More on limbo

You read a previous post about the clarification on limbo. Here's the way the secular media covered the same story...incorrectly.

This was not a reversal of traditional catholic teaching. This was a change in a theological opinion. Nothing more. The term "traditional catholic teaching" makes it seem like this was/is a dogma of the catholic church. It not only wasn't a dogma, it didn't even reach the trustworthy but alterable state of catholic doctrine. This was (at one time) a trusted theological opinion held by experts. The Pope is saying that it's not to be thought of as a doctrine (let alone a dogma) and is more a creation by experts to explain a problem than God's solution to the problem.

I love the quote by the theologian Richard McBrien "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."

Here's another option...mystery. This is the point of the pope. The death of a child is a mystery best left to the jurisdiction of God. Even as thousands of children are killed in this country every day because of the scourge of abortion, we fall back on the love of a God who would not turn his back on a child, even if father and mother should do so. God could save people without baptism. But the ordinary means of salvation remains baptism. God is not restricted by the evil actions of a human being. He can forgive in other ways.

But, for a theologian to proclaim that this reverses the church's stance on original sin is unconscionable! Original sin is a dogma of the church. (For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven....) I guess I can hope that they misquoted him in this story or that he was having a bad day or something. I just hope he isn't teaching this in his classes at Notre Dame!