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Not getting into this.
From the second article which he linked to, from U.S. Catholic, in an interview with a senior Catholic priest, who is a contributor to that magazine on theology (bolding mine):
tl;dr: Limbo is not currently supported doctrine by the Catholic Church, but that does not prevent many Catholics from believing in it, and it appears that the Church does not discourage Catholics from believing in it.
Part of that limbo (sorry for the pun) that Limbo is now in is that, as the articles note, in 2007, the Catholic Church issued an official document in which they presented a theological hypothesis, that there may be hope for unbaptized babies to go to Heaven. They did not come out and say, “there is no need for Limbo,” but they did present reasoning why it might not be needed.
I always pictured Limbo as being like a perpetual doctor’s waiting room. You’ve read all the magazines at least six times and they still haven’t called you in.
Hell lite.
What I was taught (early-to-mid-1950s) was that Limbo was a place of peace (“natural happiness,” as the priest put it in the article @kenobi_65 quoted): not Heaven — souls there did not bask in the divine presence — but certainly not a place of punishment. And it wasn’t limited to babies: anyone below the age of reason (the point at which an individual becomes responsible for moral choices, generally about age seven) qualified.
ETA, re Purgatory: we were constantly reminded, when faced with an unpleasant task, to “offer it up for the poor souls in Purgatory.” How raking leaves, which around here rot within five seconds of hitting the ground, was supposed to get some poor shlub out of the slammer remains a mystery to this day.
That is what’s called an “indulgence” in the Catholic Church – through prayer and doing good works, one can seek intercession for the soul of someone who has died, and is still in Purgatory, to, in essence, shorten their time in Purgatory.
Indulgences – particularly the abuse of them, by the Church selling indulgences for money – were the prime reason for Martin Luther to pen the Ninety-Five Theses, which led to the Protestant Reformation.
True — and if you looked in a prayer book of the time, each prayer listed the credit (three days for a Hail Mary, a week for the Lord’s Prayer, &c). Though how they apply to a realm which exists outside of terrestrial time is another mystery.
Abuse of indulgences were the Epstein Files of the late medieval RCC, and as such the point of Luther’s spear. But he had plenty of other issues as well.
Now back to Limbo.
Jeez, whatever happened to “As you say it shall be on earth, so shall it be in heaven”?
IOW, why didn’t (doesn’t) some pope put on his ex cathedra hat and say “babies get in free?”
You guys clearly are not up on your George Carlin. On the comedy album Class Clown he tells about the four places in the afterlife: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and Limbo. Allow me to quote:
The weirdest of all was Limbo. Limbo was where they sent unbaptized babies. The reasoning was, “It wasn’t their fault”. Yep. Can’t see God if you’re not baptized, but you were too young to make the decision- whip 'em into Limbo. OOO! What could limbo have been, man? (makes spooky noises) “Welcome to Limboooo.” I think they’ve since canceled Limbo. I’m not completely sure, but I think when they, uh, purged a few of the saints, they called off Limbo, too, yeah. Hope they promoted everyone, sent them to Heaven, y’know. Didn’t just cut them loose in space, right..yeah.
This. I don’t know if our lots were particularly hard as kids, or we just complained a lot, but my siblings and cousins and I were told this so many times that the grown-ups eventually shortened it to “offer it up for the Poor Souls.” You could hear the capital letters, and “in Purgatory” was understood.
Just wondering exactly what distinction is intended. What portions of christian/Catholic doctrine are NOT made-up?
Concerned for some guy who might have eaten a burger on a Friday some time back…
I also was taught that Limbo exists, until I heard later that the rules had been changed. Also, somehow got the idea that purgatory was not horrible per se. No eternal flame or devils poking you with pitchforks. But it was agonizing because folk there knew they were deprived of basking in God’s glory.
The basis for the doctrine of Purgatory is that there are passages in the Bible calling for us to pray for the souls of the dead. The idea is that anyone in Heaven doesn’t need our prayers any more, and anyone in Hell can’t benefit from them, so whom are we praying for, and where are they?
Which leads to what little the Church does officially say about Purgatory: Souls can go there immediately after death, it’s not as good as Heaven, souls there will eventually get to Heaven, and the prayers of the faithful can help ease that transition.
Within that framework, there are all sorts of possible envisionings of Purgatory. Some picture it as fiery pain, but still preferable to Hell in that the pain will eventually end. Some picture it as something like a hospital stay, that at times must necessarily be uncomfortable or even painful, but that is made as inoffensive as it can be (though still not exactly desirable). Some picture it as aeons of boredom. Some picture it as experiencing every harm or pain we’ve inflicted on another over the course of our lives. And the Church doesn’t say that any of those views is wrong.
Not to speak for @Whack-a-Mole , but I assume his distinction is based on what is in the official catechism of the Roman Catholic Church and what falls into the category of “believe it if you like, but it’s not canon”.
As mentioned, the 1992 catechism does not mention Limbo. And the 2007 theological report gives an official statement for why it is not necessary in the view of the church.
By contrast, purgatory is in the official catechism of the church. It is at least somewhat defined, and is official doctrine.
The medieval view was that the more masses you said for someone’s soul, the more time you cut from their sentence in Purgatory. Some wealthy people left enough money for masses to be said for them for hundreds of years.
At least, the medieval view among the wealthy, and among those hoping to get some of the wealthy’s inheritance.
Thanks. And despite being forced to sit thru catechism thru confirmation, and Sunday church thru high school, having rejected that nonsense in 4th or 5th grade, I lost track of what was or wasn’t “official.”
At one point I begrudgingly respected Catholicism. Even tho their “rules” were nonsense - and often offensive, at least they took a stance and said, “If you don’t like our rules, find yourself a differnet game.” But then they seemed to keep changing the rules - to my mind, somewhat arbitrarily, or for marketing purposes. When I was young, it was an insult to call someone a “cafeteria Catholic.” Now I regularly hear Catholics using that term to refer to themselves.
I had a really good friend once who had another good friend who was a priest. It was weird talking to him because on any number of issues, he interpreted doctrine much differently - and much more humanely and sensibly, than I understood it from a plain reading. Not sure if he was not adhering to doctrine, or if such interpretation requires some mindset that I lack. For me, once you realize that the underlying idea of heaven and hell is nonsense, quibbling over clearly made up details like limbp and purgatory is just not worth wasting the mental effort.
I can almost respect someone who professes a belief in some vague “god of the gaps.” If it makes you feel good to say “god is love,” instead of just saying “love is love,” more power to ya. But I have essentially no tolerance for folk who insist upon some fine details of a specific fairy tale. And little understanding of why anyone would choose to be so irrational.
Limbo seems to be something that was long assumed to be “official” because among the theologians who argued for it (as part of debates on Original Sin) were many who became the “Establishment” Church Fathers, and their writings became the go-to sources, so people conveyed what they had to say, even if it was never really decreed as a mandatory must-believe doctrine
as opposed to “trust God to do the Right Thing”.
(In popular opinion of course both Limbo and Purgatory—which IS official doctrine—eased the faithful’s concerns about “fairness” and if a just God would torment someone who never had a chance to accept salvation, or let someone off with no consequences at all upon a deathbed conversion.)
Would you say the same about, say, quantum mechanics?
I’m not defending limbo or any other particular doctrine, but this attitude seems unfair. There are too many people, it seems, who reject scientific theories because they don’t find them simple and intuitive.
I don’t think religion and quantum mechanics are comparable in the way you’re suggesting. There’s absolutely nothing at stake in whether I understand quantum mechanics beyond whatever the limit of my own curiosity might be.
But if someone tells me there’s a deity that expects me to learn and understand and accept a bunch of theological ideas in order to avoid eternal torment and then that deity has obscured the “true” theological ideas by allowing a whole bunch of fake theological ideas to crowd into the world and vie for everyone’s attention, my most charitable reaction to that is to ask why that deity is setting us up for failure.
Of COURSE Limbo is real ro Catholics.
That’s the place in the afterlife where you have to dance under a horizontal bamboo pole to calypso music. If you can make it under the pole without knocking it over you get to stay in the Airport Lounge of Hell, where there are no fames and there are cooks making food that is delicious but low calorie, low carb, fat-free, vegan, meatless, kosher, and halal all at once.
There are a lot of unbaptized babies there because they fit right under the bar. Also a lot of pre-Christian holy people, because they were REALLY limber. But Evil People would have their horns get stuck on the pole and knock it do
Sadly, Dante’s fourth poem, describing Dante’s and Vergil’s journey through Limbo, has been lost. wn, so they didn’t get in.