Belief in brief: Limbo

Pope Benedict XVI and the International Theological Commission of the Vatican met in early October to finalize their decision on the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching of limbo and have concluded to abolish the idea from Catholic ideology. Limbo, or “limbus infantium,” is where children who have died before baptism go for eternity because they cannot enter heaven with the mark of original sin. The pope, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, has long been an opponent of the church’s teaching of limbo, which is not included in official Catholic doctrine. The issue was first investigated two years ago when Cardinal Ratzinger was the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Origins

Theologians founded the idea of limbo on Scriptures that express the need for baptism in order to enter heaven. The Bible does not explicitly mention limbo or any other type of intermediate place, but theologians formulated limbo to explain where unbaptized children, who have no sin of their own, go. In the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote of a place where unbaptized infants go; and, although there is no suffering, they are not in heaven with God. On the other hand, St. Augustine declared that children, because they have original sin, cannot reach the vision of Christ and therefore go to hell, but their place in hell is less severe than that for unbaptized adults.

The Catholic Catechism states, “As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God.”

The new teaching

The commission decided the church’s focus should be on God’s mercy and his willingness to save each child and bring them to heaven, which they say makes more sense than the idea of limbo. While the Catholic Church still stresses the necessity of children being baptized, the commission said the new teaching should give comfort to parents whose children die unexpectedly and to those who are concerned for the fate of aborted fetuses.

Sources: www.newadvent.org, The Catholic News Service and www.vatican.va