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Centuries’ Old Doctrine “Now out of
Date”
Analysis: Vatican may have finally put
Limbo in limbo
By Steve Gushee
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — There is hope for unbaptized infants after all,
but, first, they have to die. Then, just possibly, they might go to
heaven. Theologians seem to be making some progress in their
understanding of a loving, merciful God. Most lay people know this
instinctively.
The Vatican's International Theological Commission published a paper in
April that offers promise if not certainty to unbaptized infants. Limbo
may be, finally, in limbo. The commission conceded there are good
reasons to hope that babies who die without baptism may go to heaven.
The paper acknowledges, as if it were breaking news, that God is
merciful and "wants all human beings to be saved," according to a report
in America, the Jesuit weekly magazine.
Previously, the church quickly confined unbaptized infants who died to
Limbo, a bland place that, while not partaking of the joys of heaven,
was still the mildest form of damnation possible, according to no less
an authority than the fourth-century saint, Augustine.
The issue behind such ungraceful teaching is rooted in the arrogance of
the church, both Catholic and Evangelical, that it holds exclusive
rights to the gates of heaven.
For centuries, Roman Catholic teaching has been that there is no
salvation outside the church, and baptism was the border rite. For
evangelicals, the slogan has been that one has to be reborn in Christ.
The church, Catholic and Protestant, determined everyone's ultimate
destiny. That has been the source of its enormous power over the years.
The Roman Catholic Church began to modify that teaching in the aftermath
of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. That great council
understood that God could work outside the parameters of the church.
Most evangelicals remain less merciful, insisting that a born-again
personal relationship with Jesus is necessary for salvation.
Limbo for unbaptized infants who die was never official church teaching.
It is not in the Bible, and it is not church doctrine. Nevertheless, the
church consistently and clearly taught the idea, and the faithful widely
accepted it.
A new mother, a Jehovah's Witness, sued New York's Bellevue Hospital in
the 1960s, when a Catholic nurse baptized her dying infant against her
express wishes. The nurse's faith and fear of Limbo for her tiny patient
apparently drove her to such extremes.
Now, a Vatican commission hopes that infants who die without baptism
will go to heaven. Their verdict is tentative, but it's a start.
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