{"id":5369,"date":"2006-10-10T10:10:34","date_gmt":"2006-10-10T10:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html"},"modified":"2006-10-10T10:10:34","modified_gmt":"2006-10-10T10:10:34","slug":"still-wondering-about-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html","title":{"rendered":"Still wondering about Limbo?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read Fr. Z’s post – it might help.<\/a> It’s not about Limbo, per se, but about Benedict’s method:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

On a personal note, years ago when I worked in the Palace of the Holy Office, a couple days after he released his instruction On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian<\/em> I encountered Cardinal Ratzinger in the hallway and had a pleasant and very fruitful chat with him. I told him I had read the document through a couple times and he, with his characteristic kindness, asked my opinion about it. I responded to his surprise that I wasn\u2019t satisified. "Why", he asked. I said, "There are quite a few pages there, but nowhere do you identify who a theologian is." He regarded me for a few seconds and then said, "Why don\u2019t you tell us. You are working at the Augustinianum [the Patristic Institute literally across the street from the Holy Office building]. You are studying St. Augustine. Find out what St. Augustine thought a theologian is." That became the basis of my first thesis and I have him to thank for it. My point is that the Pope approaches the issue of theology and who the theologian is with great humility. I give this personal example as a tiny flicker of light to illuminate his own theological method. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Benedict XVI<\/span> is always taking the time to interrogate the past about today\u2019s burning questions.<\/strong> In helping me to a thesis topic, he did what a professor had done for him when he was young as he steered the young Ratzinger to go back to Augustine to explore what was meant by the "People of God", a much discussed question of those years. Even in his Regensburg Address, the Pope uses something of the past as a crowbar to pry open the difficult questions we face today.

He pries and prays and then pronounces.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This more than likely why, in his present role as Supreme Pontiff, he did not breathe even a single word about limbo in a sermon to the Theological Commission. He didn\u2019t even mention it as something they had studied! <\/p>\n

He is going to pry and pray before making a pronouncement and he wants everyone else to do the same. Let us not forget that he also told those theologians present (as well as other theologians in the world together with himself<\/em>) that theological pronouncements must be subject first to silence and God\u2019s<\/em> will, rather than the bombastic pressure of the world\u2019s<\/em> expectations.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Also check out Zadok’s post, which concerns Limbo specifically.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read Fr. Z’s post – it might help. It’s not about Limbo, per se, but about Benedict’s method: On a personal note, years ago when I worked in the Palace of the Holy Office, a couple days after he released his instruction On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian I encountered Cardinal Ratzinger in the…<\/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-5369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nStill 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\/2006\/10\/still-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=\"Still wondering about Limbo? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Read Fr. Z’s post – it might help. It’s not about Limbo, per se, but about Benedict’s method: On a personal note, years ago when I worked in the Palace of the Holy Office, a couple days after he released his instruction On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian I encountered Cardinal Ratzinger in the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-10T10:10:34+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":"Still 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\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Still wondering about Limbo? - Via Media","og_description":"Read Fr. Z’s post – it might help. It’s not about Limbo, per se, but about Benedict’s method: On a personal note, years ago when I worked in the Palace of the Holy Office, a couple days after he released his instruction On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian I encountered Cardinal Ratzinger in the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-10-10T10:10:34+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html","name":"Still wondering about Limbo? - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-10-10T10:10:34+00:00","dateModified":"2006-10-10T10:10:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/still-wondering-about-limbo.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Still wondering about Limbo?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. 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\/5369","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=5369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}