Frankly, I’m fine if the Church keeps the concept of limbo, but my faith in the Church wouldn’t be shaken if they don’t. By the sound of your posts and those of Steve - particularly the wording of the poll - I would be concerned for you if things change. I hope I’m completely wrong about this. However, I’ve known many people who have left the Church when something they held close to, such as the Latin Mass, was changed.

 

[Tom317]

At the risk of being berated again for offering speculation regarding alternatives to your two “escape hatches”, I will restate something I offerred earlier. First, a few premises:

1. Limbo is not a dogma of the Church, but has been described as a “theological speculation” and is a theory that attempts to explain a mystery, that is - what happens to the unbaptised after death?
2. As Catholics, we are free to speculate on matters that are not dogmatic, provided we do not hold to concepts that are contrary to other dogma.
3. The Church recognizes alternatives to water baptism - by blood and desire.

A third “escape hatch” is that God, in His mercy, allows for unbaptized children a form of baptism, such as by blood or by desire (I offer this as a speculative possibility - an alternative to your absolute statements). He has not revealed to the Church what happens in such circumstances, hence the “speculative” nature of limbo. God’s provision for aborted children or children that are miscarried might not be absolute, in that all go straight to heaven, but He also has not seen fit to reveal this to us, so the Church is left with placing these souls in the hands of a merciful Father. That is enough for me and I don’t need to have limbo as a way of explaining what provision God has made. He might have made some provision that has not even occurred to us because it is not His will for us to know.

Now, this does not mean that abortionists are doing the baby a “favor” any more than someone killing a child after baptism is doing them a favor. We are put on this earth for a reason. It is God’s will that each of us spends a certain amount of time on earth to “work out our salvation in fear and trembling”. C.S. Lewis once said that it is a mystery why some people die young and why others are left to struggle for 80 years or more. However, if God wills a child into being and we cut that short through abortion, we are not doing the child any “favors” even if they go straight to heaven, because something is missing. God had plans for that soul’s growth and development that could only be achieved through living in a sinful world. It’s like an artist having his painting taken away before it was completed.

I simply don’t agree with you and Tom that limbo is absolutely necessary to keeping the Faith from crumbling around us.

Respectfully, you did not answer Steve’s challenge. Any soul who is living in Heaven within the beatific vision of God has not LOST anything, that soul has been brought into God’s fullness for us in eternity. Therefore, those souls having lost nothing means that there are zero consequences for those babies to not have been baptized, which means Steve’s challenge still goes undisputed: it is better for a baby to be aborted abd go straight to the beatific vision of God in Heaven, then for the baby to be born and risk sinning and going to Hell, or even to have to suffer a long period in purgatory. I think that challenge needs to be completed and accurately disputed in order for Steve or I to accept your premise.

 

[Tom317]

The danger that I see in your statement is that you might be deeply affected if the Church does change its position on Limbo. Frankly, I’m fine if the Church keeps the concept of limbo, but my faith in the Church wouldn’t be shaken if they don’t. By the sound of your posts and those of Steve - particularly the wording of the poll - I would be concerned for you if things change. I hope I’m completely wrong about this. However, I’ve known many people who have left the Church when something they held close to, such as the Latin Mass, was changed.

My faith is not at risk, yet I am predict the Church will NOT get rid of the concept of Limbo, it just won’t do it for the reasons we have spoken of here and many other reasons. The implications of dropping Limbo does not impact my faith, but it will (over time) have a profound impacy on general lay Catholics who do not bother to form themselves well…we only need to see the ruin the treatment of Vatican II has brought into the laity ti see a picture of what dropping Limbo will do.

Interestingly, a great apostasy is predicted for the last days…an apostasy that begins in the Church itself.

 

[JimO]

Respectfully, you did not answer Steve’s challenge. Any soul who is living in Heaven within the beatific vision of God has not LOST anything, that soul has been brought into God’s fullness for us in eternity. Therefore, those souls having lost nothing means that there are zero consequences for those babies to not have been baptized, which means Steve’s challenge still goes undisputed: it is better for a baby to be aborted abd go straight to the beatific vision of God in Heaven, then for the baby to be born and risk sinning and going to Hell, or even to have to suffer a long period in purgatory. I think that challenge needs to be completed and accurately disputed in order for Steve or I to accept your premise.

Clearly, for whatever reason, limbo is far more important to you than it is to me. I’m willing to accept the Church’s final determination, whatever it may be and you are not. Since I can’t know absolutely what happens to the unbaptized, I’m willing to accept it as a mystery in the same way that I accept the Real Presence as a mystery.

Who’s to say that there is no loss to a soul who has been aborted even with the beatific vision? Using the same logic, there is no suffering in purgatory either. The beatific vision is such a huge mystery that none of us can even begin to understand it. For you to say that there is no loss to a soul due to original sin even if they have the beatific vision is pure speculation on your part. You have no idea what “consequences” are suffered by a soul who was utterly rejected by its mother and robbed of the gift of life - despite the risk of sinning. So, don’t tell me that I haven’t “completely and accurately disputed” your premises, when much of what you have said is as speculative.

Frankly, I’m not really concerned whether you or Steve accept anything I said. I was only answering a poll. And I only entered into the debate because you accused me of imputing things to God that He never said.

 

[Tom317]

Clearly, for whatever reason, limbo is far more important to you than it is to me. I’m willing to accept the Church’s final determination, whatever it may be and you are not. Since I can’t know absolutely what happens to the unbaptized, I’m willing to accept it as a mystery in the same way that I accept the Real Presence as a mystery.

Who’s to say that there is no loss to a soul who has been aborted even with the beatific vision? Using the same logic, there is no suffering in purgatory either. The beatific vision is such a huge mystery that none of us can even begin to understand it. For you to say that there is no loss to a soul due to original sin even if they have the beatific vision is pure speculation on your part. You have no idea what “consequences” are suffered by a soul who was utterly rejected by its mother and robbed of the gift of life - despite the risk of sinning. So, don’t tell me that I haven’t “completely and accurately disputed” your premises, when much of what you have said is as speculative.

Frankly, I’m not really concerned whether you or Steve accept anything I said. I was only answering a poll. And I only entered into the debate because you accused me of imputing things to God that He never said.

It is because I accept everything that the Church teaches that I believe the Church absolutely will not give-up the theory of Limbo, though it might banish the term Limbo. I am debating these points in order to show people why the theory of Limbo is so important, clearly I have failed in that effort, sadly.

God Bless you.

 

[mchale]

Bill, on the contrary, no one on these forums has ever answered this argument: if all unbaptized infants are guaranteed heaven, then it is better to be aborted than to be born.

Actually I have answered it before. Killing, in any form, is against God’s Law for man. God has a plan for all of us, and it is best when that plan is lived out. No one, not me, not a mother, not anyone else can claim that it is better to send a child to an early death, even if heaven is assured, than it is to let that child live the life God has planned for them.

The link between “dropping” limbo and encouraging abortion is hardly spurious. If all aborted infants are guaranteed heaven, whereas those who are born risk dying in unrepented mortal sin and going to hell for all eternity, then, logically, it is preferable, from a Catholic perspective, to be aborted than to be born.

On the contrary, even if we accept the premise that unbaptised are garunteed heaven (and we don’t, we only hope that they might), we can reject the conclusion because as I have said, it deliberately abrogates God’s plan for that life. Further, as I have pointed out, no one has used baptisim as a justification for infanticide, at least no one who is sane. The reason is that we recognize that any benefit that the infant might enjoy is overwhelmed by the intrinsic evil of the act. Regardless of the state of the soul, murder, especially murder of the innocent, is intrinsically evil and cannot be balanced against any good attained as a result.

In this scenario, abortionists, altough they themselves are committing the mortal sin of murder and thus imperiling their own salvation, are nonetheless indirectly securing the beatific vision for their victims. Consequently, abortion, though not better for the abortionist, is certainly better for the unborn child, and abortionists are doing them a favor by killing them.

And how many abortionists really care enough about the reasoning of the Church to make this link? I think it can be safely argued that any person who uses this idea as justification for abortion or a more conventional killing is probably not completely sane.

The point is not to absolve those perpetrating the abortion of the sin of murder, or to justify post-Baptism infanticide, but rather to point out, through an argumentum ad absurdum based on Catholic premises, that it is absurd to say that all unbaptized infants attain the beatific vision. In view of this absurdity, it follows that the Catholic Church cannot eliminate the theological deduction known as limbo.

As I have pointed out though, the very argument would in fact not only justify, but rather would encourage post-baptisim infanticide. Further, even if the argument had merit, it is not, in itself, a justification for teaching limbo. The only measure for teaching should be the truth.

This is an airtight argument. It has only two escape hatches: you can either (1) deny the dogma of hell by saying that *everyone *goes to heaven, or (2) abandon the Faith altogether.

Or, I could accept what I believe the current teaching of the Church is, as interpreted by Ratzinger in that quote I posted in the other thread. Ultimately, we don’t know what happens to infants who die unbaptized, but we can hope in God’s mercy to find a way that they might be saved.

Bill, respectfully and fraternally, I challenge you and those who agree with you on limbo to disprove this common-sense conclusion: if all unbaptized infants are guaranteed heaven, then it is better to be aborted than to be born.

Keep and spread the Faith.

That it is against God’s law, and God’s plan for the individual is enough for me to conclude it is better to live than to be killed at any point in life.

–
Bill

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

The catechism is only binding on the Latin church. The eastern CATHOLIC churches have their own catechisms, as well as their own canon laws. They also believe in original sin, but understand it differently. The Vatican, I believe, has modified the entry of original sin in their new catechism to be promulgated to be more in line with this fact.

Woodstock, please read, or read again, Pope John Paul II’s 1992 Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum, in which he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

scborromeo.org/ccc/aposcons.htm

You will see that John Paul II promulgated the new catechism for the ***entire ***Catholic Church in both the West and the East, and for the benefit of everyone who is in communion with the successor of Peter. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is binding on every Catholic without exception.

If you are in communion with Rome–and I hope you are–that means you, buddy!

The fact that national hierarchies in the West and the East may publish their own local catechisms–as the American hierarchy has done–is irrelevant. All national catechisms must be in accord with the one true Faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Eastern Churches that are in communion with the Holy See believe in the same dogma of original sin as that in which Catholics of the Roman rite believe. And the new catechism’s sections on original sin (385-412) have ***not ***been altered.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

Actually I have answered it before. Killing, in any form, is against God’s Law for man. God has a plan for all of us, and it is best when that plan is lived out. No one, not me, not a mother, not anyone else can claim that it is better to send a child to an early death, even if heaven is assured, than it is to let that child live the life God has planned for them.

On the contrary, even if we accept the premise that unbaptised are garunteed heaven (and we don’t, we only hope that they might), we can reject the conclusion because as I have said, it deliberately abrogates God’s plan for that life. Further, as I have pointed out, no one has used baptisim as a justification for infanticide, at least no one who is sane. The reason is that we recognize that any benefit that the infant might enjoy is overwhelmed by the intrinsic evil of the act. Regardless of the state of the soul, murder, especially murder of the innocent, is intrinsically evil and cannot be balanced against any good attained as a result.

And how many abortionists really care enough about the reasoning of the Church to make this link? I think it can be safely argued that any person who uses this idea as justification for abortion or a more conventional killing is probably not completely sane.

As I have pointed out though, the very argument would in fact not only justify, but rather would encourage post-baptisim infanticide. Further, even if the argument had merit, it is not, in itself, a justification for teaching limbo. The only measure for teaching should be the truth.

Or, I could accept what I believe the current teaching of the Church is, as interpreted by Ratzinger in that quote I posted in the other thread. Ultimately, we don’t know what happens to infants who die unbaptized, but we can hope in God’s mercy to find a way that they might be saved.

That it is against God’s law, and God’s plan for the individual is enough for me to conclude it is better to live than to be killed at any point in life.

–
Bill

No, Bill, you have not met the challenge.

Neither you nor anyone else can overturn this truth: the absolute certitude of attaining the beatific vision is better than the risk of going to hell for all eternity.

Eternal happiness is obviously better than eternal suffering.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[mchale]

Yes, and I have heard people use that argument before and that is before the Church brought-up the notion of unpbaptized babies going to Heaven. If the Church gets rid of Limbo, it will make this argument become even more acceptable. I have plenty of people across various sites say exactly that.

You are claiming that there are people who say we should commit infanticide immediately after baptisim? If so then they are quite twisted since killing infants is against both the law of God and the law of nature. Likewise, so is aborting infants. The potential benefit that a child might obtain (i.e. immediate entry into heaven) cannot be justified by the intrinsic evil thus performed. Catholics have never accepted the ends justifying the means.

Some Catholics will know their fiath and will continue as they should. The majority will simply take the opportunity to become even more lazy about getting their kids baptized. They might also start complaing that baptism should not be required for first communion and they most definitely would extend the argument (among many lay Catholics) that sacramental confession is not at all required and that Catholics need only to confess privately to God. Original sin becomes meaningless in this environment.

If Catholics are so lax regarding the state of their own soul, what makes you think they even care what the Church teaches regarding the state of unbaptized infants? In my experience, even if the parents are decidedly lax, they want their baptized if for no other reason than new parents love these little milestones in their child’s life. Ultimately, I believe the issue of resistence to sacremental confession has more to do with being too embarassed to admit to anyone the sins one has committed.

If we are going to speak about only things that the Church can prove, then the Church has no business making these statements at all, nor should it be saying non-Catholics might be saved, because Jesus tied baptism to salvation and that IS the only thing the Church can prove. By saying anything else the Church is already saying something beyond revelation. So, using your words, the Church could get rid of Limbo if it truly concludes it does not exist, yet it must then make the statement that no-one but Catholics are saved as far as it knows.

Mind, you the Church has never said that anyone outside the Church is saved. Rather it says that some might be united invisibly to the Church and thus saved, but it doesn’t say that those people actually exist.

–
Bill

 

[Tom317]

You are claiming that there are people who say we should commit infanticide immediately after baptisim? If so then they are quite twisted since killing infants is against both the law of God and the law of nature. Likewise, so is aborting infants. The potential benefit that a child might obtain (i.e. immediate entry into heaven) cannot be justified by the intrinsic evil thus performed. Catholics have never accepted the ends justifying the means.

Of course it would be an evil, no doubt at all. Yet, what you miss is that evil of abortion is ongoing, so we cannot make a plea to people who do that by saying it is evil. The point to think about is that those same types of people will now feel even more justified (and there are millions in that category), because they will say the Church says the babies to Heaven, it would become an act of love for people to abort their babies.

If Catholics are so lax regarding the state of their own soul, what makes you think they even care what the Church teaches regarding the state of unbaptized infants?

They won’t care, but the problem will grow because killing unborn babies will be seen as act of love…sending to the beatific vision of God in Heaven. You must keep in mind that humans tend to find ways to justify the evils they do, all of us do that to some degree. If pro-abort people latch onto the idea that babies go to Heaven, there will be no stopping them. Pro-life people will be persecuted beyond description.

 

[Tom317]

mchale,

I feel it comes down to this:

If there is no loss or consequence for a baby (born or unborn) as a result of not being baptized, then there is NO reason whatsoever to think Catholics should baptize their babies.

Please, think about that in a practical, non theological, real world way. If there is no consequence, and parents come to believe there is no consequence, then those same parents will see no pressing need to baptized babies soon after birth and abortionists simply get one more piece of justification.

It makes no difference at all that the Church does not formally hold that the babies will absolutely go to Heaven, the very fact that our Pope says he thinks they go to Heaven is enough to be used by hundreds of millions of Catholics across the globe.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

Of course it would be an evil, no doubt at all. Yet, what you miss is that evil of abortion is ongoing, so we cannot make a plea to people who do that by saying it is evil. The point to think about is that those same types of people will now feel even more justified (and there are millions in that category), because they will say the Church says the babies go to Heaven, it would become an act of love for people to abort their babies.

They won’t care, but the problem will grow because killing unborn babies will be seen as act of love…sending to the beatific vision of God in Heaven. You must keep in mind that humans tend to find ways to justify the evils they do, all of us do that to some degree. If pro-abort people latch onto the idea that babies go to Heaven, there will be no stopping them. Pro-life people will be persecuted beyond description.

In French slang, a faiseuse d’anges is a woman who performs abortions. This expression, which has been dated to the beginning of the twentieth century, literally means “angel-maker.” Ask anyone with a good knowledge of French about this.

How did this expression come into use? The confusion of some lax, poorly instructed French Catholics had led them to think that aborted babies go to heaven. Angels live in heaven, not limbo, right?

What happened in France could well have occurred in other Catholic cultures. And it would certainly happen all over the world if the Catholic Church were to say, or even appear to say, that all unbaptized infants infallibly go straight to heaven.

But Christ will keep his promises to his Church (Mt 16:18), and she won’t say something she can’t possibly say.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Holly3278]

How about none of the above?

 

[Woodstock]

In French slang, a faiseuse d’anges is a woman who performs abortions. This expression, which has been dated to the beginning of the twentieth century, literally means “angel-maker.” Ask anyone with a good knowledge of French about this.

How did this expression come into use? The confusion of some lax, poorly instructed French Catholics had led them to think that aborted babies go to heaven. Angels live in heaven, not limbo, right?

What happened in France could well have occurred in other Catholic cultures. And it would certainly happen all over the world if the Catholic Church were to say, or even appear to say, that all unbaptized infants infallibly go straight to heaven.

But Christ will keep his promises to his Church (Mt 16:18), and she won’t say something she can’t possibly say.

Keep and spread the Faith.

That makes no sense.

1. How many people a year debate whether or not to have an abortion based on if their baby will go to limbo instead of heaven?
2. This implies that a fear of limbo is justified, which also undermines the previous argument that it is a perfectly happy thought for a parent to know his or her child is in limbo.
3. If a person thought along these lines, they would logically conclude that having the baby, baptizing it, then killing it is the best course of action.

This is insane grasping at straws to insist on a theological construct that is completely unnecessary.

 

[Tom317]

In French slang, a faiseuse d’anges is a woman who performs abortions. This expression, which has been dated to the beginning of the twentieth century, literally means “angel-maker.” Ask anyone with a good knowledge of French about this.

How did this expression come into use? The confusion of some lax, poorly instructed French Catholics had led them to think that aborted babies go to heaven. Angels live in heaven, not limbo, right?

What happened in France could well have occurred in other Catholic cultures. And it would certainly happen all over the world if the Catholic Church were to say, or even appear to say, that all unbaptized infants infallibly go straight to heaven.

But Christ will keep his promises to his Church (Mt 16:18), and she won’t say something she can’t possibly say.

Keep and spread the Faith.

Good points all. I think Catholics need to think about what non-formed lay Catholics will do with those sorts of statements. Well formed Catholics will understand what the Church is saying, but poorly formed Catholics will think the Church has declared all babies go straight to Heaven.

 

[Tom317]

That makes no sense.

1. How many people a year debate whether or not to have an abortion based on if their baby will go to limbo instead of heaven?
2. This implies that a fear of limbo is justified, which also undermines the previous argument that it is a perfectly happy thought for a parent to know his or her child is in limbo.
3. If a person thought along these lines, they would logically conclude that having the baby, baptizing it, then killing it is the best course of action.

This is insane grasping at straws to insist on a theological construct that is completely unnecessary.

It is perfectly sane.

Fear of loss for the baby is what Catholics should hold, so yes far of Limbo in a certain sense is what is implied here. Catholics should fear that there babies will go to Limbo and miss out on the beatific vision, even though souls in LImbo are said to enjoy profound happiness, it is not the same happiness a soul in heaven experiences.

People have been trained that killing born babies is murder, but somehow killing unborn babies is not the same thing. This leads them to conclude that they cannot murder a born child, but that they can murder an unborn child, and our laws fully support those thoughts. If the concept of Limbo goes away, it simply gives more support to people to kill the unborn, it makes it far more acceptable to kill the babies that are unborn because it would become an act of love from the mother, especially since the culture has taught many people (and a large percentage of Catholics) that the unborn are not fully human.

The concept (note: concept) of Limbo is critical and removing that concept will cause a great ripple across the faith that most people here refuse to see, or just stubbornly will not acknowledge.

The same thing happened during Vatican II, manu people predicted dire things, and their predictions came true.

 

[Woodstock]

If there is no loss or consequence for a baby (born or unborn) as a result of not being baptized, then there is NO reason whatsoever to think Catholics should baptize their babies.

Please, think about that in a practical, non theological, real world way. If there is no consequence, and parents come to believe there is no consequence, then those same parents will see no pressing need to baptized babies soon after birth and abortionists simply get one more piece of justification.

Marriage is a sacrament. Will there be marrying in heaven? We know there will not be. So why do we need it here on earth? Because what we need for our spiritual journies here are different things than what we need once we are in heaven. The sacraments assist us in our journies here on earth by giving us grace. Babies who are born need the sacraments (baptism, confirmation, eucharist) to give them this faith and this grace for their journies. Babies who are no longer here no longer need these graces. There is no inconsistancy in saying unbaptized babies go straight to heaven (for the Lord himself said that we should all have faith like children and called them to Himself, despite His closest disciples turning the children away) and in saying those babies here on earth are in need of the sacramental grace that comes from baptism.

Woodstock, please read, or read again, Pope John Paul II’s 1992 Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum, in which he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
…]
The Eastern Churches that are in communion with the Holy See believe in the same dogma of original sin as that in which Catholics of the Roman rite believe. And the new catechism’s sections on original sin (385-412) have not been altered.

It was not wise to have promulgated the catechism with the words he did because it creates confusion such as this. The treatises that covered the various churches entering communion with Rome guarantee them the right to maintain their own theological beliefs and practices. I believe the new catechism, which as I said is to be promulgated, corrects these errors. As we both know, the catechism has changed over time and will change again. This is one of those areas that it will.

Good points all. I think Catholics need to think about what non-formed lay Catholics will do with those sorts of statements. Well formed Catholics will understand what the Church is saying, but poorly formed Catholics will think the Church has declared all babies go straight to Heaven.

What in the world is wrong with the belief that an innocent baby goes straight to Heaven? You don’t like it because it means your work here on earth might not garner you the same results? The Lord said not to worry yourself with such things. Matthew 20:

12 ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’
13"But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?
14’Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.
15’Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’
16"So the last shall be first, and the first last."