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 | Because they suffer from original sin, they will end up being tortured in Hell for all eternity. On the bright side, many church theologians suggest that they might suffer a lighter degree of pain than adults who died in mortal sin. However, their punishment will still be infinite in nature because it will last forever. |
| Because they suffer from original sin but not from any sin that they have personally committed, they will spend eternity in Limbo -- a pleasant place where they will never mature into adulthood. |
In recent decades, some Catholic theologians have departed from the Church's traditional position and suggested that unbaptized infants, etc. may somehow attain salvation and thus be accepted into Heaven. The current Catechism states that there is a possibility that this might happen. A document issued by the Church's International Theological Commission and approved by Pope Paul XVI states that there are "... serious theological and liturgical grounds" for hope in their eventual salvation.
The Church's position on Limbo seems to remain in limbo.
Early statements by Roman Catholic theologians:
| The "Limbo of the Fathers" is not mentioned in the Bible, but is believed to be a state or place for the souls of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and other believers who died before Christ's ascension. They may have qualified for Heaven on the basis of their holiness during life, or on the basis of attaining holiness through painful discipline in Purgatory. However, they must wait in this Limbo until the time of the Final Judgment when they will be admitted to Heaven. Meanwhile, they generally believed to be in a state of happiness. Limbo is this state/location mentioned in the Apostles' Creed where Jesus Christ is said to have visited during the almost 2 days between his death and resurrection. |
| The "Limbo of children" (a.k.a. Limbo, Linbus Infantium,
Puerorum) is believed by many Roman Catholics to be a state where embryos;
fetuses; unbaptized
newborns and infants; and children who die before the age of accountability
when they become capable of committing grievous actual sin; enjoy
perfect natural happiness. Catholic theologians have traditionally agreed that the
unbaptized are excluded from Heaven. Although belief in Limbo is common, the Roman Catholic church has never formally proclaimed its existence as a dogma in which its membership must believe. |
Some Church leaders have commented on the fate of unbaptized infants:
| 4th century CE:
| ||||
| 5th century CE: St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430) convinced the Council of Carthage (418 CE) to reject the concept of limbo "of any place...in which children who pass out of this life unbaptized live in happiness." According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: "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." i.e. they go to Hell for eternal punishment, but are not as badly treated as other inmates. According to Revelation 14:10, the infants would be tortured in the presence of Jesus. However, this verse is ambigous about whether Jesus is directing or merely observing the torture. | ||||
| 11th century: St. Anselm (1033 - 1109 CE) supported St. Augustine's belief that "unbaptized children share in the positive sufferings of the damned [in Hell]."1 | ||||
| 12th century: Peter Abelard (1079 - 1142) deviated from St. Augustine by rejecting material torment (poena sensus) and retained only the pain of loss (poena damni) as the eternal punishment of unbaptized infants for their original sin. | ||||
| 13th century: St Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274), who was the first major theologian to speculate about the existence of a place called limbo. Its name is derived from the Latin limbus which means "hem" or "edge". There, on the edge of heaven, the unbaptised would exist in a state of what he described as "natural happiness". | ||||
| 14th century: Pope John XXII's issued an Epistle to the
Armenians in 1321 CE. Fr. Brian W. Harrison writes that the Epistle, along with two earlier ecumenical councils: |
"... teach that the souls of those who die in original sin ... go down without delay into Hell' where, however, they suffer 'different punishments' from those who die in actual mortal sin."
Harrison suggests that this "... could only be infants and the mentally retarded who never reach the use of reason," and who were never baptized. 6 Presumably, the "different punishments" would involve a lighter level of torture of the infants than is experienced by adults who die in moral sin.
| 15th century:
|
"Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, since no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the devil and adopted among the sons of God, [the Church] advises that holy baptism ought not to be deferred for forty or eighty days, ... but it should be conferred as soon as it can be done conveniently." 6
| 16th century:
| ||||||
| 18th century: A group known as the Jansenists reverted to St. Augustine's belief. They rejected the idea of Limbo in favor of eternal torture of unbaptized infants, etc. in Hell. In response, Pope Pius VI wrote Auctorem Fidei in 1794. It condemned their teaching as being "false, rash, and injurious to Catholic education" because they denied the existence of a place "which the faithful generally designate by the name of limbo for children." Pope Pius VI implied that there are two possibilities: that unbaptized infants might spend eternity comfortably in Limbo or they might spend it being tortured in Hell. The Jansenists' denial of the possibility of Limbo was un-Catholic. | ||||||
| 19th century: Theologian Heinrich Klee speculated that God might enlighten the infant at the instant of death and enable them to make a decision for or against God. |
20th and 21st century Catholic teachings:
| 1905: Pope Pius X made a definitive declaration confirming the existence of Limbo. However, this was not an infallible statement by the pope: |
"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."
| 1958: The Holy Office (once the Inquisition and now the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) was critical of some believers who delayed baptism because of their belief in Limbo. They concluded: "Therefore this Supreme Congregation, with the approval of the Holy Father, warns the faithful that infants are to be baptized as soon as possible..." (Acta L, 114). |
| 1960s: The Second Vatican Council stated, in Gaudium et Spes 22: "For since Christ died for all (Rom. 8:32)...we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all [humans] the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery." |
| 1984: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Vatican's
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated his personal
disbelief concerning Limbo during an interview in . He said that:
He has became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. |
| 1992: Pope John Paul II is reported as having been troubled by the concept of limbo and had mention of it removed from the church's 1992 catechism. |
| 1995: In his encyclical Evangelium Vitae ("The Gospel of LIfe") Pope John Paul II discussed women who have had abortions. He gave an ambiguous statement implying that aborted embryos and fetuses may be in Heaven or Limbo. He wrote: "...You will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord." |
| 1999: Fr. L.E. Latorre comments: |
"Children should be baptized within the first weeks after birth. Children in danger of death should be baptized without delay. Catholic parents who neglect or unreasonably put off for a long time the Baptism of their children commit a mortal sin. It would be a mortal sin, for example, to delay or postpone indefinitely the Baptism of a child in order to save-up or prepare for a big feast, a great worldly show, with dances and dinners and what not. Or, to delay the Baptism in order to wait for the coming of a VIP godparent." 2
| Circa 2004: In an article on 2005-NOV-30, the Scotsman newspaper states that Pope John Paul II had written: |
"The Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God. In fact the great mercy of God, who wants all men to be saved, and the tenderness of Jesus towards children allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who die without baptism." 3 {We have not been able to find a citation for this quotation.}
| 2005: Fr. Brian W. Harrison conducted a survey of relevant historical Catholic magisterial statements and concluded: |
"... that those who now talk about Limbo as only ever having been a mere 'hypothesis', rather than a doctrine, are giving a very misleading impression of the state of the question. They are implying by this that the pre-Vatican II Church traditionally held, or at least implicitly admitted, that an alternate 'hypothesis' for unbaptized infants was their attainment of eternal salvation — Heaven.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Limbo for unbaptized infants was indeed a theological "hypothesis"; but the only approved alternate hypothesis was not Heaven, but very mild hellfire as well as exclusion from the beatific vision! In short, while Limbo as distinct from very mild hellfire was a 'hypothetical' destiny for unbaptized infants, their eternal exclusion from Heaven (with or without any 'pain of sense') — at least after the proclamation of the Gospel, and apart from the 'baptism of blood' of infants slaughtered out of hatred for Christ — this was traditional Catholic doctrine, not a mere hypothesis.
No, it was never dogmatically defined. But the only question is whether the doctrine was infallible by virtue of the universal and ordinary magisterium, or merely "authentic". 6
| 2000's: The Church has long taught that infants slaughtered out of hatred for Christianity experienced "baptism of the blood" and would attain Heaven as martyrs. Some contemporary theologians have suggested that aborted fetuses may be considered martyrs and are therefore saved through the same "Baptism of Blood." |
Current official Catholic teaching:
The current Catechism does not contain a direct mention of Limbo:
| The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in CCC 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' [Mark 10:14, cf. 1 Tim. 2:4], 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".
| The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states in CCC 1257: |
"The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation...The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude...God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism..."
It is important to realize that just because the Church is unaware of any other means does not necessarily mean that such means are not available.
1987 revelation from the Virgin Mary:
A Roman Catholic web site, the Shrine of Our Lady of the Roses, publishes "Directives from Heaven." These are excerpts culled from what which the Shrine believes are "...messages (over 300) given by Heaven to the world over the past twenty-five years. There are currently seventy-five in publication. Each Directive is targeted toward a specific subject which Heaven has willed to enlighten and instruct the world on." One of the Directives deals with abortion and contraception. It contains the following message which the Shrine believes came from the Virgin Mary on 1987-OCT-02.
LIMBO
"And what, My children, are We going to do with all the aborted babies? O My child, I know you feel as I do, for I can see the great distress on your face. What are we going to do, My child? Do you understand when they come to Us, they must go to Limbo? They are in Heaven, a happy place, but they cannot see God. " 4
If this is an accurate message, then it confirms the existence of Limbo. It also represents an additional example of the transferability of sin by punishing the innocent for the sins of others. This theme runs throughout the Bible. In this case, the fetus is punished by never being allowed to see God, in response to either:
| The woman's decision to have an abortion -- an act considered to be a mortal sin by the Roman Catholic Church, or |
| The sin of omission on the part of their parents in not having the child baptized. |
The Roman Catholic Church reported that:
"... a thorough investigation revealed that the alleged 'visions of Bayside' completely lacked authenticity... the 'messages' and other related propaganda contain statements which, among other things, are contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church." 5
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Home > Christianity > History, beliefs... > Specific beliefs > Afterlife > Limbo > here |
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Home > Christianity > Bible > Contents > Afterlife > Limbo > here
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References used:
- Kevin Knight, "The Catholic Encyclopedia" at: http://www.newadvent.org/
- Fr. L.E. Latorre, "Guidebook for Baptism," at: http://www.domestic-church.com/
- Stephen McGinty, "Pope to abandon idea of unbaptised babies forever in limbo," The Scotsman, 2005-NOV-30, at: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/
- "#23 Abortion," Directives from Heaven, Our Lady of the Roses web site at: http://www.roses.org/
- Rev. James J. LeBar, "Cults, Sects, and the New Age" at: http://www.ewtn.com/
- Fr. Brian W. Harrison, "Could Limbo be 'abolished'?" The Seattle Catholic, 2005-DEC-07, at: http://www.seattlecatholic.com
Copyright © 1999 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 1999-DEC-19
Latest update: 2007-APR-21
Author: B.A. Robinson
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