CATHOLICISM AND ITS DOCTRINE OF LIMBO

Pope Pius XII, "In the present state there is no other way of communicating [sanctifying grace] to the child who has not yet the use of reason [other than Baptism].  But, nevertheless, the state of grace at the moment of death is absolutely necessary for salvation. Without it, it is not possible to attain supernatural happiness, the beatific vision of God. An act of love can suffice [i.e., Baptism of Desire] for an adult to obtain sanctifying grace and supply for the absence of Baptism; for the unborn child or for the newly born, this way is not open."

October 29, 1951, Allocution to Midwives

The Christian faith teaches that there is something wrong with the human race as a result of something our first parents, Adam and Eve, did. It makes us sinful and makes us inclined to sin. This is original sin both because it was committed at the origin of human life on earth and also we get it at our own origin in the womb. The doctrine is important in Christian attempts to manipulate the people. It is the basis of the idea that some harm is done to a child if she is not baptised - the harm is believed to be that the child will be banned from Heaven forever.
 
It is the Church's way of making people feel that even from conception they need God and Jesus to save them from sin. That practically speaking means they need the Church and it keeps priests and ministers in a job and gives them a self-righteous glow when they treat this original sin.
 
By implication, people are told they all need the Christian faith to help fix them for they cannot fix themselves to any extent.
 
The Catholic cannot be consoled by the idea of some that the unbaptised baby that dies is deprived only of the sight of God and has other pleasures instead.
 
The Church teaches that to lose God is worse than anything and that it is better to endure fire forever than to live without him. Clearly, the Catholic doctrine of God implies that we should not be horrified by babies suffering in the fire of Hell but by babies not having a personal relationship with God.
 
St Thomas Aquinas was the first to teach that the babies who are unbaptised and die will be happy without God so his teaching having come in the 1200’s is a novelty and the Roman Catholic Church teaches that constant Church teaching coming from the apostles is infallible and that new doctrines are heresy. Some did question that the babies had to suffer for original sin but they went no further than saying they endured no pain of sense or pain like physical pain.
  
That religion even discusses such matters shows that religion is intrinsically bad. The truly good person would recoil in horror from a religion that ponders whether babies suffer or not for original sin if they die without baptism.

The Catholic Church taught for centuries that babies cannot go to Heaven unless they are christened. That view isn’t as popular today - understandably. Yet the only advice the insensitive Catechism of the Catholic Church can offer is unbaptised babies that die should be left to the mercy of God and how important it is to get babies baptised (1261). It does not care about people who want to know one way or the other where their baby is.

The Roman Church has infallibly defined that John 3:5 in which Jesus states that a man has to be born of water and the spirit to enter the divine kingdom, refers to water baptism at the Council of Trent. The word man is taken to mean every man and woman and child and baby on earth needs baptism. But the same gospel has Jesus saying that God doesn't blame you for what isn't your fault. So if you are a baby and you die without baptism that is not your fault. If you die when your parents intended to have you baptised only with your consent as you got older that is not your fault. Jesus actually said a man has to be born of water and wind. Water and wind symbolise the Holy Spirit so Jesus was really saying everybody has to be born of the Spirit to be saved and was not requiring real water. Babies then will be saved the moment after death for they will embrace the love of the Spirit.   

The sincere Catholic would have to assert that the baby that dies without baptism must be excluded from Heaven. If the Bible is the inspired word of God then Rome’s interpretation is wrong for God would not have meant something so awful. The Church departed from God when it declared what it declared about the verse for there was no evidence that Jesus meant what it said he meant and infallibility cannot function without evidence according to official and infallible Church teaching.

APPENDIX: BENEDICT XVI

Ratzinger later Benedict XVI in God and the World, 2000, wrote in page 401: “Q. …what happens to the millions of children who are killed in their mothers’ wombs? A. …the question about children who could not be baptized because they were aborted then presses upon us that much more urgently. Earlier ages had devised a teaching that seems to me rather unenlightened. They said that baptism endows us, by means of sanctifying grace, with the capacity to gaze upon God. Now, certainly, the state of original sin, from which we are freed by baptism, consists in a lack of sanctifying grace. Children who die in this way are indeed without any personal sin, so they cannot be sent to Hell, but, on the other hand, they lack sanctifying grace and thus the potential for beholding God that this bestows. They will simply enjoy a state of natural blessedness, in which they will be happy. This state people called limbo. In the course of our century, that has gradually come to seem problematic to us. This was one way in which people sought to justify the necessity of baptizing infants as early as possible, but the solution is itself questionable.”

WORKS CONSULTED

12 Church of Christ Doctrines Compared with the Holy Scriptures, Homer Duncan, Missionary Crusader, Texas, 1984
All One Body – Why Don’t We Agree? Erwin W Lutzer, Tyndale, Illinois, 1989
Baptism, Meaning, Mode & Subjects, Michael Kimmitt, K & M Books, Trelawnyd, 1997
But the Bible Does not Say So, Rev Roberto Nisbet, Church Book Room Press, London, 1966
But What About the Thief on the Cross? Cecil Willis, Guardian of Truth, Bowling Green, Kentucky
Christian Baptism, Philip Crowe, Mobray, Oxford, 1980
Covenant Reformed News, Volume 7, Number 13, Ballymena, Northern Ireland
Four Great Heresies, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1975
Handbook to the Controversy with Rome, Vol 1, Karl Von Hase, The Religious Tract Society, 4 Bouverie Street, 1906
Is it necessary for you to be baptised to be saved? Hoyt H Houchen, Guardian of Truth, Bowling Green, Kentucky
Is Water Baptism Essential to Salvation? Curtis Hutson, Sword of the Lord, 1988
Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984
Objections to Roman Catholicism, Edited by Michael de la Bedoyere, Constable, London, 1964
Radio Replies, Vol 3, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota 1942
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
Regeneration or the New Birth, A W Pink, Evangelical Press, Welwyn, Herts, England, undated
The Book of Mormon, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah
The Documents of Vatican II, Edited by Walter M Abbott SJ, Geoffrey Chapman Ltd, London, 1967
The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1986
The Only Way of Salvation, H. A. Twelves, Christadelphian ALS, Birmingham
Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1993
When Critics Ask, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, Victor Books, Scripture Press Publications, Illinois, 1992
Why Baptism Really Matters, Fred Pearce, Christadelphian Publishing Office, Birmingham
Why Does God? Domenico Grasso SJ, St Paul Publications, Bucks, England, 1970
Why you Should be Baptized, Herbert W Armstrong, Worldwide Church of God, Pasadena, California, 1991

The WWW

Doctrinal Summary by Br Thomas Mary MICM. This page informs us that Catholic teaching is that if you hear of the Catholic Church and don’t join it or study it your damnation is guaranteed. It affirms that babies that die without baptism will be banned from Heaven forever.