The Catholic Church does away with Limbo

Just shows that they make it up as they go along.

P

Okay, here's a serious post.

So, we know that the Catholic church is interested in bringing in people from Africa. Essentially, the missionary, er, mission, is still going on. And limbo is bounced because it affects unbaptized children and, since you are often dealing with places with high infant mortality rates, this proved to be a sticking point for a lot of people. Hence limbo goes away, kind of to sweeten the pot, as it were.

Yet the potential converts certainly have ancestors who, per doctrine, would not get into heaven. They would, I am guessing, go into a beginning circle o' hell (if I may borrow Dante's imagery) but they aren't down in the absolute depths unless they really did something horrible (per the church). This because the ancestors (some of whom are people who may have died just yesterday) did not accept Jesus even after Jesus lived and died and did his thing. At least that's my understanding of things -- this is why Dante shows Abraham, et al in heaven, because they predeceased Jesus, but the Jews get tossed into hell because, except for those that predeceased Jesus, they (the Jews) had their chance to be saved and blew it.

For any society that values elders and ancestors, this has got to be somewhat paradoxical. Why embrace a church that gives your infant a free pass yet sticks it to your grandpa? Hence I'm thinking that getting rid of limbo will possibly bring in more people, but it might not bring in as many as the church is hoping for, particularly given that such a major change was made.

Do you think the church will do anything else to try to convince what it seems to see as recalcitrant people in Africa? Will it change anything else to try to further sweeten the pot?

And, I'm curious, in this day and age, why is it seen that proselytizing people who are not monotheistic is somehow okay? Except for Jehovah's Witnesses, I really don't see missionaries running around the US (perhaps I'm not looking in the right places). I live in an extremely Catholic city (and also go to NY a lot), yet no one pushes down the synagogue or mosque door in order to reach potential Catholic converts, nor does anyone in the Northeast hand out Catholic literature at the Solidarity Sunday march or Israel Day parade or any other place like that. The Solomon Schechter Day Academy does not open its doors onto a collection of Catholic folks trying to get some converts. Neither do any mosques, Buddhist temples, etc. that I know of. And it would, I suppose, be kinda easy here, given that the Catholics are in the majority in Boston and a large chunk in NY, too. Yet the missionary experience remains alive and well in Africa. Why is that?

A tangent to your thoughts, Jespah, is that I don't think the concept of Limbo ever made it to official doctrine, or dogma, status.

I don't think that this is just and only a Catholic attitude.

(We - living in a strong Catholic region - see only Jehova's Witnesses in the streets and get missionary visits any couple of months by Mormon missionaries.)

Look to Iraq: who arrived there shortly after the Sadam's fall?
Look to Asia: the same.

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Limbo has never been a real (big) topic in Catholic life ... at least where I live and grew up, in Europe, but elsewhere, too:

Catholic News Service

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, the church giving up limbo wasn't a biggie at all. It got in the press, sure, and perhaps it makes a difference to some potential converts, but the bottom line is that the church didn't concede too much but is - perhaps - hoping that its target audience does see it as a big concession.

Sorta like offering a Cadillac in trade (instead of a Honda), but not telling anyone that the Caddy is rusted through and doesn't start, unlike the Honda. All show and little substance, I'm guessing.

To be honest: I don't know how important this is or was or will be to other Catholics.

But even my parents and grandparents/grandaunts talked about the Limbo - when addressing such to us - like they told us fairy tales:"You'll not come into hell for that but must stay in the limbo" - when we did something partly wrong as small children.

Your analogy seems to be correct my views.

This is the very type of thing that makes me crazy about dogma. Millions of babies have been in supposed limbo since the Middle Ages because someone said so. Now someone is saying 'not so' and those souls by the millions get to go to heaven after all? Please!

If there are souls, the souls went where souls go and they've been going there all along. If there aren't souls then they didn't go anywhere. Once again man gets to dictate 'Truth' to the masses and the masses bow down and are saved.

My neighbor is a non-practicing Catholic. She had her sons baptised to ease her own mother's pain rom worrying about them spending eternity in Limbo. Just imagine what this might do to the baptism business.

'Limbo' is definitely no dogma.

not all went to heaven
when the eviction notice came through, some were allocated hell, but only on a temporary basis.

Interesting concept limbo. Why was it called limbo? Dont tell me its latin for inbetween or something

Limbus is indeed Latin and means border. (In German, 'limbo' is called "pre-hell" ['Vorhölle'])

rejoice ring the bells

government defeated we can be as rude as we like to each other, sanity restored

How so, Walter?

and for Steve from the original post

"How so" ... what?

Limbo is not part of the Church's official doctrine - purgatory, however, is.
I've never seen or heard different.

I would pay to see that!!!

Everyone I grew up with (we were the only Protestants in an all Catholic neighborhood) thought of limbo as doctrine.


Catholic Encyclopedia

Regardless if it was dogma or not, this is exactly the type of thing that makes me nuts with respect to religion.

Religious Tolerance dot org

That's okay - I was only referring to your original post.
As a Catholic, I don't like when others tell me what I have to believe or not .... especially, when it isn't so :wink:

Limbo was never biblical anyway...

Limbo was a misinterpretation of the scriptures. Especially the scripture where John (in revelation) said I saw a "third heaven"... Yet it is more commonly believed today the third heaven is a future heaven and not heavens stacked up on top of each other... so the three heavens are linear and not vertical... The first heaven was before Eden, the second heaven is now... and the third is future... This and some texts written many years later after the canonical writings are what led to the error.

I discussed this with my neighbor tonight - the non-practicing Catholic with the baptised babies - and her thoughts ran the same as mine. It might have never been 'official' doctrine, but there was no doubt in her recollection of her Catholic school upbringing that limbo was a reality of the faith. Which brings to mind the question of doctrine in general. If its preached to the masses as gospel, is it doctrine?