The present writer trained in operative obstetrics under a
devout Irish Roman Catholic Senior Registrar in the late sixties when infant
mortality was higher than it is now.
I
have witnessed the heart rending screams of terrified Romanist mothers when an
infant died at birth. There was the desperate attempt to locate a priest to
make a mercy dash to the hospital, followed by a conspiracy to fudge the time
of the infant’s death to give the mother hope that the priest had arrived in
time, when really she knew in her heart that the baby was consigned to limbo
for all eternity. The whole business was agonising, dishonest and sickening.
Limbo
is a word greatly over used in common speech and literature and, of course, by
journalists. The headline writers had a field day following the Pope’s attempt
in early October to dismiss the idea. As the BBC put it, “Vatican is to review state of limbo”.
‘Not
official’
All
the comment was along the same lines ‑ that the concept has never been
official church teaching. But everybody knows Rome’s aversion to doctrine in
dealing with bereaved parents, and rubbish it in private. Others believe that
Pope Benedict was too intellectual to entertain woolly concepts, or that limbo
was putting Rome at a disadvantage in competing with the Muslims who believed
that dead infants went to heaven.
Monstrous
foundations
So
it is time to look at limbo and appreciate the monstrous foundations of this
fiction before Rome can cover her tracks. And if she does succeed in
extinguishing limbo, including a convincing explanation as to what happens to
all its little inhabitants as a result, verbal tradition may remain the only
evidence that this weird fabrication ever existed. Tangible historical evidence
of limbo is already quite scarce.
Limbo
comes from the Latin LIMBUS meaning a hem, border, or something distinct from
that to which it is attached. It blossomed as a theological concept in medieval
times.
The
obvious place to look for an insight into the medieval mind is Dante’s Divine
Comedy. Here he describes how “midway” in this life he “awoke to find
(himself) in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone”. He
then describes a mammoth trek which led him on a bizarre journey through hell,
onto purgatory, and finally to paradise, as he searched for the “beatific
vision” of the glorified Christ. What a contrast to the apostle Paul’s comment
in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent
from the body, and to be present with the Lord”! Even bearing in mind the
general opinion that Dante’s, “version of this region is more generous than
most,” we nevertheless discover in the Divine Comedy that Rome has inspired some horrific imagery and appalling concepts.
Dante, having entered “the hall way of the futile” and
passed through “Hell gate”, encounters Charon, ferryman of the dead across the
Acheron, a “joyless” great river of Hell. Once across Dante descends to the First Circle of Hell’s pit. This is Rome’s Limbus patrium which is defined in her own
words as “the temporary place or state of the souls of the just”. It is in
stark contrast to the never ending Limbus infantium, “the permanent
place or state of those unbaptised children . . . dying without grievous
personal guilt (that) are excluded from the beatific vision on account of
original sin alone”.
There
are no agonised cries here, simply a crescendo of sighs, “quivering for ever
through the eternal air ... their sorrows multiplying”. These hapless
“sorrowers” are held here, “not for sin but because their merit lacked its
chief fulfilment ... baptism”. These poor, unbaptised infants say, “For
such defect alone ‑ no other wrong ‑ we are lost ‑ without
hope we ever live and long (for the beatific vision)”.
One
suspects many Romanists have never heard of Limbus patrium but every
Roman Catholic is chillingly aware of Limbus infantium otherwise known
as limbo.
Reformed position
The
Reformed position concerning infants dying un‑baptised is clearer. The Westminster
Confession Ch X sec 3 states “Elect infants, dying in infancy, are
regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit”.
But
this could imply that there are elect infants who go to Heaven and un‑elect
infants who go to Hell. Subsequent commentary on this passage from the Westminster
Confession has tended to be along the lines of the Declaratory Statement
of the USA Free Presbyterians in 1903 which stated, “We believe that all
dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and are regenerated and
saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where and how He
pleases.”
William
Shedd in his book on Calvinism thought this Declaratory Statement was
not necessary and that the Puritan authors of the Confession had simply
not commented upon the extent of the election, but Shedd assumes that they felt
that it encompassed all dying in infancy.
The
Book of Common prayer 1662 states in the rubric, “It is certain by God’s Word,
that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin,
are undoubtedly saved”.
The
Church of England made no clear pronouncement on the position of the unbaptised
infant but the minister had to accompany the coffin to the interment and the
infant buried in consecrated ground. Anglican formularies seem to follow
Scripture in not expressing a definite opinion on the subject but neither did
they deny the infant salvation. It has been suggested that this was to prevent
infanticide. The churches that have a problem are those like Rome that teach
baptismal regneration.
Roman
Catholicism built its limbo from the human ebb and flow of 1500 years of
teaching by church fathers, theologians and popes, with each seemingly harsh
edict tempered by a softer one in the way that human beings deal in their own
affairs. But Pope Benedict, who claims loudly never to have believed in limbo
himself, may find this unofficial fudge now so settled in the Romanist psyche
that it is harder to ban it than it would be to shed a crisper teaching.
One
person who was influential in advancing the idea of limbo was Pope Innocent III
(1161‑12160). He reckoned that un‑baptised babies would suffer, “no
other pain whether from material fire or the worm of conscience except the pain
of being deprived forever of the vision of God”. However, Thomas Aquinas felt
that, if the babies were conscious of their loss, this was worse than Hell. He
therefore taught that un‑baptised infants never come to know spiritually
what they are missing but might have a natural inkling, hence the crescendo of
wistful sighs in Dante’s limbo.
Decrees of urgency
The
agonies of those suffering the loss of baptised infants in this world are
however heightened by decrees on the urgency of baptising infants to outwit the
spectre of death stalking the infant. An early pope (AD 385) wrote “We desire
infants ... in want of the water of holy baptism be succoured with all possible
speed ... Enough of past mistakes”. The Council of Florence 1439 was so
convinced of the efficacy of the actual act of water baptism that it decreed,
“in case of necessity ... laymen or laywomen or even pagans or heretics may
baptise provided they observe the Church’s form and intend to do what the
Church does”.
Threat from Islam
One
interesting conjecture, put forward in the press, is that Benedict, and indeed
his predecessor John Paul II, who also mooted the discontinuation of limbo in
favour of “a more coherent and enlightened way”, were both motivated by the
threat from Islam. The BBC reckoned that this was an, “attempt by the Vatican to prevent people in developing countries with high infant mortality rates turning
to Islam ‑ Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to
paradise”.
Equally
widely reported is the red hot denial of Father John MacDaid, a theologian and
principal of the Catholic Heythrop College at the University of London, that competition with Islam has anything to do with the move. He insists “I don't think
there is any rivalry here”. Heythrop is of course the old Jesuit institution
incorporated into the university but continuing the traditional Jesuit ethos.
Heythrop now promotes itself as, “a natural . .. forum for the study and
practice of the encounter between Christianity and the other major religious
traditions ... The Centre is committed to ... fostering the practice of
interreligious dialogue".
An
internet search confirms that at popular level Muslims do solidly believe
that if any baby dies the infant goes straight to heaven forthcoming to
indicate that this general belief is Quran based. The author’s search seems
rather to support one polemicist in the view that, “there is not a single verse
in the Quran which says all infants that die go to Paradise”. And since the
“overwhelming majority of Muslims” consider hadith (supplementary
writings about what Mohammed said, did or approved of) to be essential
supplements to and clarifications of the Qur'an, their pronouncements on this
topic, also now accessible with search engines, are notable. They seem to show
that Mohammed himself did not think it possible to know the fate of dead babies
(See box below).
Could it be that the learned
Jesuits have seen in this question of the fate of those dying in infancy an
opportunity to enter into dialogue with Islam?
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Sahih Muslim, Book 033:
A'isha, the mother of the believers, said that Allah's Messenger (may be
upon him) was called to lead the funeral prayer of a child of the Ansar. I
(A'isha ) said: Allah's Messenger, there is happiness for this child who is
a bird from the birds of Paradise for it committed no sin nor has he
reached the age when one can commit sin.
He
said: ‘A’isha, per adventure, it may be otherwise, because God created for
Paradise those who are fit for it while they verse yet is their fathers
loins and created for Hell those who are to go to Hell. He created hem for
Hell while they were yet in their father's loins.
Sahib Muslim, Book 033:
Abu Huraira reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) was
asked about the children of the polytheists who die young. Thereupon
Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: It is Allah Who knows what
they would be doing.
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