Comment (9)
Email
Print
del.icio.us
TechnoratiWhat happened to limbo?
Newspapers have been full of news about the abolition of limbo. How much of this is true?
A few weeks ago the International Theological Commission, an advisory panel for the Catholic Church, published a 41-page document entitled “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized”. When this news was faxed to Reuters, I thought that it would furrow the editor's brow: "The who published what?". Perhaps through her mind would flit a brief recollection of Nicole Kidman as a neurotic mother in The Others, followed by the rapid processing of the fax into a crumbled ball and its trajectory into the the limbo of the wastepaper basket.
But that is not what happened. Catholic teaching on the afterlife suddenly became a hot topic. Why?
One possibility is that the world has grown tired of the pace and frenetic change of this-worldly consumerism. US film expert David Bordwell has found that whereas the average shot in American films of the 1930s and 60s lasted 8 to 11 seconds, Hollywood has now reduced that time to between 3 to 6 seconds. Slow, plodding films like Into Great Silence, a documentary on the life of the Chartreuse monks, are a reaction to such speed. This documentary about monks chanting and repairing their habits is enjoying great critical acclaim. In the midst of today’s "slow-down" protests, eternity takes the cake.
A more likely scenario, however, is that the media feel that they have caught the Church doing a flip-flop. Newsweek’s “The Pope Lets Go of Limbo” led with: “In the world of Vatican reversals, it’s a big one.” Time’s “The Pope Banishes Limbo” started with “Pope Benedict XVI has reversed centuries of traditional Roman Catholic teaching on limbo.” This was a follow-up to an earlier article “Life after Limbo”, which posed the rhetorical question: “how often does a major faith admit to retooling its take on the afterlife?”
American publications did not necessarily see this breach of "a non-core promise" as being such a bad thing. They even commended the Pope for allowing Americans to praise Jesus without consigning non-believers to hell. The British were more cynical. The BBC saw it as a ploy to protect the Church’s share in souls from encroachment by Muslims in Africa and Asia. Muslims hold that stillborn babies go straight to heaven – a marketing plus in comparison to the merely human happiness currently on offer by Catholics.
So, has the Vatican document been a mere readjustment to Ptolemaic beliefs about the afterlife when what we really need is a Copernican revolution that dismisses religion as just so much bunk?
More than a dispute about the afterlife, however, this is a theological conundrum related to the notion of original sin. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the apple, a series of unfortunate events unfolded, including malice, ignorance and pain. Originally, life really was meant to be easy. Unfortunately for us, our first parents bequeathed to their descendants the weaknesses they had acquired. It was a kind of defect in our spiritual DNA.
Thus, Orthodox Christians have always believed that our baffling tendency to screw things up is ultimately due to an inherited sin, of some sort. It is probably the only Christian dogma for which we have empirical proof: just tune into the six o'clock news. And the darkness which this original sin casts over our intellects helps explain the errors of those who have sought to defend this belief against the notion that we are born without a flawed human nature.
It hasn't been easy for Catholic theologians to explain how it works. One big problem relates to Baptism, the Christian sacrament which cleanses the soul of original sin. The Bible teaches that it is needed to get into heaven. That's fine for people who are baptised, but what about babies who die without it?
Theologians like St Augustine of Hippo, back in the fifth century, assigned them a place in hell, albeit a very mild one. In his Inferno, Dante also placed good pagans there -- Homer, Aristotle, and Socrates as well as great Muslims like the foe of the Crusaders, Saladin, and the philosophers Avicenna and Averroës. It wasn't really hell, though, but a place of purely natural happiness. A bit like a 10-star resort where the breezes are always balmy, the beer is always cold and the conversation always stimulating.
It wasn't much beside the exhilarating splendour of heaven where people see God face to face. But, hey, said the medieval theologians, they'll never miss what they don't know about. Those mediaevals were far from being the superstitious clods depicted in Monty Python sketches. If anything, they were excessively logical. No baptism, ergo, no heaven. But babies have got to go somewhere, so let's invent Limbo -- even if there's no evidence for it in the Bible.
What the International Theological Commission did was to remind Catholics that Limbo was just a theory. Theories, even in theology, need facts, which for Christians are the facts found in the revelation brought by Jesus Christ. But he did not reveal everything, including what happens to the souls of children who are miscarried and aborted before birth or who died unbaptised after birth. What we do know is that we have been joined in some way to Christ, the new Adam, when Christ became man. This does not mean that we are all born in the state of grace, as though Jesus didn’t really mean that baptism was necessary for salvation.
The document is a statement that salvation is not an act of caprice by God – Scripture tells us that he desires the salvation of everyone. The Commission has given us an expression of hope that by his incarnation God has a way of dealing with innocent children that He has not revealed to us. The Church has hopes for the salvation of the unbaptised, hopes which are not based on an unattainable destiny.
The Catholic Church is no stranger to mystery. It's often criticised for having all the answers, but really it doesn't. It's a but unfair to lambaste it for saying that some questions – Why must we suffer? How is our free will and God’s foreknowledge compatible? What happens to innocent babies? – will remain unanswered this side of eternity. The Church contemplates Jesus Christ and offers us an ever deeper understanding of what he said and did. Whether or not zebras are black horses with white stripes or white horses with black stripes are matters that surpass the competence of St Peter and will have to be taken up with God himself in heaven.
Dr Richard Umbers is a Catholic priest. He lectures in philosophy in Sydney.
“And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 6 Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.” Rev 20:4-6 Read it carefully. Note, it says “first” resurrection. Hmm. There must be more than one kind of resurrection. Note, it mentions “second death.” Hmm. There are at least two kinds of death. We can either follow this amazing “inspired” document or we can do like the muslim imans...make things up to suit an agenda. Limbo is NOT in the Bible. I don’t think prematurely departed babies, baptized or not would qualify to be priests nor kings with Jesus. Nor would most of us as we haven’t fulfilled the criteria in Rev. 20:4. However verse 5 references “the rest of the dead” who also come to life. In verse 12 it writes of more dead (maybe the same) who are judged “individually according to their deeds.” What has a baby done? Isn’t God the personification of love? Now, put it altogether…
It is not the Church that is confused, but some of the people in it who are muddled in their thinking as in their lives. In the Funeral Mass I attend (Tridentine Latin dating back to Pius v) we pray for the souls of those who have died, and ask God to let His angels conduct them into Paradise, as people have done since the time of the Apostles. Mysterium certainly does not refer to what the author calls the confusion in the Church. That is plain silly.
Up front, my comments here do not line up or agree with the comments
before me. Father Richard Umbers blatantly says that the Bible teaches
that entrance to Heaven is by the rite of baptism. Apparently, this
interpretation has been swallowed by all on this comment page. I beg
one to THINK (instead of blindly following Augustine - like our
parents did). Should we rest assured that catholics (or protestants
for that matter) who’ve been baptized in the membership of the church
are ALL SAVED. No, but think again. When have you EVER been to a
funeral of any professing ‘christian’ and hear the priest declare this
man or women’s eternal state is determined by Almighty God and
therefore we (priest included) cannot pass judgment on where they are
today. Wait a minute - before they were dead they were working and
earning their salvation - but no guarantees, during the funeral mass
we celebrate the acceptance of the departed into the loving arms of
the Lord, BUT then after the mass we buy mass cards to free their
souls from Purgatory. I don’t want to open up a discussion on
Purgatory, but to remind us that the catholic church has ALWAYS been
full of CONFUSION - of course , what they refer to as ‘mysterium’!
thank you for your comments.
Congratulations on putting in a comments page!
Speaking from a linguistic perspective, I note the beautiful combination of hope and mystery in the Church’s statement. It’s important to remember the sacramental character of hope-filled mystery. In Greek and in the Orthodox Church in particular, the sacraments are known as “mysteries” [mysterion] meaning “things that are hidden.” Thus, our hope or the salvation of the unbaptised infant is ultimately sacramental in character. It’s no different really from my hope for the salvation of my seemingly saintly great aunt or grandmothers. Ultimately, her salvation stems from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and their free acceptance of the graces proffered.
Moreover, I do recall an old tradition put forward by some theologians that, at the moment of death, God suffuses the soul with a flood of grace to enable him/her to accept God’s free gift of salvation. How an infant might make use of this grace remains a beautiful mystery. Much the same however would apply to a soul in a state of advanced dementia.
Our notions of what it means to accept God’s grace should not be constrained by an excessive reliance upon external forms. Rather, we need to trust in God’s infinite justice and mercy remembering all the time that they are one and the same thing. Indeed, the fate of every soul is a mystery of unsurpassable beauty and an opportunity for loving trust in God’s ability to get it right.
One basis for that statement is the fact that the Church celebrates the Holy Innocents as saints—that’s one basis of hope for those who did not receive sacramental baptism.
What appalled me was the inaccuracy of the reports. The Ottawa Citizen (among others) blamed the Pope, ignoring that the report was issued by an advisory committee with which the Pope does not necessarily agree. There has to be a desire for the Baptism of the same name. I think that God in His mercy, and knowing everything, knows how an aborted infant would have lived his life had he lived, and will judge him on that. This is not fatalism, it is just knowing, as He knows what judgments and decisions we (or anyone else) will make under given circumstances. We still have free will, and He still knows how we will use it.
With limbo gone, where do “good pagans” and unbaptized babies go? Surely they do not merit hell. I think we have to fall back on the mercy of God and His desire that all should be saved. 1 John says: God is love and he who abides in Love abides in God and God in him.”
I posit that those who come from love, even if not baptized, will “abide in God.” The Catholic Church has always preached the “baptism” of desire.
The clincher in this argument? Abou Ben Adhem!
Thanks for the lucidity and the sense of humour ;-)
Page 1 of 1 :