when the pope took back the idea of limbo, is he saying that the church just made it up?

Question

how do you think the parents of the children that died before their baptismal feel about this decision? and should the church be forgiven for casting such real and unnecessary grief onto these parents?

Answer 1

The Church has pondered the suggestion of Limbo for a few hundred years and has decided that it is not a good idea. Limbo was never official doctrine.

Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved." (Mark 16:15-16)

For centuries, people have wondered about children who died before they were baptized. The Bible does not explicitly state that they will go to heaven.

Limbo was suggested as the place where unbaptized babies went when they died. This idea was never official Church doctrine and has been rejected.

The Church now says that it is not sure what happens to unbaptized babies when they die but she entrusts them to the mercy of God.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

When a revealed religion has been around for awhile, it finds that it's pronounced alot things that are silly or aren't true, but changing the rules to make it right brings into question whether apostolic authority itself is legitimate or should be questioned, so they are in an ever tightening corset of past decisions, that turned out to be not so great, havecalcified the church into immobility.

In some cases admitting error might bring back old heresies that were suppressed, further diluting authority. For Instance: Want to have women priests? Seems simple enough. First there's a long enough history of priests being only men, St. Paul and others said women should not lead, changing custom and church law may cast doubt on a whole host of things: from whether the Book of Mary Magdalene may be legitimate to the move to allow priests to marry. How many people will walk away from the Church? That's probably the real reason it hasn't happened. Limbo sounds like a made up doctrine that once may have been seen as having a purpose, but one oddity that no one cares about anymore, and won't miss.

Answer 3

Catechisms are not infallible documents. The Roman Catechism may have erred on the fate of unbaptized infants, and it may be that the new catechism, which offers no particular solution but just a generalized hope, is nevertheless closer to the right answer. It might be better to go with the “novel” teaching, which is more vague, and set aside the “traditional” teaching, which, some say, suggests a deficiency in God’s mercy.

Where does that leave us? In limbo, so to speak. A Catholic may accept limbo, or he may reject it. He is not a better or worse Catholic for doing one or the other. But he does need to think through the problem—where do unbaptized infants go, and how does his solution, whatever it may be, square with God’s justice and mercy (both together, not just one taken separately)?

Answer 4

I wasn't aware the Church had taken it back. What did the Pope say? Give a link. According to the Bible, the little ones will get into Heaven even tho they weren't baptized because they were too young to know the difference between right and wrong.

Answer 5

For the first thousand years of the Catholic Church it was OK for priests to be married. Then the church decided that the money of the priests should go to the church instead of the widows and it became a sin for a priest to marry. Of course in spite of their vow to God, they have sex with each other and many seem to like little boys, even a few like females. It used to be a sin for a woman to enter the church without covering her head. Now it is OK. It used to be a sin to eat meat on Friday. Now it is OK.

The Pope is just a man, a mortal man and all of the pomp and ceremony will not change this. Read up on your history and you will learn how many millions of people were tortured and killed at the order of the Pope. Did you know the Catholic Church is the richest organization in the WORLD?

Answer 6

Good for you Meg M! And she's right!

Please stop jumping to conclusions about what the Catholic Church teaches until you have actually read what the Church teaches (and done so with a critical eye... so as not to believe just what anybody says the Church teaches but to go to the source... the Church.. to find out what it teaches).

Also, please stop thinking that the Church is a form of thought control and that every single theological opinion is necessarily dogma ex cathedra by the Pope. Unlike the popular notion of theology in the Catholic Church, not every theological explanation is considered binding. This is why different theological schools of thought can coexist in the Catholic Church. Where disagreements come up, then the Magisterium (Pope and bishops) investigate the matter and come up with a teaching to guide the faithful. But still, unless it's been declare dogma, it not necessarily binding.

Answer 7

>>when the pope took back the idea of limbo, is he saying that the church just made it up?<<

Did you even bother to read the document? The Pope did not 'take back the idea of limbo.' The document states that the theory of Limbo "remains a possible theological opinion".
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html

Answer 8

Yes, The Church is notorious for making things up to suit their needs and then changing their minds later. All they are doing is discrediting themselves further. Like a child making things up, and changing their mind. Kind of like Peter and the Wolf.

Answer 9

Talk to George Carlin. There might still be some in purgatory on a meat rap. Now you only abstain from meat of Friday during lent, I think. They need to lighten up, let the priests get married like Peter was. Then maybe they would attract more normies that were not hiding some deviate sickness by covering it with robes.

Answer 10

Limbo was never an official dogma in the Catholic Church teaching!