Its capacity for unconscious self satire undiminished, the Catholic Church now concludes that "limbo," formerly the depository for the souls of unbaptized infants, is off the map, theologically speaking. So says the Church's International Theological Commission, a Vatican committee which has I guess been studying this question since before the current pope was pope. According to "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised," limbo offered an "unduly restrictive view of salvation." There are, it turns out, "theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation."
It's too late for me, being 48, but I suppose this is good news for some part of the population. The gray areas nevertheless remain. Infants in, three-year-olds still out? And Socrates: in or out? Subjects perhaps for the consideration of commissions not yet convened.
To this outsider it seems impossible that the work of the individual committee members could have been accompanied by a clear conscience.
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