I know a lot of you are very concerned over the Catholic Church’s position on Limbo. I have found the recent report issued by the International Theological Commission, and if anyone is actually interested in reading it, it can be found here: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
A couple of brief observations: Contrary to media insinuations, the report does not do away with Limbo. The report explicitly states, actually, that Limbo remains a valid theological opinion. (Sorry Ken, looks like I was right about that.) It is a good thing that Limbo remains a valid theological opinion, because contrary to its claims, the report does not include any serious theological reasons to hope that unbaptized infants go to Heaven. From what I can tell, the authors do their level best to confuse their own wishes with “serious theological reasons.” They are left to argue such absurdities that perhaps when an infant smiles at his mother, it voluntarily accepts God, and is therefore saved. It doesn’t wash. Theologically, the report is a joke. In addition to totally ignoring principles of Catholic thought, it abuses Scripture, largely by misusing something referred to as the “hierarchy of truth.” The quotes, tellingly, are not mine- they belong to the report. (It might be that there’s a hierarchy of truth within Scripture, in that some truths of the Bible are more essential than others. It might be said that it’s more important that there is only one true God than it is that God created the angels, for example. It is not the case, however, that a truth “higher” in that hierarchy is “more” true than one lower on the list. They are both equally true. Obviously. The authors of the report don’t work that way: They assume a hierarchy of truths, assert that some of them are in conflict with each other, determine which truth is higher in the hierarchy, and then conclude that the lower truth is not so true, or at least, is of no consequence.) It’s perhaps fortunate that the report is so patently ridiculous in its reasoning, because if its conclusions were to be accepted as true, it would render Christianity itself meaningless.
I am baffled as to why Pope Benedict allowed the report to be published. I can’t even understand how any Catholic theologian would be willing to sign his name to a report like this. Basically, what they say is, “We are so full of pride that we think every last one of us *deserves *Heaven, and God is obligated to give it to us. If He doesn’t, He’s mean. We don’t want to think He’s mean, so He must let everyone into Heaven.” Stunning.
