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 or ) is the hypothetical permanent status of the
unbaptized 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. although the word
limbo itself is never mentioned in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church. 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'." In 418, the
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 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) did adopt his position.
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. 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 by
Thomas Aquinas, but is dealt with in an appendix to the supplement added after his death compiled from his earlier writings. 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: The natural happiness possessed in this place would consist in the perception of God mediated through creatures. As stated in the International Theological Commission's document on the question: 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.
Modern era In 1442, the
Ecumenical Council of Florence spoke of baptism as necessary even for children, and required that they be baptised soon after birth. 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.
John Wycliffe's attack on the necessity of infant baptism was condemned by another general council, the
Council of Constance. In 1547, the
Council of Trent explicitly decreed that baptism (or
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.
Pope Pius X taught of Limbo's existence in his
Catechism. 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. 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", leaving all theories as to their fate, including Limbo, as viable possibilities. In 1984, when
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. 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. 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: 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, 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:
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. Media reports that by the document "the Pope closed Limbo" 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. 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. ==In other denominations and religions==