As faithful readers know, I have an advanced degree in theology, having majored in that subject for eight years at Our Lady of Sorrows Grammar School, where I also took the obligatory minor in guilt.
Faithful readers might also remember the dire consequences that I predicted would come to pass were Holy Mother Church to abolish Limbo. Despite my warnings, the Church has abandoned Limbo, but I will never do so. As I pointed out then, Limbo is critical to the one true Church, for it is the very linchpin upon which the faith depends. Without it, it’s a fools bet to be a Catholic. (The reader would be well advised to read the post to which I have linked, as it will allow for a deeper understanding of what follows. Further reading here on some of the finer points)
Now, some may say that I have no standing to dispute theology with the Pope. He is, after all, infallible. But as I said in yet another post (which for reasons good and true I pulled down) the Pope is only infallible while he is Pope. When Benedict is gone, some other Pope can bring Limbo back. Who knows, maybe God will inspire the Cardinals to pick me, and if He does, my first exercise in infallibility will be to arrange for Limbo’s return.
First, to be fair, let’s set forth Pope Benedict’s argument:
The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went.
In a long-awaited document, the Church’s International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an “unduly restrictive view of salvation,” according to the U.S.-based Catholic News Service, which obtained a copy on Friday.
The thumbs-down verdict on limbo had been expected for years and the document, called “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised,” was seen as most likely to be final since limbo was never formally part of Church doctrine.
Pope Benedict authorized the publication of the document.
According to the CNS report, the 41-page document says the theologians advising the Pope concluded that since God is merciful he “wants all human beings to be saved.”
It says grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ’s special love for children, CNS, which is owned by the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference, quoted the document as saying.
Limbo, which comes from the Latin word meaning “border” or “edge,” was considered by medieval theologians to be a state or place reserved for the unbaptised dead, including good people who lived before the coming of Christ.
I just can’t believe this kind of sloppy thinking coming out of the Church.
Keep in mind, Limbo isn’t just for babies. As the article points out, it’s also for “good people who lived before the coming of Christ”. Not only that, it’s also for good unbaptized people who lived after the coming of Christ, and that includes all of you Protestants (if you’re good) because your baptisms don’t count, except maybe for the Episcopalians and the Greek Orthodox (who, for some reason, strictly speaking, aren’t even Protestants). But the Methodists, Presbyterians, even the Baptists, ironically enough, can just forget it. Let’s not even talk about the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.
Some might say, why can’t those good unbaptized people just go to heaven, like the unbaptized babies? Well, that just can’t be, because then what good is baptism, and more to the point, what’s the good of being Catholic and a member of the one true Church? Sure, baptism still cleanses the soul of original sin, but if you let unbaptized people into heaven, you’re basically getting rid of original sin anyway. It’s not much of a sin if it doesn’t keep you out of heaven. It’s like it’s not even a stain on your soul. Where would the Catholic Church be if the free sin you get just for being born had no consequences?
Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Maybe God and the Pope, in their mercy, might decide that unbaptized babies and good people, in order to cleanse their souls of original sin, must endure a near eternity of torture in Purgatory before they get to go to heaven. That would certainly be fairer to the baptized Catholics, and of course entirely fair to the aforesaid unbaptized (babies and non-babies alike), because what’s an eternity of torture seeing as how they get an even longer eternity of heavenly bliss after that, whereas before they skipped the torture but got an eternity of boredom.
Still, the article to which I’ve linked appears to imply that the unbaptized can go straight to heaven, which is a dangerous thing. But what’s really ludicrous is the idea that Christ would not deprive innocent children of access to heaven. First of all, everyone knows that Christ is just the vice president in the triumvirate (sad to say, the Holy Ghost appears to be a very junior partner who doesn’t serve much of a function). It’s God the Father that’s in charge, and no one ever accused him of having a special love for anyone, including children. (Read the Old Testament, where he’s the star of the show, if you don’t believe me.) As we learned at Our Lady of Sorrows, God’s ways are mysterious, and His justice often hard to understand.
To illustrate, I give you two examples of God’s perfect willingness to be wholly irrational (by our imperfect understanding), each of which we thrashed out with the priest who taught us religion in the second grade, to both of which I alluded in my post years ago. Yes, even in second grade we had trouble coming to grips with God’s brand of justice.
The first example is what I call the Hitler conundrum:
Question: What if, just after pulling the trigger, Hitler made a sincere act of contrition? Would he go to heaven? Answer: Yes. While I admit this is a highly improbable event, it has broader implications, as you can imagine. George Bush, for instance, could earn forgiveness on his deathbed, presuming a sociopath can ever be heartily sorry.
Now, you might give God a pass on this, seeing as at least he is being merciful, even if it is to Hitler, and even though He also probably consigned all of those unbaptized Jews that Hitler killed to hell. But, as the late great Kurt Vonnegut said, “So it goes”.
But you must consider the Hitler conundrum and God’s mercy, in light of what I will call the Good Catholic Gone Slightly Wrong paradox.
Question: Will a Catholic who has led a hitherto blameless life (for the sake of argument, let’s say he’s 90 years old and never committed a mortal sin) go to Hell if he intentionally commits one of the more minor Catholic-only mortal sins (let’s say, missing Church on Sunday) and immediately gets squished by a meteor before he can go to confession or otherwise feel heartily sorry? Answer: Yes.
So there you go. Hitler in heaven, ninety years of stultifying mortal sin avoidance burning in Hell.
Now, out of the upwards of six billion people on the face of the earth, only a few fundamentalists of the Christian and Muslim persuasions can see the justice in this sort of thing, though justice there must be since God is perfect justice. So my point here is that you can’t judge God by our imperfect standards, and there really is no reason to think he would have a problem keeping those original-sin stained babies, not to mention the unbaptized non-Catholics, out of Heaven. Heck, he’s giving them a break with Limbo.
Finally, if unbaptized babies go straight to heaven, then how can the Church possibly justify it’s opposition to abortion? Think about it. According to the Church, each zygote has a soul. With the demise of Limbo, if the zygote is aborted, it goes straight to heaven, which means each abortion creates a saint. That’s even more effective than all those retroactive conversions the Mormons do. Who would choose life over a quick abortion, given the staggering odds against going to heaven if you are given that allegedly sacred gift of life, especially if you have the bad luck to be baptized Catholic? (Catholics have lots more sins to avoid than everyone else, because, for instance, God doesn’t care if an otherwise good Muslim eats pork, but he cares a lot if a Catholic skips Church, or until recently, ate fish on Friday. ). What responsible potential mother would bring a child into the world given those odds? It would be her sacred duty to have an abortion, since bringing the baby to term would almost certainly doom it to hell. WIth Limbo, the abortion ban is safe, since each abortion dooms the involved fetus, rightfully cut off from heaven due to it’s not quite fully gestated original sin, to an eternity of boredom in that border region.
So you see, we need Limbo. It is the keystone. Without it, the entire edifice of truth, which is the ONE TRUE CHURCH, must fall. This is so obvious that I can only conclude that Benedict is a Protestant mole, a Manichean candidate if you will.
By the way, I would be most happy to answer any other theological questions my readers might have.
(John Aravosis agrees with me, but his theology is nowhere near as subtle as mine.)
