Pope Says no more limbo???

:laugh:

What does he think happens to infants now? If baptism is needed for salvation, does that mean the RCC believes that all those who die pre-baptism burn in hell?

 

Reading the article...

Webdog,

I think that if you read the entire article, and maybe even the original report on the Catholic News Service, you would find the answer to your question is rather apparent. Of course the Pope is not proposing that unbaptized babies burn in hell, but exactly the opposite -- the Christ welcomes unbaptized infants directly into heaven.

 

Dogma...

The Catholic Church never regarded limbo as dogma (a required belief of the Church), but rather left it up to individual Catholics to decide for themselves. The latest development simply states that the Catholic Church, as an official institution, lends that the existance of limbo for unbaptised infants is less likely than originally believed. Still, nothing has been "etched in stone" as far as official Catholic teaching is concerned. It's much like the largely Protestant belief of speaking in tongues. It's not a required belief to be Protestant (depending on the sect). The congregation is largely left to their own personal views on the subject and align themselves with the Protestant strain that most reflects their beliefs.

 

I saw an article in Catholic Digest reviewing the history of Infant Baptism - this idea that infants are NOT automatically saved was the entire reason for the RCC inventing the idea of infant baptism.

So "what now"??

No more infant baptism for Catholics???

In Christ,

Bob

 

I believe it was 'Saint' Cyprian whom established the need for Infant Baptism...

The correlation between the practice of infant baptism and the doctrine of original sin was first made visible in the works of St. Cyprian. It had apparently been a custom for some parts of the church to baptize infants on the eighth day after their birth, but St. Cyprian insisted that this was too long to wait:

"If, when they subsequently come to believe, forgiveness of sins is granted even to the worst transgressors and to those who have sinned much against God, and if no one is denied access to baptism and to grace; how much less right do we have to deny it to an infant, who, having been born recently, has not personally sinned, except in that , being born physically according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death by his first birth! [The infant] approaches that much more easily to the reception of the forgiveness of sins because the sins remitted to him are not his own, but those of another."

St. Cyprian did not in fact elaborate these sentiments into a full-scale theory about the origin and the propagation of "the contagion of the ancient death." But he did invoke a doctrine of original sin to account for a practice about whose apostolic credentials and sacramental validity he had no question whatsoever.

'Saint' Cyprian's sentiments are later canonized by 'Saint' Augustine in the Council of Mileum II...

Council of Mileum II 416, Approved by Innocent and Council of Carthage (XVI) 418, Approved by Zosimus against the Pelagians

The First Canon States:

All the bishops established in the sacred synod of the Carthaginian Chruch have decided that whoever says that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or whether he did not sin, he would die in body, that is he would go out of the body not because of the merit of sin but by reason of the necessity of nature, let him be anothema.

The Second Canon states:

Likewise it has been decided that whoever says that infants fresh from their mothers' wombs ought not to be baptized, or says that they are indeed baptized unto the remission of sins, but that they draw nothing of the original sin from Adam, which is expiated in the bath of regeneration, whence it follows that in regard to them the form of baptism "unto the remission of sins" is understood as not true, but as false, let him be anathema. Since what the Apostle says: "Though one man sin entered into the world (and through sin death), and so passed into all men, in whom all have sinned" [cf. Romans 5:12], must not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith even infants, who in themselves thus far have not been able to commit any sin, are therefore truly baptized unto the remission of sins, so that that which they have contracted from generation may be cleansed in them by regeneration.

These Carthaginian canons were accepted by the Church at the Ecumenical Council in AD 431. They were received yet again at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (the Second Council of Nicea) in AD 787.

It is our doctrine of the 'Age of Accountability' which holds back the damnation reserved for 'children of wrath' and the 'necessity for a Second Birth' for Salvation as 'adoptive children of God'. Salvation is not something we are owed nor deserve but are given by grace.

With that said what I believe we are witnessing in the Roman Catholic Church is the dismantling of Scholastic Theology which has reigned in the Vatican for the last thousand years and an embracing of renewed Patristic Theology more in common with the church of the 6th or 7th Century.

 

the pope must not have a great knowledge of the RCC, then, because the entire point of infant baptism is to prevent infants from going to hell.

 

Actually, in the early Church, there was several hypothesis on this and 'Saints' Cyprian and Augustine and the synod of Carthage was one which has perdominated in the West. The Greek Fathers (this would also include the Alexandrian School and 'Saint' Athanasius leaned toward apokatastasis of one form or another. Even our own doctrine of an Age of Accountability assumes some kind of power for God to put things right.

The Popes of the last hundred years appears to lament Scholastism and have been making stides away from it. I applaud their efforts to do so.

 

I understand Limbo was always on the edge of Catholic theory, and therefore I don't think it is appropriate to criticize RCC on this issue very much.
The only thing that we should remember is that RCC change the theory from time to time, which happens to the Protestants as well.

 

Not so. Scripture is clear on this subject, but many try to explain it away philosophically.

 

I believe you know how challenging it can be to prove 'Age of Accountability' as I believe we both recently dealt with this recently with a few Calvinists....

I've argued 'Age of Accountability' but I have to do it by inference. Do you have a particular passage or a sellection of verses you use to establish 'Age of Accountability without appeals to a certain sense of fairness on behalf of our Lord?

 

You are missing the point.

Infant baptism was to protect the infant from hell or in the BEST of all worlds - from LIMBO.

Limbo was always the "nice alternative" to infinite torture in hell.

By depriving the RCC of the option of Lmbo you leave only hell as the motivation for infant baptism "historically".

Now if they want to change today to some other basis - that is fine -- but history is what it is and even THEY admit it.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Not at all. The article indicates that the decision is that they go directly into Heaven.

Limbo was only a speculation held by some Catholics.

In the 1994-7 Catechism of the Catholic Church 1260, the fate was held as uncertain. That was the official stance held by the Vatican.

However, I predicted based on it and its neighboring paragraphs that the judgment that unsprinkled/undipped infants go to Heaven was on its way. I just did not expect it to come so soon.

Yeah right.

Do not expect the Vatican to ever admit that it has been wrong on something it has fought so hard for. It will still tell Catholics and everyone to put their children through a baptism-related ceremony.

My own thought: there is no such thing as "infant baptism." 1 Peter 3:21a "which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism,| not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a |clear conscience” (ASV|NASB|RSV 1952). Baptism is a representation of repentance, and where there is no repentance, there is no baptism.

 

Sir, I may have been wrong in understanding the issue.

But, RCC was not very much systematic as much as in Purgatory, though it is connected with Infant Baptism.

I would not fight on this issue very much.

 

I did manage to see what they published on this subject -

From Catholic Digest (Parenthesis mine in the quotes below) from the June 1999 article. Article by Bill Dodds begins on page 42 and is titled “Baptism Comes Full Circle”. (Page 42 is just a picture of an infant being sprinkled – so no actual words on that page).

Please see www.catholicdigest.org for the full article that hints to the changes that have evolved over time.

 

Previous source continued --

"it's important to keep in mind that the doctrine of baptism developed (evolved) over time. It was not easy, for instance, determining what to do with those who seriously sinned after baptism" pg 47

"coupled with that was the role of infant baptism. (Catholic) scholars assume that when the 'whole households' were baptized, it included children, even very young ones"

"but again [quote]
it was the development of the doctrine, such as st. Augustine's description of original sin in the fifth century that eventually made infant baptism predominant. At that point
(read change),
baptism was no longer seen as the beginning of moral life, but (it became viewed) a guarantee of accpetance into heaven after death.[/quote]

"in the early (dark ages) middle ages when entire tribes in northern Europe were being converted, the whole clan was
baptized if the chief chose to be...by the end of the eighth century, what before had taken weeks (of preparation and process by
non infants) had been greatly abridged. Children received three exorcisms on the sundays before easter, and on holy
saturday;..youngsters were immersed three times."

"the rite was further abridged when the tradition of child or infant receiving communion at baptism fell into disfavor.

"and because baptism was now viewed as essential for acceptance into heaven, the church offered a shorter "emergency"
rite for infants in danger of death. By the beginning of the 11th century, some bishops and councils pointed out that infants
were always in danger of sudden death and began to encourage parents not to wait until holy Saturday ceremony"

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