Limbo to be abolished?

[QuisUtDeus]

Do you not know that the pope is protestant?

 

No, actually, I don't. The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict is NOT Protestant. What makes you say that he is?

At the funeral of John Paul II, Benedict XVI gave Communion in the hand to his longtime friend Roger Schutze, whom he knew to be Protestant. Would a Catholic priest who believed in the Real Presence do that?

 

Supposedly Schutze converted secretly.  True?  I don't know.  But without contrary evidence, I have to give Rome the benefit of the doubt.

 

There's enough screwiness we have evidence for, so I give the benefit of the doubt when possible.

[darcy]

The last thing I would want to do is cause anyone to lose the Catholic  faith. There are many religions in the world but only one worth having.
 
  The pope is protestant because he is a heretic.
 
  Read some of Father Ratzinger's books and any traditional Catholic  (which is,by definition, any Catholic aged at least 55) and you will  find that he denies Catholic dogma.
 
  Catholic dogma assures us that a heretic can not become pope.
 
  Ratzinger is now the fifth antipope in succession.
 
  Time to wake up Old Catholics before we all die off.! We owe it to the  poor unfortunate young Catholics of the new creed of Vaticanism who  know no better.
 
  We older ones will be answerable for them when we come to judgement.
 
 

[JLeigh]

The last thing I would want to do is cause anyone to lose the Catholic faith. There are many religions in the world but only one worth having.

The pope is protestant because he is a heretic.

Read some of Father Ratzinger's books and any traditional Catholic (which is,by definition, any Catholic aged at least 55) and you will find that he denies Catholic dogma.

Catholic dogma assures us that a heretic can not become pope.

Ratzinger is now the fifth antipope in succession.

Time to wake up Old Catholics before we all die off.! We owe it to the poor unfortunate young Catholics of the new creed of Vaticanism who know no better.

We older ones will be answerable for them when we come to judgement.

Darcy,

 

Please read the Rules & FAQ. Sedevacantist discussions are not allowed here. You are welcome to stay and be a part of our online Trad Community, but accusations such as "anti-pope" or "the pope is a heretic" will not be tolerated and may be deleted.

[jovan66102]

 

The Pope has been refusing to exercise his authority to do so! Hence the confusion! Hence the dissent! My God, we need the Pope to take control and start defining and re-defining things. We need a Catechism saying YOU MUST BELIEVE EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK. We need his infallibility, not his opinions, novelties or hypotheses.

 

Please note that the "non-magisterial" part of this belongs only to the commission which is working on something to present to the CDF; once the CDF adopts it and promulgates it, with papal approval, you can no longer say it is not part of the Magisterium.

 

Limbo is not a dogma.  It's a pious belief, and as someone pointed out, it's a belief born out of our need to tone down reality - unbaptized babies go to hell (perhaps), but we can't handle that, we can't imagine God is that unmerciful, so we propose the idea of Limbo. 

 

Well, maybe this is one of those areas that the Church doesn't want to define as certain and sure.  Maybe it would be more prudent to simply admit we don't know what happens to unbaptized babies.  Maybe they go to hell.  Maybe they go to heaven.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  We don't know.

 

And if the Church wants to formally admit that fact and say, "Hey, Limbo was a nice and pious idea, but our official stance is that we don't know," then the Church can do that.

 

(This has nothing to do with universalism, by the way - it has everything to do with trying to be careful in how we handle what we say about things that are ultimately a mystery)

 

Yes we do know! The Roman Catechism states unequivocally: "The faithful are earnestly to be exhorted, to take care that their children be brought to the church, as soon as it can be done with safety, to receive solemn baptism: infants, unless baptized, cannot enter heaven, and hence we may well conceive how deep the enormity of their guilt, who, through negligence, suffer them to remain without the grace of the sacrament, longer than necessity may require; particularly at an age so tender as to be exposed to numberless dangers of death."

[QuisUtDeus]

Unfortunately, a Catechism is not dogma.  It is a teaching on theological matters.  Since limbo is not defined dogmatically, the Pope has the authority to pull it.

Though, if he does not pull it ex cathedra, it can still be taught as a theological theory (unless he bans it).  It would just carry less weight than it currently does.

 

 

[jovan66102]

Unfortunately, a Catechism is not dogma.  It is a teaching on theological matters.  Since limbo is not defined dogmatically, the Pope has the authority to pull it.

Though, if he does not pull it ex cathedra, it can still be taught as a theological theory (unless he bans it).  It would just carry less weight than it currently does.

 

 

 

You're right of course, but I would say that the unanimous testimony of a thousand years of Popes, Saints, Doctors and the sensus fidei make it part of the ordinary magisterium.

 

There was never any opinion expressed that unbaptised children go to heaven. The argument was whether or not they went to the fires of hell or to someplace of less suffering (limbo). The Church, prompted by God's mercy, chose limbo.

 

I lost a brother to still birth many years ago. My protestant parents did not have him baptised of course. The choices are, as I see it based on Scripture and the general teaching of the Church, hell or limbo. I opt for limbo.

[QuisUtDeus]

Yeah, I don't know what to say.  They'll have a pickle of a time because baptism as a requirement for entrance into heaven is a dogma AFAIK, so they can't say they just get into heaven.  At least with a straight face.

 

If they aren't martyred, there is no baptism of blood, and since they don't have the use of reason, there is no baptism of desire.  And the Church cannot supply desire like it can jurisdiction.

 

It may end up being "we don't know".

 

And technically we don't.  All we know is that God is all-loving and all-just, so I really doubt they would go to hell.  God will take care of them in His own way.  Limbo is one possible explanation of how that happens.

 

Limbo is a problematic theory, though.  When the Resurrection occurs, we're reunited with our bodies.  Some in heaven, some in hell.  But what do you do with a body in limbo? A body in a perfect natural state would still require food and drink.

 

But it would be a grevious mistake to eliminate limbo and say "we don't know" because that gives people license to make up their own theories no matter how strange.

 

Things like this remind me that Pope Benedict is the last on the list of Malachi's prophecy before Peter of Rome.  There was some other vision by another mystic that the Church was being taken apart brick-by-brick.  Limbo, while not a cornerstone, is certainly one of the bricks, as is the TLM, etc.

[Paul]

Limbo is a problematic theory, though.  When the Resurrection occurs, we're reunited with our bodies.  Some in heaven, some in hell.  But what do you do with a body in limbo? A body in a perfect natural state would still require food and drink.

It can be a glorified body, not requiring food and drink, while still lacking the supernatural grace of the Beatific Vision. Those in Limbo are in a state of natural happiness, not necessarily a natural state as they were when alive.

[kjvail]

A good theological discussion of the subject

 

Could Limbo Be 'Abolished'?

by Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S.

 

[jovan66102]

A good theological discussion of the subject

 

Could Limbo Be 'Abolished'?

by Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S.

 

 

Excellent article, kjvail. Thanks for posting it.

[OLRansom]

Limbo isn't dogma; it's a probability given certain dogmas.

Actually it flows from Catholic dogma (and to deny it gets one in some difficult positions theologically).  If you deny it, where did Our Lord go whilst his Sacred Body was in the tomb?  To the very lair of the Devil, in the presence of souls who had been damned already? 

 

Even if one grants that there was a Limbo of the Fathers which is no longer in existence (and that this is/was different from the Limbo of the Infants), one must ask: Where do unbaptized children go when they die, if not to Limbo? 

 

One is forced to place them in:

 

1. Heaven (impossible)

 

2. Hell strictly so called (suffering with those guilty of actual sin)

 

Likewise, where did the Patriarchs and holy men of the OT era go, for they could not have gone to Heaven until Our Blessed Lord had accomplished His earthly mission?

[jovan66102]

Limbo isn't dogma; it's a probability given certain dogmas.

Actually it flows from Catholic dogma (and to deny it gets one in some difficult positions theologically).  If you deny it, where did Our Lord go whilst his Sacred Body was in the tomb?  To the very lair of the Devil, in the presence of souls who had been damned already? 

 

Where do unbaptized children go when they die? 

 

One is forced to place them in:

 

1. Heaven (impossible)

 

2. Hell strictly so called (suffering with those guilty of actual sin)

 

Likewise, where did the Patriarchs and holy men of the OT era go, for they could not have gone to Heaven until Our Blessed Lord had accomplished His earthly mission?

 

Actually, the debate seems to be limited to the limbo of infants not including the limbo of the just.

[OLRansom]

Actually, the debate seems to be limited to the limbo of infants not including the limbo of the just.

Even so, one must place unbaptized infants in Heaven or Hell strictly so called - if there is no Limbo.

[Kephapaulos]

Here is a link to a set of links to some sections found in the Summa Theologica concerning limbo and other places found in the realm of eternity:

 

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/506900.htm

[jovan66102]

Actually, the debate seems to be limited to the limbo of infants not including the limbo of the just.

Even so, one must place unbaptized infants in Heaven or Hell strictly so called - if there is no Limbo.

 

I suggest you check the link Kephapaulos posted immediately above. St Thomas distinguishes between the two.