{"id":11035,"date":"2007-04-20T15:59:29","date_gmt":"2007-04-20T22:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/04\/20\/not-everybody-limbo.html"},"modified":"2007-04-20T15:59:29","modified_gmt":"2007-04-20T22:59:29","slug":"not_everybody_limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/20\/not_everybody_limbo.html","title":{"rendered":"(Not) Everybody Limbo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theological ineffability from the Vatican, as the Pope proclaims that babies who die unbaptized don’t necessarily end up in Limbo, but may very well go to Heaven<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

It all seems like it’s theological hair-splitting about Things Unknowable (as Ginny<\/a> puts it, “Next week: the Pope announces just exactly how many angels can do the foxtrot on the head of a pin (hint: fewer than can do the jitterbug, because of all the extra space needed for the fancy moves).”<\/em>), but aside from trying to make proclamations about trivia not formally covered by Catholic theology, there may be some reasons for focusing on the question of infant salvation.<\/p>\n

\n

Although Catholics have long believed that children who die without being baptized are with original sin and thus excluded from heaven, the church has no formal doctrine on the matter. Theologians have long taught, however, that such children enjoy an eternal state of perfect natural happiness, a state commonly called limbo, but without being in communion with God.<\/p>\n

Pope John Paul II and Benedict had urged further study on limbo, in part because of “the pressing pastoral needs” sparked by the increase in abortion and the growing number of children who die without being baptized, the report said.<\/p>\n

In the document, the commission said there were “serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and brought into eternal happiness.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now, I can offer the same guess<\/strike> hope (I’m more of a universalist<\/a> myself), but, then, I’m not claiming any sort of authority or knowledge ex cathedra<\/em>.  And, to be sure, neither the commission nor the Pope are claiming absolute certainty here …<\/p>\n

\n

It stressed, however, that “these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge.”<\/p>\n

Ladaria said no one could know for certain what becomes of unbaptized babies since Scripture is largely silent on the matter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which makes you wonder what then the point of the Formal Study and Papal Endorsement of Same.<\/p>\n

Of course, it also makes one wonder when, if infants are (maybe) safely saved, the implicit “age of toddler damnmation” actually begins.  Or, at least, when the commission and the Pope deem it to be.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theological ineffability from the Vatican, as the Pope proclaims that babies who die unbaptized don’t necessarily end up in Limbo, but may very well go to Heaven. Maybe. It all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8393,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/29\/limbo_in_limbo.html","url_meta":{"origin":11035,"position":0},"title":"Limbo in limbo?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 29-Nov-05 2:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Catholic Church may change its teaching (or at least its nomenclature) on the concept of Limbo -- a place where unbaptized souls go, particularly those of children. According to...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128900,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/19\/the-ineffability-of-whiteness.html","url_meta":{"origin":11035,"position":1},"title":"The Ineffability of Whiteness","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 19-Nov-15 9:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Read through any literature of the 19th and early 20th Century, and it's clear that Italians (and Spaniards and Greeks and Turks) were not considered \"White\". They were (code word \"swarthy\") Mediterraneans, passionate and lazy and ruled by the mid-day sun. Oh, and a lot of them were Papists to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48864,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/11\/all-dogs-go-to-heaven-the-pope-says-so.html","url_meta":{"origin":11035,"position":2},"title":"All Dogs Go to Heaven. The Pope says so","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Dec-14 12:09am","format":false,"excerpt":"Besides the theological discussion in the article, I also learned a new word: \"moggie\" (or \"moggy\"), apparently the cat equivalent of \"mutt.\" Pope Francis: Animals Go To Heaven Pope Francis declared recently in his regular... View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32496,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/11\/the-golden-opportunity-for-the-catholic-church-which-it-probably-wont-take.html","url_meta":{"origin":11035,"position":3},"title":"The golden opportunity for the Catholic Church (which it probably won’t take)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 11-Feb-13 11:39am","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm not Catholic myself, but I was raised that way, and have family who still are, and I'm Episcopalian which is quite similar (except where it's quite different, including cute English accents), so I have at least some standing and background to comment on Catholic matters. The resignation (abdication?)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/The-cross-of-Pope-Benedic-0111.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/The-cross-of-Pope-Benedic-0111.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/The-cross-of-Pope-Benedic-0111.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":133961,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/the-making-of-an-ambassador.html","url_meta":{"origin":11035,"position":4},"title":"The Making of an Ambassador","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Jul-17 7:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Every President does a certain measure of goofy stuff with ambassadorial nominations, and it's not like the Ambassador to the Vatican is a critical foreign diplomatic post. 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Sure, there's may well be more poetry in some of the changes, but any liturgy that adds in the word \"consubstantial\" is being driven\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}