Heaven?

I trust that God in His Infinite Wisdom knows what to do.

Limbo. Also, what Dorothy said.

No such place.

Also, why should there be any restriction of them from heaven as they have no sin and Christ, by His death, has defeated death?

I guess you're unfamiliar with the Dogmas of Original Sin and the necessity of Baptism. The Tradition, however, is not, and that is why it posits Limbo as a place of perfect natural happiness. But you keep on the universalist train if you like. Seen where it's taking your hero Hart these days?

Can we not start down this path again please?

That's not Hart. That's Orthodoxy. We have no such belief as Original Sin nor of Limbo. And didn't the Roman Church quietly jettison this a few years ago? I thought I read that somewhere.

Children as infants have no sin. Therefore, no bar to heavenly felicity as infants

Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, said that limbo is not dogma, it isn't even a doctrine, but rather it is "a theological idea; one that has merit". So it wasn't jettisoned, just put in it's proper perspective.



Original sin is as if Adam & Eve were the Bonnie & Clyde of Eden, who made off with our inheritance, leaving us not only an account that is depleted, but one that is in the 'red', leaving us with a debt. A debt we could never repay because it left us with a fallen nature, a weakened will, and a darkened intellect. That is what 'original sin' means in Catholic theology.

That would be the Western view. We have no such understanding of ancestral sin and its effects in the Orthodox East.

You don't now you mean.

What I attributed to Hart is universalism.


There's no such thing as the Roman Church. And of course, no, the Church didn't "jettison" Limbo. But we're not going to discuss this here, as Zeno asked.

That's the point. It's not ancestral sin. It's the lack of the perfect state of grace that our ancestors possessed. It's not that we are inheriting something, but that we're not inheriting what they had.

We inherited death. What is being celebrated at Pascha is that Christ trampled death by death and broke down the gates of Hades. Death is no more and the inheritance which was left to us (a rotten inheritance indeed) by Adam and Eve is done away with.

There are some interesting things in this site from the International Theological Commission of the Roman Catholic Church

Unbaptized Infants

There are a number of statements which are interesting to me because in the East, we have no concept of "sinful and wicked babies" (my words) due to the inheritance of the guilt of Original Sin, therefore, the mulling over and musing done in this article, such as the following:



Then I read something like this:



and I find myself shaking my head wondering what I just read. Sounds like the phrase "absolute necessity" makes the Catholic Church almost insulted by the idea that anyone could wind up in hell. I find myself scratching my head, and some of you know exactly why.

Anyway, perhaps this page will be of interest to you.

We inherited an empty bag with an IOU in it. That's the debt that Jesus paid. But we still lack anything in the bag. That's concupiscence.

"The Catholic Church."
The international Theological Commission is the not the Catholic Church - it has no authority and is as fallible as any opinioned sect/group East, West, and wherever.

Also, the musing of, "limit the extension of God’s universal salvific will" is silly. One can then question everything God has done or has allowed to happen and scuff at true doctrine as placing "limits" on God.
How could Adam and Eve fallen? Wouldn't God's grace be sufficient? The concept of Adam and Even falling is to put a limit on God's grace.
What of this doctrine that God made creatures outside the beatific vision (angles and humans)? This limits God's ability to create being already in the beatific vision and hence never falling away and suffering to begin with.
Why even have sacraments? That limits God's grace to physical things that we have to seek out and do.
Etc.

It's not a very clever musing from the "Theological" Commission, 5th rate at best.

I actually do have a dog in this fight, I had a child who died in utero without baptism.

With full belief in the dogma of Original Sin, I trust that soul to the mercy of God and pray that the traditional teaching of Limbo is real.

IMO, baptized infants who die go to Heaven. Unbaptized go to what was once called limbo. I’ve not received a memo on a new name.
Thing about limbo & babies, Our Lord has it covered very well I think. Limbo for this, as I read somewhere recently, was described as a wonderful peaceful place for departed babies, not a punishment.
To help myself, I think of Limbo as a permanent happy, playful gathering of little ones.

Jesus said, forbid them not to come to me for to such as these belongs the kingdom of heaven. True statement with an unspoken qualification of baptism.

Regardless, the innocents who die are very loved by God & I don’t think we need to worry too much, the children are fine under the care of Our Father.