Editing Limbo (section)

==Limbo of Infants==
{{see also|Salvation of infants}}
[[File:Chora Anastasis1.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.4|Byzantine depiction in the [[Chora Church|Church of Chora]] of the resurrection of Christ, raising [[Adam and Eve]] who represent all humankind, with the righteous prophets of the Old Testament observing]]

The Limbo of Infants (Latin {{lang|la|limbus infantium}} or {{lang|la|limbus puerorum}}) is the hypothetical permanent status of the [[baptism|unbaptised]] who die in [[infancy]], too young to have committed actual sins, but not having been freed from [[original sin]]. Recent Catholic theological speculation tends to stress the hope, although not the certainty, that these infants may attain heaven instead of the state of Limbo. Many Catholic priests and prelates say that the souls of unbaptized children must simply be "entrusted to the mercy of God", and whatever their status is cannot be known.<ref name=ITC/>

While the [[Catholic Church]] has a [[dogmatic definition|defined]] doctrine on original sin, it has none on the eternal fate of unbaptised infants, leaving theologians free to propose different theories, which [[magisterium]] is free to accept or reject. Nonetheless, according to Catholic dogma, baptism, or at least the desire for it, along with supernatural faith or at least the "habit of faith", are necessary for salvation. Hence, it is not immediately clear how to reconcile the mercy of God for unbaptized infants with the necessity of baptism and Catholic faith for salvation. Several theories have been proposed. Limbo is one such theory,<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html Study by International Theological Commission], 22 April 2007, 32–40</ref> although the word ''limbo'' itself is never mentioned in the [[Catechism of the Catholic Church]].<ref>[http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a1.htm#1261 ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', 1261]</ref> Nonetheless, the theory of limbo has weighty support in the traditional teaching of the Doctors of the Church, such as [[Saint Thomas Aquinas]], [[Saint Augustine]], and [[Saint Alphonsus Liguori]].

===Latin Fathers===
In countering [[Pelagius]], who denied original sin, Saint [[Augustine of Hippo]] was led to state that because of original sin, "such infants as quit the body without being baptized will be involved in the mildest condemnation of all. That person, therefore, greatly deceives both himself and others, who teaches that they will not be involved in condemnation; whereas the apostle says: 'Judgment from one offence to condemnation' ([[Romans 5]]:16), and again a little after: 'By the offence of one upon all persons to condemnation'."<ref>{{bibleverse|Romans|5:18}}</ref><ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15011.htm On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants]; cf. [https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#_ftn41 Study by the International Theological Commission], 22 April 2007], 15–18]</ref>

In 418, the [[Councils of Carthage#Council of 418|Council of Carthage]], a synod of North African bishops which included Augustine of Hippo, did not explicitly endorse all aspects of Augustine's stern view about the destiny of infants who die without baptism, but stated in some manuscripts<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#_ftn41 Study by the International Theological Commission], 22 April 2007, footnote 41]</ref><ref name=CCAC/> "that there is no intermediate or other happy dwelling place for children who have left this life without Baptism, without which they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, that is, eternal life".<ref name=CCAC>[http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3816.htm Canon 110 of the Code of Canons of the African Church]</ref><ref>[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#_ftn41 Study by the International Theological Commission], 22 April 2007, 19]</ref> So great was Augustine's influence in the West, however, that the Latin Fathers of the 5th and 6th centuries (e.g., [[Jerome]], [[Avitus of Vienne]], and [[Gregory the Great]]<ref>The subject of children who die prematurely is also dealt with by Gregory of Nyssa in his work entitled ''Ad Hierium Cappadociae prefectum de infantibus qui praematurae abripiuntur'' ([https://web.archive.org/web/20250219093515/http://www.lectio-divina.org/images/nyssa/Concerning%20Infants%20who%20have%20Died%20Prematurely.pdf×To the Prefect Hierus of Cappadocia Concerning Infants Who Have Died Prematurely).</ref>) did adopt his position.<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#_ftn41 Study by the International Theological Commission, 22 April 2007], 20</ref>

===Medieval theologians===
In the later Medieval period, some theologians continued to hold Augustine's view. In the 12th century, [[Peter Abelard]] (1079–1142) said that these infants suffered no material torment or positive punishment, just the pain of loss at being denied the beatific vision. Others held that unbaptised infants suffered no pain at all: unaware of being deprived of the [[beatific vision]], they enjoyed a state of natural, not supernatural happiness. This theory was associated with but independent of the term "Limbo of Infants", which was coined about the year 1300.<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#_ftn41 Study by the International Theological Commission], 22 April 2007, 21–25]</ref>

If heaven is a state of supernatural happiness and union with [[God]], and Hell is understood as a state of torture and separation from God then, in this view, the Limbo of Infants, although technically part of hell (the outermost part, ''limbo'' meaning 'outer edge' or 'hem') is seen as a sort of intermediate state.

The question of Limbo is not treated in the parts of the {{lang|la|[[Summa Theologica]]}} by [[Thomas Aquinas]], but is dealt with in an appendix to the supplement added after his death compiled from his earlier writings.<ref>[[s:Summa Theologiae/Supplement to the Third Part/EDITOR'S NOTE|Summa Theologiae, Supplement to the Third Part, EDITOR'S NOTE]]</ref> The Limbo of Infants is there described as an eternal state of natural joy, untempered by any sense of loss at how much greater their joy might have been had they been baptised:

{{blockquote|Every man who has the use of free-will is adapted to obtain eternal life, because he can prepare himself for grace whereby to merit eternal life; so that if he fails in this, his grief will be very great, since he has lost what he was able to possess. But children were never adapted to possess eternal life, since neither was this due to them by virtue of their natural principles, for it surpasses the entire faculty of nature, nor could they perform acts of their own whereby to obtain so great a good. Hence, they will nowise grieve for being deprived of the divine vision; nay, rather will they rejoice for that they will have a large share of God's goodness and their own natural perfections. Nor can it be said that they were adapted to obtain eternal life, not indeed by their own action, but by the actions of others around them, since they could be baptised by others, like other children of the same condition who have been baptised and obtained eternal life: for this is of superabundant grace that one should be rewarded without any act of one's own. Wherefore the lack of such a grace will not cause sorrow in children who die without Baptism, any more than the lack of many graces accorded to others of the same condition makes a wise man to grieve.|{{lang|la|Summa Theologica}}, Supplement 1 to the Third Part, article 2<ref>[[s:Summa Theologiae/Appendix/Question 1|''Summa Theologica'', Supplement 1 to the Third Part, article 2]]</ref>}}

The natural happiness possessed in this place would consist in the perception of God mediated through creatures.<ref>Feingold, Lawrence. ''The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters.'' 2nd edition. Ave Maria: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University. 2010.</ref> As stated in the International Theological Commission's document on the question:

{{blockquote|text=Because children below the age of reason did not commit actual sin, theologians came to the common view that these unbaptized children feel no pain at all or even that they enjoy a full, though only natural, happiness through their mediated union with God in all natural goods (Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus).<ref>[http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7529&CFID=79131013&CFTOKEN=19869646 The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised], 23</ref>}}

The afterdeath life cartography that runs through Christian thought from [[Bernard of Clairvaux]] to Aquinas is thus composed of five real and physical places: Paradise, Limbo of Patriarchs, Limbo of the Infants, Purgatory and Hell. <ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.rmoa.unina.it/1513/1/RM-LeGoff-Aldila.pdf|title=Aldilà|author=[[Jacques Le Goff]]|page=7|language =it|publisher=[[University of Naples]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230706192052/http://www.rmoa.unina.it/1513/1/RM-LeGoff-Aldila.pdf|archive-date=July 6, 2023|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Modern era===
In 1442, the [[Ecumenical Council|Ecumenical]] [[Council of Florence]] spoke of baptism as necessary even for children, and required that they be baptised soon after birth.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=ZkzyEAAAQBAJ&pli=1 |title =Laetentur Caeli: Bulls of Union with the Greeks, Armenians, Coptic, and Ethiopian Churches |isbn = 9798869171504 |last1 = Curtin|first1 = D. P.|date = January 2007|publisher =Dalcassian Publishing Company }}</ref><ref>[http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/FLORENCE.HTM#5 Council of Florence Session 11 (Bull ''Cantate Domino''):] "With regard to children, since the danger of death is often present and the only remedy available to them is the sacrament of baptism by which they are snatched away from the dominion of the devil and adopted as children of God, it admonishes that sacred baptism is not to be deferred for forty or eighty days or any other period of time"</ref> This had earlier been affirmed at the Council of Carthage in 418. The Council of Florence also stated that those who die in original sin alone go to Hell, but with pains unequal to those suffered by those who had committed actual mortal sins.<ref>[http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/FLORENCE.HTM#3 Council of Florence Session 6] "...the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straight away to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains."</ref> [[John Wycliffe]]'s attack on the necessity of infant baptism was condemned by another general council, the [[Council of Constance]].<ref>Session 15, 6 July 1415</ref> In 1547, the [[Council of Trent]] explicitly decreed that baptism (or [[baptism of desire|desire for baptism]]) was the means by which one is transferred "from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God, through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour.<ref>{{citation |url=https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct06.html |title=The Council of Trent – The Sixth Session |translator=J. Waterworth |location=London |publisher=Dolman (retrieved from Hanover College) |edition=1848}}</ref> [[Pope Pius X]] taught of Limbo's existence in his [[Catechism of Saint Pius X|Catechism]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Pius X|title=Catechismo della dottrina cristiana|url=https://www.sursumcorda.cloud/images/Catechismo-dottrina-Cristiana/Catechismo-Dottrina-Cristiana.pdf|page=30 (Question 100)|language=IT}}</ref>

However, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, individual theologians (Bianchi in 1768, H. Klee in 1835, Caron in 1855, H. Schell in 1893) continued to formulate theories of how children who died unbaptised might still be saved. By 1952 a theologian such as [[Ludwig Ott]] could, in a widely used and well-regarded manual, openly teach the possibility that children who die unbaptised might be saved for heaven.<ref>"Other emergency means of baptism for children dying without sacramental baptism, such as prayer and the desire of the parents or the Church (vicarious baptism of desire – Cajetan), or the attainment of the use of reason in the moment of death, so that the dying child can decide for or against God (baptism of desire – H. Klee), or suffering and death of the child as quasi-Sacrament (baptism of suffering – H. Schell), are indeed possible, but their actuality cannot be proved from Revelation. Cf. [[Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum|Denzinger]] 712." Ludwig Ott, ''Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma'', Book 2, Section 2, § 25 (p. 114 of the 1963 edition)</ref> He also told about [[Thomas Cajetan]], a major 16th-century theologian, that suggested infants dying in the womb before birth, and so before ordinary sacramental baptism could be administered, might be saved through their mother's wish for their baptism. In its 1980 instruction on children's baptism the [[Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith]] stated that "with regard to children who die without having received baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as indeed she does in the funeral rite established for them",<ref>{{citation |chapter-url=http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7521#1c |title=Pastoralis Actio |chapter=The Church's Mission |author=Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith |publisher=CatholicCulture.org |date=20 October 1980}}</ref>{{rp|13}} leaving all theories as to their fate, including Limbo, as viable possibilities. In 1984, when [[Pope Benedict XVI|Joseph Ratzinger]], then Cardinal Prefect of that Congregation, stated that he rejected the claim that children who die unbaptised cannot attain salvation, he was speaking for many academic theologians of his training and background.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

The Church's teaching, expressed in the 1992 [[Catechism of the Catholic Church]], is that "Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament", and that "God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments". It recalls that, apart from the sacrament, [[baptism of blood]] (as in the case of [[Christian martyrs]]) and in the case of [[catechumens]] who die before receiving the sacrament, explicit desire for baptism, together with Catholic faith, repentance for their sins (specifically [[perfect contrition]], in the case of catechumens) and charity, ensures salvation. It also states that since Christ died for all and all are called to the same divine destiny, "every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved", seeing that, if they had known of the necessity of baptism, they would have desired it explicitly.<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', 1257–1260]</ref> Additionally, at the Council of Trent and in the Vatican's response to [[Feeneyism]] in the 1940s, the Church affirmed in every case the necessity of Catholic faith (also called "supernatural faith"), or at least the "habit of faith", for salvation.

It then states:

{{blockquote|As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them",<ref>{{bibleverse|Mark|10:14}}; cf. {{bibleverse|1 Timothy|2:4}}</ref> allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm#VI ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', 1261] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930092218/https://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm#VI |date=30 September 2007 }}</ref>}}

Merely stating that one can "hope" in a way of salvation other than baptism, the Church thus urgently reiterates its appeal to baptize infants, the only certain means to "not prevent" their "coming to Christ" for salvation.

On 20 April 2007,<ref name="CNSapril07"/> the advisory body known as the [[International Theological Commission]] released a document, originally commissioned by [[Pope John Paul II]], entitled "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptized."<ref name=ITC>[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptised, ITC], 22 April 2007.</ref> After tracing the history of the various opinions that have been and are held on the eternal fate of unbaptized infants, including that connected with the theory of the Limbo of Infants, and after examining the theological arguments, the document stated its conclusion as follows:

{{blockquote|text=Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered above give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us.<ref>cf. {{bibleverse|John|16:12}}</ref> We live by faith and hope in the God of mercy and love who has been revealed to us in Christ, and the Spirit moves us to pray in constant thankfulness and joy.<ref>cf. {{bibleverse|1 Thessalonians|5:18}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|text=What has been revealed to us is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of baptism. None of the above considerations should be taken as qualifying the necessity of baptism or justifying delay in administering the sacrament. Rather, as we want to reaffirm in conclusion, they provide strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the Church.}}

[[Pope Benedict XVI]] authorized publication of this document, indicating that he considers it consistent with the Church's teaching, though it is not an official expression of that teaching.<ref name="CNSapril07">[[Catholic News Service]] (20 April 2007). [https://web.archive.org/web/20070423134517/http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0702216.htm "Vatican commission: Limbo reflects 'restrictive view of salvation'"]. Retrieved 20 April 2007. </ref> Media reports that by the document "the Pope closed Limbo"<ref>{{cite news |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=21 April 2007 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/world/europe/21briefs-limbo.html |title=Vatican City: Pope Closes Limbo}}</ref> are thus without foundation. In fact, the document explicitly states that "the theory of ''limbo'' [...] never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium. Still, that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible theological hypothesis". The document thus allows the limbo hypothesis to be held as one of the existing theories about the fate of children who die without being baptised, a question on which there is "no explicit answer" from Scripture or tradition.<ref name="CNSapril07"/> The traditional theological alternative to Limbo was not heaven, but rather some degree of suffering in Hell. At any rate, these theories are not the official teaching of the Catholic Church but rather opinions that the Church permits to be held by its members, just as is the theory of possible salvation for infants dying without baptism.