If you are not a Catholic or never have been one forgive me. The Catholic church has has a concept of what they call Limbo, where an unbaptized baby would go to Limbo for ever but at least not to hell. You can find some interesting links and information here about limbo.
While I’m sure there has been confusion over the years about what the understanding and official Church teaching of it is, one concept that came to my mind was that Limbo was actually the Church trying to side step an actual decision on the issue. Frankly it is one of those issues that are not very clear but it would certainly be difficult for parents that have lost a child to not know where the child is after death.
So the concept of Limbo has been floating in the Church for a very long time. But the new Pope, Pope Benedict, in an effort to be clear up the issue is coming out with a teaching to abandon the concept of Limbo altogether. Frankly the Catholic church is moving more towards an evangelical position on the topic. Way to go Benedict!
Read the complete article here…
I think it’s important to note that Limbo has never been an article of faith, i.e. a central tenet of Catholic belief. It is characteristic of one long-standing school of thought, but little seems to have been said about Limbo by the Vatican itself over the years. This could be seen as “side-stepping” an issue, or it could be seen as a demonstration of conflicting theological views, like the different interpretations of the Book of Revelations held by various groups of Evangelicals. Belief in Limbo is entirely uncommon among conservative Catholics, and I have never met a priest who has spoken of it. It is generally said that babies who die before birth or soon afterward go to heaven.
Thank you for your praise of our Pope Benedict.
I think, that any child who has died would go to heaven. It sort of seems like an obvious notion to me, but perhaps it is because my perspective is different.
Just remember what Jesus taught us, about being like little children. Why, would he teach us such a thing, if children were to only end up in limbo. It doesn’t make any sense at all.
Good for the Pope.
It’s not a dogma of faith, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to believe it. (For example, that Christ descended into hell is also not a dogma–it’s never been defined). It’s not as simple as saying “if it’s not dogma, then we don’t have to believe it.” I recommend you read Fr. Brian Harrison’s article: http://www.seattlecatholic.com/a051207.html
PS. Limbo is hell. It is a dogma of faith that there is no everlasting “third place” between Heaven and Hell. In fact “Limbo” means “fringe,” as in “the firnge of hell.” It’s a place in hell where those who are there receive the poena damni (privation from the beatific vision) but not the poena sensus (punishment from the burning fire). Father Harrison will clarify some of these concepts for you.
Didn’t God decide this back when he invented everything? Or, rather, maybe the guys who invented God forgot this important detail.
It seems to me the Catholics are trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, they insist that Caltholics be Baptized, but now if you don’t it’s okay anyway. Limbo was created to justify the idea that you had to be Baptized to wipe away instant condemnation from “The Original Sin”. But they just couldn’t bring themselves to tell parents that children born in childbirth had to go to hell. So, they created Limbo. Now it seems, they needed to clear the air on this. But then, what happened to the need for Baptism? Seems that Original Sin isn’t so bad after all 😉
Yeah way to go benedict! Can you abolish god and a few other of your stupid contradicting beliefs while you’re at it?
It think here people are confusing limbo with the purgatory.
Heaven, Purgatory, Hell
and the undefined “limbo” would be the fourth “place”
The Limbo was supposed to be the Abraham’s Bosom, the place were the righteous people went before Christ Sacrificed Himself to let us enter to the Heaven again, opening the doors that Adam and Eve closed long time ago with they original sin.
So all the people before Christ couldn’t get to heaven.
Now, after The Salvation, after heaven’s door was opened, the debate was if Abraham’s bosom (limbo) was still out there for the people who were righteous but not baptized, and we all have to remember that baptism means what? To enter to Christ, to be saved washing out our original sin that locked out from Heaven.
Limbo actually comes from Latin and means “limbus” and means “edge of boundary”.
The Abraham’s bosom was called Limbo of the Fathers.
The one that Pope Benedict abolished is the Limbo of the children.
Greetings
Dear francisco romero, I hope you are not repeating word by word what your father Harrison taught to you.
I really hope you are a bad student…
By the way, just to clarify a little bit more, the description of the limbo was a state of a highest happiness and love ever reachable on Earth, like everything was going perfectly and smoothly well on Earth
Not reaching the ecstatic fusion with God we will have if we manage to get to Heaven directly, that kind of perfect state of happiness is supernatural and only reachable in Heaven.
Purgatory comes from the latin purgatorium, which means to purge, to clear of guilt.
It is the place where probably most of us will go, in the case that we didn’t fall in grace (you didn’t commited mortal sins), but still have non-mortal (venial) sins that makes us not worthy to be before His presence or even cleaned our sins in confession but there is still punishment for forgiven sins. The only way to clear those punishments are through Indulgences.
Imagine sins like nails, and a wooden door like our souls.
Confessing would be taking the nails from the door, but the hole remains in the door, there is still a damage that hurts.
And we have the punishment for the damage.
Indulgences helps us to repair the door. There are partial and plenary (full) indulgences. If we die receiving full indulgences, we enter to heaven directly.
But if we have some punishment left, well, we have to clean our souls in the purgatory.
So, yes, it is a temporal hell to purge our sins, and even temporal, we will have to suffer the same pains that people in the real Hell.
The only pain is to no have God, and that pain is metaphorically the fire, the painful absence of God.
On Earth, even if we are the worst sinners on Earth, the most perverted or sadist people, we still are surrounded by the presence of God, there is still a tremendous amount of grace pouring on us and there is still a very fine thread that links us to God even in mortal sin.
In Hell, everything finishes, and that is felt in tremendous pain.
The thing that makes it infinitely worse in Hell is that they know they will have to suffer like that to the eternity, they burned all their chances on life to repent and be converted and join Christ.
And because of that they blame and hate even More to God.
In the case of the purgatory it is extremely painful but we know that someday we will reach Heaven.
But that temporal purge can be weeks or thousand of million of years (those places are timeless, but just a analogy).
That is why it is asked to pray for the souls in the purgatory, since prayers helps to send souls quicker to heaven.
If you send an plenary (full) indulgence to a determined soul, instantly it will send that soul to heaven.
So how much do people need to realized the lies and false doctrines of the roman Church(empire)
Mortal sins, venial sins, sins like nails in our wrists, holes where the nails were, clean our souls in purgatory, indulgences (full and partial)?? Question – where is Jesus in all this?? The Gospel is GOOD NEWS. What you explained dosen’t sound like good news. I get to heaven because Jesus died for my sins – plain and simple. No holes, no hurt, no indulgences, no limbo, fringe, purgatory or any other place you make up. Accept the Gospel, its good news and you will receive eternal life.
qandablog.typepad.com – Great site
Good day
Thank for your work for us!
Thank you, I will add it to my bookmarks
Regards
Mark
which are other unofficial believes, so that we know what we are believing