{"id":2014,"date":"2007-04-21T00:49:47","date_gmt":"2007-04-21T00:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/if-youre-wondering-about-limbo.html"},"modified":"2007-04-21T00:49:47","modified_gmt":"2007-04-21T00:49:47","slug":"if-youre-wondering-about-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/if-youre-wondering-about-limbo.html","title":{"rendered":"If you’re wondering about Limbo…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please go read Zadok<\/a>. And remember – Beliefnet published a piece by him on this very subject. <\/a>From his most recent post:<\/p>\n

\n

That darned McBrien<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>
Now, maybe he’s being quoted out of context, but he reportedly says<\/span><\/a>: <\/p>\n

\n

"If there’s no limbo and we’re not going to revert to St. Augustine’s teaching that unbaptized infants go to hell, we’re left with only one option, namely, that everyone is born in the state of grace," said the Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

*Rolls eyes*
That does not follow. Note the fact that this document<\/span><\/a> gives various theological theories which give a motive for prayerful hope: <\/p>\n

\n

The document outlined several ways by which unbaptized babies might be united to Christ:
— A "saving conformity to Christ in his own death" by infants who themselves suffer and die.
— A solidarity with Christ among infant victims of violence, born and unborn, who like the holy innocents killed by King Herod are endangered by the "fear or selfishness of others."
— God may simply give the gift of salvation to unbaptized infants, corresponding to his sacramental gift of salvation to the baptized.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

NONE OF THOSE THEORIES IMPLY THAT MAN IS BORN IN A STATE OF GRACE. They all ‘compensate’ in some sense for the lack of baptism and make Christ’s grace available in an extraordinary way<\/span> analagous to the so-called baptisms of blood and of desire which in other circumstances can ‘compensate’ for the lack of sacramental baptism. The fact that such an extraordinary and compensatory act of God can happen in some cases, is not a universalization of the state of grace.
McBrien allegedly adds: <\/p>\n

\n

"Baptism does not exist to wipe away the "stain" of original sin, but to initiate one into the Church," he said in an e-mailed response.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Again, that is at best misleading, and at worst outright Pelagianism. One might just stay within the boundaries of orthodoxy if one says the above sentence with the intention that membership of the Church is the primary purpose of baptism, and the removal of the stain of Original Sin (does McBrien put the word stain in scare-quotes?) is some kind of secondary effect of baptism. However, if it is intended to mean that Baptism is all about initiation into the Church and has nothing to do with Original Sin… well, that position has been condemned as heretical more times than I care to remember.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please go read Zadok. And remember – Beliefnet published a piece by him on this very subject. From his most recent post: That darned McBrien Now, maybe he’s being quoted out of context, but he reportedly says: "If there’s no limbo and we’re not going to revert to St. Augustine’s teaching that unbaptized infants go…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nIf you're wondering about Limbo... - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/if-youre-wondering-about-limbo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If you're wondering about Limbo... - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Please go read Zadok. And remember – Beliefnet published a piece by him on this very subject. From his most recent post: That darned McBrien Now, maybe he’s being quoted out of context, but he reportedly says: "If there’s no limbo and we’re not going to revert to St. Augustine’s teaching that unbaptized infants go…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/if-youre-wondering-about-limbo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-04-21T00:49:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"If you're wondering about Limbo... - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/if-youre-wondering-about-limbo.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"If you're wondering about Limbo... - Via Media","og_description":"Please go read Zadok. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}