Oh no, they're getting rid of Limbo

They're talking about it on NPR. The catholic church has decided to remove Limbo from the Catechism.

I always sort of liked Limbo. It sounded like a nice place to live. Now what's going to happen to all the souls that have lived there for the last couple of thousand years?

"limbo" as in the dance. Not being Catholic, I'm sure you could forgive that.

I was raised Catholic and always pictured long lines of babies limboing under a stick!

:rofl: Whew.

When I taught CCD (1985-1991), I didn't even talk about it, just Purgatory.

They're both contrary to biblical doctrine and scripture and have never been substantiated by scriptural teachings of the afterlife.

edited for clarity

Catholics hold Church tradition as equal to scripture, so I doubt that's the reason they're getting rid of them.

I mean, I think Hell is totally ready for an upgrade to something more 21st century. Maybe being boiled for eternity in vat of White Phosphorus? There already already scads of Republican Sinners who qualify for some snazzy, hip, modern kind of Damnation.

You know they don't even teach the Rosary past 2nd grade? Weird.

I remember walking around the church following the older kids that carried Mary's statue on a little platform, saying the rosary.

Now it makes me think of the scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail where they are chanting and hitting themselves with books... :)

But don't worry, FEMA will take care of those souls lol

about Limbaugh. I thought you came up with a new nic for him.

:)

I was excited there for a while.

I knew this would happen after the Supreme Court gave local governments the power to use eminent domain for private development. Sure, Wal-Mart gets another store and probably a hefty tax break, but where are the current denizens of Limbo supposed to go?

Are they saying that the concept of Limbo is no longer valid, or are they just no longer teaching it? (Is removing Limbo like removing insurgency? You just ban the word and poof! It's gone!)

I boggles the mind that people who accept such concepts are in positions of power in our world.

That was where the dead unbaptized babies went I think. It would be a sad place.

baptized go...:shrug:

Educate this atheist please. :)

if you died before you got baptised or if you died before Jesus came to live on earth.

Purgatory was where you went if you died with sin on your soul, but those sins weren't bad enough to merit going to hell. You could do your time in Purgatory and then get into heaven. Hell was a one way ticket.

if they get rid of it?

edit: Just so you know I'm not mocking Catholicism, I've just always found religious mythology fascinating, especially Catholic/Christian and Greek/Roman mythology.

Thanks. :)

(former Catholic here)

:rolf:

always said she would spend her time in Purgatory ironing bottomless baskets of little girl's dresses (she had 5 daughters, all born in the late '40's, early '50's)

Jenn

Then Mary will call in a favor from JC and get your mom going to where she belongs! :hi:

she has finally "arrived". Thanks for the response.

Jenn

I'll throw in a decade for you next time I'm on my knees! :hi:

Good to see the scientific method being used by the Church.

I thought they were one and the same

No they are not the same at all.

Purgatory is temporal punishment to be endured before a soul reaches heaven.

Limbo is for souls who depart this life in the state of original sin i.e, children who have died without baptism.

Silly me! I thought it was a dance where you had to wiggle under a stick while maintaining your balance! :silly:

souls went to atone, if i am not mistaken (It has been years since i read it) but i remember specifically that Karma is the wind that blows there, bringing back to you all the ill you caused during your lifetime. It seems to me there was a way to get to either paradise or the inferno from purgatory, depending on how well you atoned.

Oh yeah...and a boat...and a sea...and a boatman (Coins for the boatman, remember that from "Troy"?)

Guess i have to read it again!

I was told in CCD, "Yes, but they live without the presence of God." I was like, "But if they don't know about God, why would they care? Limbo would be as good as Heaven." I was 12. They talked to my mom about it. My Mom said she agreed with me!

Y'all remember Pagan Babies???

you do with a long stick. Has it joined the Lambada as another "forbidden" dance? They never let us have any fun!

I guess no more. :shrug:

as long as it has. Purgatory is very nearly as crazy. What makes you think that purgatory is on its way out? That would come as a heck of a shock to my M-I-L. A disappointment, I think, too.

No "waiting" areas.

Sorry, but some of the non-mission-critical functions just had to be downsized. And please don't be shocked when you meet St. Peter, and he talks surprisingly like someone from India. (Yep -- outsourced!)

I always thought at least being halfway to heaven was better than nothing. Now they went and screwed that up. I'm thinking I will now need fire proof underware. Think about all those poor bastards now that got dumped straight to hell today.

has quite a shock. Especially with real estate prices so high lately. Even a fixer upper in hell must cost a small fortune.

:nuke::scared:


think of all that money spent for intercessions........well its gone up in smoke.

how low can you go?

That's too bad. Fun party dance. Not up, not down.

Pope to abandon idea of unbaptised babies forever in limbo

STEPHEN MCGINTY

THE Catholic Church is preparing to abandon the idea of limbo, the theological belief that children who die before being baptised are suspended in a space between heaven and hell.

The concept, which was devised in the 13th century and was depicted in numerous works of art during the Renaissance, such as Descent into Limbo by the painter Giotto, and in Dante's masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, is of a metaphysical space where infants are blissfully happy but are not actually in the presence of God.

The idea of limbo was developed as a response to the harshness of early Church teachings which insisted that any child who died before he or she was baptised would still be stained by Original Sin and so would be condemned to hell.

<snip>

However, an international commission of Catholic theologians, meeting in the Vatican this week, has been pondering the issue and is expected to advise Pope Benedict XVI to announce officially that the theological concept of limbo is incorrect.

Instead, the new belief is expected to be that unbaptised babies will go directly to heaven.

More:
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2324222005

This is a great article. You HAVE to read the rest.

I command it.

You must obey, or go to Purgatory.

Good, kind, sweet, young and pretty, (why the hell was this girl a nun?) Sister Mary Frances, my 2nd grade teacher.

One day in class I asked her about what happens to the children in Africa who die and have never heard of Jesus? She assured me that they would not be allowed into heaven. Instead they would go to Limbo where they would live a nice life but would never get to see god. I couldn't believe it. Why god would be so unfair? It was one of those first indelible experiences that turned me away from the church.

It was posed (by me) as a question to me Sunday School teacher. When she told me that any babies who weren't saved couldn't go to heaven -- even if they weren't old enough to comprehend a God in the first place -- that was the beginning of the end of my faith. Even as a child I couldn't understand why anyone in their right mind would think any deity who would deny innocent children a place in heaven was a God worthy of worship. Especially if the condemned babies died of a disease or famine that God could have prevented.

"Love me or die" is the ultimate threat in abusive relationships. Personally, I think God needs some intensive therapy to get over His power trip. Some divine intervention to stop war and famine and fewer personal appearances on grilled cheese and freeway overpasses would go a long way to converting the billions who are apparently doomed to everlasting hell for their lack of sufficiently obsequious and unquestioning adoration.

That's how one of my fav writers refers to God...
"Love me or die" is the ultimate threat in abusive relationships. Personally, I think God needs some intensive therapy to get over His power trip."

This Cafeteria Catholic agrees... Although, I do wonder if God took a 'anger management' session after the flood? :evilgrin:

> Good, kind, sweet, young and pretty, (why the hell was this girl a
> nun?) Sister Mary Frances, ...

How can you be sure what didn't go on in the convent at night? ,-)

Tesha

about those poor babies in limbo when I was a kid. It didn't make sense to me, but I believed it back then. I also thought I was going to hell when I accidentally ate meat on a Friday. The church dumped that belief too.

:cry: nobody tells me anything!

:D

Well, now there's no more abortion debate, I guess.

All those fertilized eggs go right to Heaven-- no harm, no foul. Go straight to Heaven- Do not join the Army, do not collect 200 dollars.

they can't get rid of it. It's their main rant within the church, that all those pore aborted bay bees will end up outside the gates of heaven, in Limbo, because their mommies didn't allow them to be born and baptized before they died of abuse or neglect.

They can't send the unbaptized to heaven, because who wouldn't want to dispose of an unwanted pregnancy if assured the fetus would get a quick shuttle up to paradise?

Such a quandary! Limbo was invented for unbaptized innocents. They're going to have to keep it, like all the other theologically unsound crap they're already burdened with.

...Rush Limbo (R - Hillbilly Heroin)

if Christ died for all of mans' sins, wouldn't Limbo and Purgatory be redundant? Why would unbaptized babies and unsaved heathens go there if all sin was expunged by the act of redemption by Crucifixion?

I used to argue with the nuns about this, and never got a satisfactory answer, just more homework. The Jesuits in high school would make circular arguments about it, but you could tell that many thought it was just so much mumbo-jumbo made up by the Catholic Church to scare the ignorant.

They lost me a long time ago. I guess it's straight to Hell for me when I go.

Just making things more efficient and streamlined. In this busy, fast-paced age, we don't have time to linger about for thousands of years before the final destination is reached.

You either are or you aren't ________________________ (gay, going to hell, receiving the sacrements) just fill in the blank

Did Jesus speak of these things?

See this article:

<snip>

The concept, which was devised in the 13th century and was depicted in numerous works of art during the Renaissance, such as Descent into Limbo by the painter Giotto, and in Dante's masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, is of a metaphysical space where infants are blissfully happy but are not actually in the presence of God.

<snip>

The idea was first suggested by St Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390 AD), who believed that the unbaptised would neither be punished nor access the full glory of God.

This was dismissed by St Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), who insisted instead that baptism was necessary for salvation and that even babies would be consigned to hell if they were not baptised.

He did, however, concede that once in hell their torment would be the mildest of all its residents. This torture of the innocent was unacceptable to St Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274 AD), who was the first major theologian to speculate about the existence of a place called limbo, whose name is derived from the Latin limbus which means "hem" or "edge". There, on the edge of heaven, the unbaptised would exist in a state of what he described as "natural happiness".

More:
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2324222005


For more about Purgatory, see:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
By Roald Dahl
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0141301155-0

There goes that copy of Dante. So, now what? What am I supposed to do with that book now??? Anyone have an unbalanced table I can help them straighten out?

of course, if the operation is carried out by FEMA, this may not go so smoothly.

What's next I ask you, the twist??

Something must be done!! NOW!!! Harrumphh!

have you believing in imaginary places and then they tell you they were all wrong and it doesn't exist after all. :wow:

Whether or not there is a place souls go to after death, or even if we have souls, we won't know until the time comes, so for religions to come along every few years inventing this fantasy place after life is just ridiculous.

Damn it!

Why don't we petition them to invent a really COOL afterlife? Like, I dunno, New Zealand but much, much BIGGER?