by Dr. Jeff Mirus,
special to CatholicCulture.org
Some Catholics are under the impression
that the Church has formally taught that un-baptized infants
cannot be saved, but must inevitably be consigned to a
marginal abode known as limbo, where no supernatural
happiness is possible. But this is not what the Church
teaches.
The Questions Raised by Baptism
The Church does teach that the enjoyment of
the presence of God in heaven is not ours by right. It is a
free gift. With Scripture, the Church further teaches that we
must be reborn by water and the Holy Spirit before we can
enjoy the Beatific Vision, and that the means of this rebirth
is ordinarily the sacrament of baptism. Thus, the
Church formally taught at the Councils of Florence and Trent
that those who die without sacramental baptism, and for whom
the want of baptism has not been supplied in some other way,
cannot enter heaven.
But we need to be careful about what this
means. From the beginning, the Church’s very proper emphasis
on baptism raised thorny questions about the possibility of
salvation for certain persons—un-baptized through no fault of
their own—who were otherwise thought to be saved. The most
obvious case was that of catechumens who suffered martyrdom
before they were baptized. Very early on, the Church
recognized in these martyrs a different kind of baptism, that
of blood.
Later, theologians began wondering about
the case of men and women of good will who did their best to
seek God but who never had an opportunity to be exposed (or
effectively exposed) to the Gospel. The Catholic belief that
it was possible for such a person to be saved was partially
explained by Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi,
which taught that one could be joined to the Church inscio
quodam desiderio ac voto (“by a certain desire and wish
of which he is not aware”), commonly called baptism of
desire. This was further developed in Vatican II’s Lumen
Gentium, which clearly stated that even non-Christians
who sincerely seek God “can attain eternal salvation”.
The Theory of Limbo
Perhaps the earliest case of all was that
of the holy men and women of ancient Israel who died before
the coming of Our Lord, including such critical figures in
salvation history as Moses, David, Elijah and Ruth. Since the
gates of heaven were closed when they died, Catholic theology
generally holds that they went to a place on the border (limbus
means the border or hem of a garment) between heaven and
hell—an extension of the Hebrew concept of Sheol—where
they awaited the coming of the Savior. The Creed’s statement
that Christ “descended into hell” is traditionally held to
refer to this limbo, from which He freed their souls and led
them into Paradise.
It was a short conceptual jump from a
temporary Limbo of the Fathers to a permanent Limbo of
Infants. Clearly, the one thing the un-baptized groups we
have discussed have in common is a desire to be with God. The
presumption has generally been that infants cannot have this
desire. Therefore, when the Council of Trent said that
passing from our original state into “the state of grace and
adoption as sons of God” cannot take place “without the water
of regeneration or the desire for it”, it seemed to confirm a
widespread medieval belief that limbo must be the final
destination for un-baptized infants, who could not be damned
because they had no personal sin.
Later, Pope Pius VI condemned the
Jansenists as teaching something “false, rash and injurious
to Catholic education” because they claimed that a place
“which the faithful generally designate by the name limbo of
children” was a Pelagian fable. Still later, Pius XII wrote
that “an act of love can suffice for an adult to acquire
sanctifying grace and supply for the lack of baptism; to the
unborn or newly born infant this way is not open” (Acta
Apostolicae Sedis, XLIII, 84). The theory of limbo was
solidified within these strictures.
Problems with the Theory
But it remained a theory because the Church
has never formally defined the existence of limbo for
un-baptized infants. For the Church to condemn as rash those
who call limbo a fable is simply for the Church to point out
that the idea of limbo is not some fabulous creation of
unschooled or heretical minds but a legitimate attempt to
answer a very real and serious question. And for the Church
to note that certain non-sacramental ways to salvation are
not open to infants is simply for the Church to assert that
un-baptized infants are not saved by these specific means.
On the other hand, we have the interesting
case of the Holy Innocents. It has always been inconceivable
to Christians that these infants, who were murdered because
they might be the Son of God, could be denied the Beatific
Vision by God the Father. One can argue that the Holy
Innocents were not martyrs in the strict sense. They neither
had an opportunity to practice the Faith nor to renounce it.
They had no opportunity to perform an act of love, and no
greater ability than other infants to express a desire for
God. Yet they have always been included in the baptism of
blood and the Church celebrates a feast in their honor.
In addition, we must never forget St.
Paul’s great teaching that God desires all to be saved (Timothy
2:4). The very core of Catholic theology is that Christ
died for the salvation of all. The Church teaches that we
cannot earn our salvation, which is always a free gift, but
we can either work with grace to grow in union with God or
resist grace, turn our backs on God, and choose to live apart
from Him. This leads to one of the most vexing theological
questions of our own time: Is it reasonable to suppose that
God refuses supernatural happiness to those who have no
personal fault, who have not turned away? Is the theory of
limbo adequate?
Countless Efforts at Resolution
Some of the most famous (and faithful)
theologians have settled this question quite differently over
the centuries. St. Augustine denied the concept of limbo
(which was indeed held by the Pelagians) and taught that
un-baptized children were consigned to hell but in a way that
involved the least possible punishment. St. Thomas Aquinas
argued that their souls lacked grace and the beatific vision
but enjoyed a natural happiness in keeping with their
capacity. St. Bernard and, later, Cardinal Cajetan (Aquinas’
greatest commentator) suggested that the prayer and desire of
the child’s parents might supply a sort of baptism, just as
it supplied the necessary assent to sacramental baptism.
Still later theologians have wondered
whether the soul’s faculties of intellect and will, quite
apart from neurological development, are not sufficient to
express an interior desire for God. A similar question has
been asked about how God “gets through” to those with
Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, as He
sometimes seems to do. The point is that the Church does not
claim to have settled every question; moreover, she has
specifically left the fate of unbaptized infants unsettled.
At present, she freely admits in that she simply does not
know.
The official Catechism of the Catholic
Church, while not failing to stress the paramount
importance of baptism amid all these uncertainties, teaches
that, “As regards children who have died without Baptism,
the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she
does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy
of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’
tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the
children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope
that there is a way of salvation for children who have died
without Baptism.” (1261)
This is a legitimate hope of salvation that
must not be denied.
|
