Saturday, May 12, 2007

Limbo Rocks


A few weeks ago, I wrote about that Catholic concept of never-neverland, Limbo, and noted that it had been sent to nowheresville, in Limbo's been in Limbo. Little did I know that a pro-Limbo contingent would object to its banishment.

A conservative Philly paper, the Bulletin, has published an ode of sorts to Limbo, by John Vennari, who expounds upon his reasons for rejecting the banishment of Limbo. And expound he does -- in a BIG way: 24 Reasons Why Not To Reject Limbo:
A new document from Rome's International Theological Commission . . . states that Catholics may virtually ignore the teaching on limbo and may have "many reasons for hope" for the salvation of unbaptized infants.

* * * *

Yet despite this latest study, many intend to hold to the conventional teaching that the souls of infants who die before baptism do not attain heaven, because they have not obtained the remission of original sin that only baptism provides. They go to limbo, a place of natural happiness wherein they suffer no pain of punishment since they are guilty of no personal sin.
In essence, Vennari argues that innocent babies who die before baptism don't go to hell, so what's the big deal? He then lists 24 reasons (yes, 24) in favor of ignoring the Pope (which, by the way, I'm in favor of, on general principle) on eliminating Limbo, which can be pretty much distilled as: We've had limbo for a very long time, so we shouldn't go changing our minds about it now, and anyway, how are we going to keep people in line with original sin without the fear of limbo?

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one fascinated with the concept of Limbo. Via Kiko's House, I see that Christopher Brauchli of The Human Race & Other Sports, also pondered this question in In Limbo No Longer:
The most recent good news from the Vatican was Pope Benedict XVI’s approval of a Vatican report released April 20 by the International Theological Commission that said there were “serious” grounds to hope that unbaptized children might get into heaven. Prior to this report it was believed that unbaptized children went to a place called “limbo”. Theologians (none of whom, I have it on good authority, has ever visited) describe “limbo” as a place where children enjoy an eternal state of perfect natural happiness. It almost certainly has enough teeter-totters and swings for everyone as well as cotton candy, lemonade, computer games and all the other things children enjoy. According to those in the know, the only thing lacking in limbo is communion with God which in the vernacular means the children there have no adult supervision, a condition that most of the children would find very much to their liking and in many cases probably comports with their idea of heaven.
As I noted in an earlier post on Limbo:

The change in the concept of Limbo also raises another an interesting thought. What will the Church say happens to all of those babies who have been in Limbo? Do they get the call from God to proceed directly to heaven, without passing GO? Or is Limbo just closed to new members? Just wondering.

Brauchli has obviously studied the issue with much more depth than I, observing:

If the International Theological Commission in its continuing studies of this issue concludes that the unbaptized can go straight to heaven without passing limbo and that view becomes church doctrine, there are two obvious questions. Will the new policy be retroactive and will there be an age or geographical cutoff?

With respect to the first question, it seems likely that in the divine order of things there are a certain number of unbaptized infants who die each year and if they are now permitted to enter heaven, their entry will occur in an orderly fashion. Those presently in limbo present an entirely different problem. There are surely billions of unbaptized infants cavorting about in unsupervised perfect happiness in limbo. Although all may not want to leave their perfectly happy state, others may welcome the chance to get to heaven which, even though none of them as been able to visit it, almost certainly enjoys as good a reputation in limbo as it enjoys here on earth. If billions decide all at once that they want to go to heaven, the question is can heaven accommodate what might be described in today’s parlance as a “surge”.

The second question is whether there is an age or geographical cutoff for invocation of the dispensation. At what age does failure to be baptized become an offense that warrants limbo or, worse yet, hell, and is there consideration of where the child is located geographically. It is a lot easier to get baptized in Manhattan than in a remote village in Tibet. Those are questions that I, being a columnist and not a theologian, cannot hope to answer. I suspect the Vatican will appoint yet another commission with an appropriate Latin moniker to study the question and make appropriate recommendations to the Pope. The children in limbo as well those still on earth will eagerly await its conclusions.

Gee, maybe getting rid of Limbo wasn't such a good idea after all. It just leaves so much stuff in limbo.

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