The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized
by International Theological Commission
Introduction
1. St. Peter encourages Christians to be always ready to give an account of the hope that is in them (cf. 1 Pt 3:15-16).1 This document deals with the hope that Christians can have for the salvation of unbaptized infants who die. It indicates how such a hope has developed in recent decades and what its grounds are so as to enable an account of that hope to be given.
Though at first sight this topic may seem to be peripheral to theological concerns, questions of great depth and complexity are involved in its proper explication, and such an explication is called for today by pressing pastoral needs.
2. In these times the number of infants who die unbaptized is growing greatly. This is partly because of parents influenced by cultural relativism and religious pluralism who are nonpracticing, but it is also partly a consequence of in vitro fertilization and abortion. Given these developments, the question of the destiny of such infants is raised with new urgency.
In such a situation the ways by which salvation may be achieved appear ever more complex and problematic. The church, faithful guardian of the way of salvation, knows that salvation can be achieved only in Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Yet as mother and teacher, she cannot fail to reflect on the destiny of all human beings, created in the image of God,2 and especially of the weakest.
Being endowed with reason, conscience and freedom, adults are responsible for their own destiny insofar as they accept or reject God's grace. Infants, however, who do not yet have the use of reason, conscience and freedom, cannot decide for themselves.
Parents experience great grief and feelings of guilt when they do not have the moral assurance of the salvation of their children, and people find it increasingly difficult to accept that God is just and merciful if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness, whether they are Christian or non-Christian.
From a theological point of view, the development of a theology of hope and an ecclesiology of communion, together with a recognition of the greatness of divine mercy, challenge an unduly restrictive view of salvation. In fact, the universal salvific will of God and the correspondingly universal mediation of Christ mean that all theological notions that ultimately call into question the very omnipotence of God, and his mercy in particular, are inadequate.
3. The idea of limbo, which the church has used for many centuries to designate the destiny of infants who die without baptism, has no clear foundation in revelation even though it has long been used in traditional theological teaching. Moreover, the notion that infants who die without baptism are deprived of the beatific vision, which has for so long been regarded as the common doctrine of the church, gives rise to numerous pastoral problems, so much so that many pastors of souls have asked for a deeper reflection on the ways of salvation.
The necessary reconsideration of the theological issues cannot ignore the tragic consequences of original sin. Original sin implies a state of separation from Christ, and that excludes the possibility of the vision of God for those who die in that state.
4. Reflecting on the question of the destiny of infants who die without baptism, the ecclesial community must keep in mind the fact that God is more properly the subject than the object of theology. The first task of theology is therefore to listen to the word of God. Theology listens to the word of God expressed in the Scriptures in order to communicate it lovingly to all people.
However, with regard to the salvation of those who die without baptism, the word of God says little or nothing. It is therefore necessary to interpret the reticence of Scripture on this issue in the light of texts concerning the universal plan of salvation and the ways of salvation. In short, the problem both for theology and for pastoral care is how to safeguard and reconcile two sets of biblical affirmations: those concerning God's universal salvific will (cf. 1 Tm 2:4) and those regarding the necessity of baptism as the way of being freed from sin and conformed to Christ (cf. Mk 16:16; Mt 28:18-19).
5. Second, taking account of the principle lex orandi, lex credendi, the Christian community notes that there is no mention of limbo in the liturgy. In fact, the liturgy contains a feast of the Holy Innocents, who are venerated as martyrs even though they were not baptized, because they were killed "on account of Christ."3
There has even been an important liturgical development through the introduction of funerals for infants who died without baptism. We do not pray for those who are damned. The Roman Missal of 1970 introduced a funeral Mass for unbaptized infants whose parents intended to present them for baptism. The church entrusts to God's mercy those infants who die unbaptized.
In its 1980 instruction on children's baptism the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed that "with regard to children who die without having received baptism, the church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as indeed she does in the funeral rite established for them."4
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) adds that "the great mercy of God, who desires that all men should be saved [1 Tm 2:4], and Jesus' tenderness toward children, which caused him to say, 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them' (Mk 10:14), allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism."5
6. Third, the church cannot fail to encourage the hope of salvation for infants who die without baptism by the very fact that she "prays that no one should be lost"6 and prays in hope for "all to be saved."7 On the basis of an anthropology of solidarity,8 strengthened by an ecclesial understanding of corporate personality, the church knows the help that can be given by the faith of believers. The Gospel of Mark actually describes an occasion when the faith of some was effective for the salvation of another (cf. Mk 2:5).
So, while knowing that the normal way to achieve salvation in Christ is by baptism in re, the church hopes that there may be other ways to achieve the same end. Because by his incarnation the Son of God "in a certain way united himself" with every human being and because Christ died for all and all are in fact "called to one and the same destiny, which is divine," the church believes that "the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery" (Gaudium et Spes, 22).9
7. Finally, when reflecting theologically on the salvation of infants who die without baptism, the church respects the hierarchy of truths and therefore begins by clearly reaffirming the primacy of Christ and his grace, which has priority over Adam and sin. Jesus Christ, in his existence for us and in the redemptive power of his sacrifice, died and rose again for all. By his whole life and teaching, he revealed the fatherhood of God and his universal love.
While the necessity of baptism is de fide, the tradition and the documents of the magisterium which have reaffirmed this necessity need to be interpreted. While it is true that the universal salvific will of God is not opposed to the necessity of baptism, it is also true that infants, for their part, do not place any personal obstacle in the way of redemptive grace.
On the other hand, baptism is administered to infants, who are free from personal sins, not only in order to free them from original sin but also to insert them into the communion of salvation which is the church, by means of communion in the death and resurrection of Christ (cf. Rom 6:1-7). Grace is totally free, because it is always a pure gift of God.
Damnation, however, is deserved, because it is the consequence of free human choice.10 The infant who dies with baptism is saved by the grace of Christ and through the intercession of the church even without his or her cooperation. It can be asked whether the infant who dies without baptism but for whom the church in its prayer expresses the desire for salvation can be deprived of the vision of God even without his or her cooperation.
1. Historia Quaestionis — History and Hermeneutics of Catholic Teaching
1.1. Biblical Foundations
8. A sound theological inquiry should start with a study of the biblical foundations of any ecclesial doctrine or practice. Hence, as regards the issue under discussion, the question should be asked whether the Holy Scriptures deal in one way or another with the question of the destiny of unbaptized children.
Even a quick look through the New Testament, however, makes it clear that the early Christian communities were not yet confronted with the question whether infants or children who had died without baptism would receive God's salvation. When the New Testament mentions the practice of baptism, it generally points to the baptism of adults.
But the New Testament evidence does not preclude the possibility of infants being baptized. In households (oikos) where baptism is mentioned in the Book of Acts 16:15 and 33 (cf. 18:8) and First Corinthians 1:16, children may have been baptized along with adults. The absence of positive evidence may be explained by the fact that the New Testament writings are concerned mainly with the initial spread of Christianity in the world.
9. The lack of any positive teaching within the New Testament with respect to the destiny of unbaptized children does not mean that the theological discussion of this question is not informed by a number of fundamental biblical doctrines. These include:
(i) God wills to save all people (cf. Gn 3:15; 22:18; 1 Tm 2:3-6), through Jesus Christ's victory over sin and death (cf. Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:7-11; Rom 14:9; 1 Cor 15:20-28).
(ii) The universal sinfulness of human beings (cf. Gn 6:5-6; 8:21; 1 Kgs 8:46; Ps 130:3), and their being born in sin (cf. Ps 51:7; Sir 25:24) since Adam, and therefore their being destined to death (cf. Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22).
(iii) The necessity for salvation of the faith of the believer (cf. Rom 1:16) on the one hand and of baptism (cf. Mk 16:16; Mt 28:19; Acts 2:40-41; 16:30-33) and the Eucharist (cf. Jn 6:53) administered by the church on the other hand.
(iv) Christian hope goes utterly beyond human hope (cf. Rom 4:18-21); Christian hope is that the living God, the Savior of all humanity (cf. 1 Tm 4:10), will share his glory with all people and that all will live with Christ (cf. 1 Thes 5:9-11; Rom 8:2-5,23-25), and Christians must be ready to give an account of the hope they have (cf. 1 Pt 3:15).
(v) The church must make "supplications, prayers and intercessions... for all" (1 Tm 2:1-8), based on faith that for God's creative power "nothing is impossible" (Jb 42:2; Mk 10:27; 12:24,27; Lk 1:37) and on the hope that the whole creation will finally share in the glory of God (cf. Rom 8:22-27).
10. There seems to be a tension between two of the biblical doctrines just mentioned: the universal salvific will of God on the one side and the necessity of sacramental baptism on the other. The latter seems to limit the extension of God's universal salvific will. Hence a hermeneutical reflection is needed about how the witnesses of tradition (church fathers, the magisterium, theologians) read and used biblical texts and doctrines with respect to the problem being dealt with. More specifically, one has to clarify what kind of "necessity" is claimed with respect to the sacrament of baptism in order to avoid a mistaken understanding.
The necessity of sacramental baptism is a necessity of the second order compared to the absolute necessity of God's saving act through Jesus Christ for the final salvation of every human being. Sacramental baptism is necessary because it is the ordinary means through which a person shares the beneficial effects of Jesus' death and resurrection. In what follows, we will be attentive to the way scriptural witnesses have been used in the tradition. Moreover, in dealing with theological principles (Chapter 2) and with our reasons for hope (Chapter 3), we will discuss in greater detail the biblical doctrines and texts involved.
1.2. The Greek Fathers
11. Very few Greek fathers dealt with the destiny of infants who die without baptism because there was no controversy about this issue in the East. Furthermore, they had a different view of the present condition of humanity.
For the Greek fathers, as the consequence of Adams sin, human beings inherited corruption, passibility and mortality, from which they could be restored by a process of deification made possible through the redemptive work of Christ. The idea of an inheritance of sin or guilt — common in Western tradition — was foreign to this perspective since in their view sin could only be a free, personal act.11 Hence, not many Greek fathers explicitly deal with the problem of the salvation of unbaptized children.
They do, however, discuss the status or situation — but not the place — of these infants after their death. In this regard the main problem they face is the tension between God's universal salvific will and the teaching of the Gospel about the necessity of baptism. Pseudo -Athanasius says clearly that an unbaptized person cannot enter the kingdom of God. He also asserts that unbaptized children will not enter the kingdom but neither will they be lost, for they have not sinned.12
Anastasius of Sinai expresses this even more clearly: For him, unbaptized children do not go to Gehenna. But he is not able to say more; he does not express an opinion about where they do go, but leaves their destiny to God's judgment.13
12. Alone among the Greek fathers, Gregory of Nyssa wrote a work specifically on the destiny of infants who die, De infantibus praemature abreptis libellum.14 The anguish of the church appears in the questions he puts to himself: The destiny of these infants is a mystery, "something much greater than the human mind can grasp."15 He expresses his opinion in relation to virtue and its reward; in his view there is no reason for God to grant what is hoped for as a reward. Virtue is not worth anything if those who depart this life prematurely without having practiced virtue are immediately welcomed into blessedness.
Continuing along this line, Gregory asks, "What will happen to the one who finishes his life at a tender age, who has done nothing, bad or good? Is he worthy of a reward?"16 He answers, "The hoped for blessedness belongs to human beings by nature, and it is called a reward only in a certain sense."17
Enjoyment of true life (zoe and not bios) corresponds to human nature and is possessed in the degree that virtue is practiced. Since the innocent infant does not need purification from personal sins, he shares in this life corresponding to his nature in a sort of regular progress, according to his capacity. Gregory of Nyssa distinguishes between the destiny of infants and that of adults who lived a virtuous life. "The premature death of newborn infants does not provide a basis for the presupposition that they will suffer torments or that they will be in the same state as those who have been purified in this life by all the virtues."18
Finally, he offers this perspective for the reflection of the church: "Apostolic contemplation fortifies our inquiry, for the One who has done everything well, with wisdom (Ps 104:24), is able to bring good out of evil."19
13. Gregory of Nazianzus does not write about the place and status after death of infants who die without sacramental baptism, but he enlarges the subject with another consideration. He writes, namely, that these children receive neither praise nor punishment from the just judge because they have suffered injury rather than provoked it. "The one who does not deserve punishment is not thereby worthy of praise, and the one who does not deserve praise is not thereby deserving of punishment."20
The profound teaching of the Greek fathers can be summarized in the opinion of Anastasius of Sinai: "It would not be fitting to probe God's judgments with one's hands."21
14. On the one hand, these Greek fathers teach that children who die without baptism do not suffer eternal damnation, though they do not attain the same state as those who have been baptized. On the other hand, they do not explain what their state is like or where they go. In this matter the Greek fathers display their characteristic apophatic sensitivity.
1.3. The Latin Fathers
15. The fate of unbaptized infants first became the subject of sustained theological reflection in the West during the anti-Pelagian controversies of the early fifth century. St. Augustine addressed the question because Pelagius was teaching that infants could be saved without baptism.
Pelagius questioned whether St. Paul's Letter to the Romans really taught that all human beings sinned "in Adam" (Rom 5:12) and that concupiscence, suffering and death were a consequence of the Fall.22 Since he denied that Adam's sin was transmitted to his descendants, he regarded newborn infants as innocent. Pelagius promised infants who died unbaptized entry into "eternal life" (not, however, into the "kingdom of God" [Jn 3:5]), reasoning that God would not condemn to hell those who were not personally guilty of sin.23
16. In countering Pelagius, Augustine was led to state that infants who die without baptism are consigned to hell.24 He appealed to the Lord's precept, John 3:5, and to the church's liturgical practice.
Why are little children brought to the baptismal font, especially infants in danger of death, if not to assure them entrance into the kingdom of God? Why are they subjected to exorcisms and exsufflations if they do not have to be delivered from the devil?25 Why are they born again if they do not need to be made new?
Liturgical practice confirms the church's belief that all inherit Adam's sin and must be transferred from the power of darkness into the kingdom of light (Col 1:13).26 There is only one baptism, the same for infants and adults, and it is for the forgiveness of sins.27 If little children are baptized, then, it is because they are sinners. Although they clearly are not guilty of personal sin, according to Romans 5:12 (in the Latin translation available to Augustine), they have sinned "in Adam."28 "Why did Christ die for them if they are not guilty?"29 All need Christ as their savior.
17. In Augustine's judgment, Pelagius undermined belief in Jesus Christ, the one mediator (1 Tin 2:5), and in the need for the saving grace he won for us on the cross. Christ came to save sinners. He is the "Great Physician" who offers even infants the medicine of baptism to save them from the inherited sin of Adam.30
The sole remedy for the sin of Adam, passed on to everyone through human generation, is baptism. Those who are not baptized cannot enter the kingdom of God. At the judgment, those who do not enter the kingdom (Mt 25:34) will be condemned to hell (Mt 25:41). There is no "middle ground" between heaven and hell. "There is no middle place left, where you can put babies."31 Anyone "who is not with Christ must be with the devil."32
18. God is just. If he condemns baptized children to hell, it is because they are sinners. Although these infants are punished in hell, they will suffer only the "mildest condemnation" (mitissima poena),33 "the lightest punishment of all,"34 for there are diverse punishments in proportion to the guilt of the sinner.35 These infants were unable to help themselves, but there is no injustice in their condemnation because all belong to "the same mass," the mass destined for perdition. God does no injustice to those who are not elected, for all deserve hell.36
Why is it that some are vessels of wrath and others vessels of mercy? Augustine admits that he "cannot find a satisfactory and worthy explanation." He can only exclaim with St. Paul, "How inscrutable [God's] judgments and untraceable his ways!"37 Rather than condemn divine authority, he gives a restrictive interpretation of God's universal salvific will.38 The church believes that if anyone is redeemed, it is only by God's unmerited mercy; but if anyone is condemned, it is by his well-merited judgment. We shall discover the justice of God's will in the next world.39
19. The Council of Carthage of 418 rejected the teaching of Pelagius. It condemned the opinion that infants "do not contract from Adam any trace of original sin, which must be expiated by the bath of regeneration that leads to eternal life." Positively, this council taught that "even children who of themselves cannot have yet committed any sin are truly baptized for the remission of sins, so that by regeneration they may be cleansed from what they contracted through generation."40
It was also added that there is no "intermediate or other happy dwelling place for children who have left this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, that is, eternal life."41 This council did not, however, explicitly endorse all aspects of Augustine's stern view about the destiny of infants who die without baptism.
20. So great was Augustine's authority in the West, however, that the Latin fathers (e.g., Jerome, Fulgentius, Avitus of Vienne and Gregory the Great) did adopt his opinion. Gregory the Great asserts that God condemns even those with only original sin on their souls; even infants who have never sinned by their own will must go to "everlasting torments." He cites Job 14:4-5 (LXX), John 3:5 and Ephesians 2:3 on our condition at birth as "children of wrath."42
1.4. The Medieval Scholastics
21. Augustine was the point of reference for Latin theologians throughout the Middle Ages on this matter. Anselm of Canterbury is a good example: He believes that little children who die without baptism are damned on account of original sin and in keeping with God's justice.43
The common doctrine was summarized by Hugh of St. Victor: Infants who die unbaptized cannot be saved because (1) they have not received the sacrament, and (2) they cannot make a personal act of faith that would supply for the sacrament.44
This doctrine implies that one needs to be justified during one's earthly life in order to enter eternal life after death. Death puts an end to the possibility of choosing to accept or reject grace, that is, to adhere to God or turn away from him; after death, a person's fundamental dispositions before God receive no further modification.
22. But most of the later medieval authors from Peter Abelard on underline the goodness of God and interpret Augustine's "mildest punishment" as the privation of the beatific vision (carentia visionis Dei), without hope of obtaining it, but with no additional penalties.45 This teaching, which modified the strict opinion of St. Augustine, was disseminated by Peter Lombard: Little children suffer no penalty except the privation of the vision of God.46
This position led the theological reflection of the 13th century to assign unbaptized infants a destiny essentially different from that of the saints in heaven, but also partly different from that of the reprobate, with whom they are nonetheless associated. This did not prevent the medieval theologians from holding the existence of two (and not three) possible outcomes for human existence: the happiness of heaven for the saints and the privation of this celestial happiness for the damned and for infants who died unbaptized.
In the developments of medieval doctrine, the loss of the beatific vision (poena damni) was understood to be the proper punishment for original sin, whereas the "torments of perpetual hell" constituted the punishment for mortal sins actually committed.47 In the Middle Ages the ecclesiastical magisterium affirmed more than once that those "who die in mortal sin" and those who die "with original sin only" receive "different punishments."48
23. Because children below the age of reason did not commit actual sin, theologians came to the common view that these unbaptized children feel no pain at all or even that they enjoy a full natural happiness through their union with God in all natural goods (Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus).49
The contribution of this last theological thesis consists especially in its recognition of an authentic joy among children who die without sacramental baptism: They possess a true form of union with God proportionate to their condition. The thesis relies on a certain way of conceptualizing the relationship between the natural and the supernatural orders, and in particular the orientation to the supernatural; it must not be confused, however, with the later development of the idea of "pure nature."
Thomas Aquinas, for instance, insisted that faith alone allows us to know that the supernatural end of human life consists in the glory of the saints, that is, in participation in the life of the triune God through the beatific vision. Since this supernatural end transcends natural human knowledge and since unbaptized children lack the sacrament that would have given them the seed of such supernatural knowledge, Aquinas concluded that infants who die without baptism do not know what they are deprived of and hence do not suffer from the privation of the beatific vision.50
Even when they adopted such a view, theologians considered the privation of the beatific vision as an affliction ("punishment") within the divine economy. The theological doctrine of a "natural beatitude" (and the absence of any suffering) can be understood as an attempt to account for God's justice and mercy regarding children who did not commit any actual fault, thus giving more weight to God's mercy than in Augustine's view. The theologians who held this thesis of a natural happiness for children who died without baptism manifest a very lively sense of the gratuity of salvation and of the mystery of God's will that human thought cannot fully grasp.
24. The theologians who taught in one form or another that unbaptized children are deprived of the vision of God generally held at the same time a double affirmation: (a) God wills that everyone be saved, and (b) God, who wills that all be saved, wills equally the dispensations and the means that he himself has established for this salvation and that he has made known to us by his revelation. The second affirmation, of itself, does not exclude other dispositions of the divine economy (as is clear, for example, in the witness of the Holy Innocents).
As for the expression limbo of infants, it was forged at the turn of the 12th-13th century to name the "resting place" of such infants (the "border" of the inferior region). Theologians could discuss this question, however, without using the word limbo. Their doctrines should not be confused with the use of the word limbo.
25. The main affirmation of these doctrines is that those who were not capable of a free act by which they could consent to grace and who died without having been regenerated by the sacrament of baptism are deprived of the vision of God because of original sin, which they inherit through human generation.
1.5. The Modern) Post- Tridentine Era
26. Augustine's thought enjoyed a revival in the 16th century and with it his theory regarding the fate of unbaptized infants, as Robert Bellarmine, for example, bears witness.51 One consequence of this revival of Augustinianism was Jansenism. Together with Catholic theologians of the Augustinian school, the Jansenists vigorously opposed the theory of limbo.
During this period the popes (Paul III, Benedict XIV, Clement XIII)52 defended the right of Catholics to teach Augustine's stern view that infants dying with original sin alone are damned and punished with the perpetual torment of the fire of hell, though with the "mildest pain" (Augustine) compared with what was suffered by adults who were punished for their mortal sins. On the other hand, when the Jansenist Synod of Pistoia (1786) denounced the medieval theory of limbo, Pius VI defended the right of the Catholic schools to teach that those who died with the guilt of original sin alone are punished with the lack of the beatific vision ("punishment of loss"), but not sensible pains (the punishment of "fire").
In the bull Auctorem Fidei (1794), the pope condemned as "false, rash, injurious to the Catholic schools" the Jansenist teaching "which rejects as a Pelagian fable [fabula pelagiana] that place in the lower regions (which the faithful call the limbo of children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the condemned, without the punishment of fire, just as if whoever removes the punishment of fire thereby introduces that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation of which the Pelagians idly talk."53
Papal interventions during this period, then, protected the freedom of the Catholic schools to wrestle with this question. They did not endorse the theory of limbo as a doctrine of faith. Limbo, however, was the common Catholic teaching until the mid-20th century.
1.6. From the Time of Vatican I to Vatican II
27. Prior to the First Vatican Council and again prior to the Second Vatican Council, there was a strong interest in some quarters in defining Catholic doctrine on this matter. This interest was evident in the revised schema of the dogmatic constitution De Doctrina Catholica, prepared for the First Vatican Council (but not voted upon by the council), which presented the destiny of children who died without baptism as between that of the damned, on the one hand, and that of the souls in purgatory and the blessed, on the other: "Etiam qui cum solo originali peccato mortem obeunt, beata Dei visione in perpetuum carebunt."54
In the 20th century, however, theologians sought the right to imagine new solutions, including the possibility that Christ's full salvation reaches these infants.55
28. In the preparatory phase of Vatican II, there was a desire on the part of some that the council affirm the common doctrine that unbaptized infants cannot attain the beatific vision and thereby close the question. The Central Preparatory Commission, which was aware of many arguments against the traditional doctrine and of the need to propose a solution in better accordance with the developing sensus fidelium, opposed this move.
Because it was thought that theological reflection on the issue was not mature enough, the question was not included in the council's agenda; it did not enter into the council's deliberations and was left open for further investigation.56
The question raised a number of problems whose outcome was debated among theologians, in particular: the status of the church's traditional teaching concerning children who die without baptism; the absence of an explicit indication in Holy Scripture on the subject; the connection between the natural order and the supernatural vocation of human beings; original sin and the universal saving will of God; and the "substitutions" for sacramental baptism that can be invoked for young children.
29. The Catholic Church's belief that baptism is necessary for salvation was powerfully expressed in the Decree for the Jacobites at the Council of Florence in 1442: "There is no other way to come to the aid [of little children] than the sacrament of baptism by which they are snatched from the power of the devil and adopted as children of God."57 This teaching implies a very vivid perception of the divine favor displayed in the sacramental economy instituted by Christ; the church does not know of any other means which would certainly give little children access to eternal life.
However, the church has also traditionally recognized some substitutions for baptism of water (which is the sacramental incorporation into the mystery of Christ dead and risen), namely, baptism of blood (incorporation into Christ by witness of martyrdom for Christ) and baptism of desire (incorporation into Christ by the desire or longing for sacramental baptism).
During the 20th century, some theologians, developing certain more ancient theological theses, proposed to recognize for little children either some kind of baptism of blood (by taking into consideration the suffering and death of these infants) or some kind of baptism of desire (by invoking an "unconscious desire" for baptism in these infants oriented toward justification or the desire of the church).58
The proposals invoking some kind of baptism of desire or baptism of blood, however, involved certain difficulties. On the one hand, the adult's act of desire for baptism can hardly be attributed to children. The little child is scarcely capable of supplying the fully free and responsible personal act which would constitute a substitution for sacramental baptism; such a fully free and responsible act is rooted in a judgment of reason and cannot be properly achieved before the human person has reached a sufficient or appropriate use of reason (aetas discretionis: "age of discretion").
On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how the church could properly "supply" for unbaptized infants. The case of sacramental baptism, instead, is quite different because sacramental baptism administered to infants obtains grace in virtue of that which is specifically proper to the sacrament as such, that is, the certain gift of regeneration by the power of Christ himself. That is why Pope Pius XII, recalling the importance of sacramental baptism, explained in the "Allocution to Italian Midwives" in 1958:
"The state of grace is absolutely necessary for salvation: Without it supernatural happiness, the beatific vision of God, cannot be attained. In an adult an act of love may suffice to obtain him sanctifying grace and so supply for the lack of baptism; to the child still unborn or newly born this way is not open."59
This gave rise among theologians to a renewed reflection on the dispositions of infants with respect to the reception of divine grace, on the possibility of an extrasacramental configuration to Christ and on the maternal mediation of the church.
30. It is equally necessary to note among the debated questions with a bearing on this matter that of the gratuity of the supernatural order. Before the Second Vatican Council, in other circumstances and regarding other questions, Pius XII had vigorously brought this to the consciousness of the church by explaining that one destroys the gratuity of the supernatural order if one asserts that God could not create intelligent beings without ordaining and calling them to the beatific vision.60
The goodness and justice of God do not imply that grace is necessarily or "automatically" given. Among theologians, then, reflection on the destiny of unbaptized infants involved from that time onward a renewed consideration of the absolute gratuity of grace and of the ordination of all human beings to Christ and to the redemption that he won for us.
31. Without responding directly to the question of the destiny of unbaptized infants, the Second Vatican Council marked out many paths to guide theological reflection. The council recalled many times the universality of God's saving will which extends to all people (1 Tm 2:4).61 All "share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness and saving designs extend to all humankind" (Nostra Aetate, 1, cf. Lumen Gentium, 16).
In a more particular vein, presenting a conception of human life founded on the dignity of the human being created in the image of God, the constitution Gaudium et Spes recalls that "[h]uman dignity rests above all on the fact that humanity is called to communion with God," specifying that " [t]he invitation to converse with God is addressed to men and women as soon as they are born" (No. 19).
This same constitution proclaims with vigor that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of the human being take on light. Furthermore, there is the renowned statement of the council, which asserted, "Since Christ died for all, and since all are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery" (No. 22). Although the council did not expressly apply this teaching to children who die without baptism, these passages open a way to account for hope in their favor.62
1.7. Issues of a Hermeneutical Nature
32. The study of history shows an evolution and a development of Catholic teaching concerning the destiny of infants who die without baptism. This progress engages some foundational doctrinal principles which remain permanent and some secondary elements of unequal value. In effect, revelation does not communicate directly in an explicit fashion knowledge of God's plan for unbaptized children, but it enlightens the church regarding the principles of faith which must guide her thought and her practice.
A theological reading of the history of Catholic teaching up to Vatican II shows in particular that three main affirmations which belong to the faith of the church appear at the core of the problem of the fate of unbaptized infants. (i) God wants all human beings to be saved. (ii) This salvation is given only through participation in Christ's paschal mystery, that is, through baptism for the forgiveness of sins, either sacramental or in some other way. Human beings, including infants, cannot be saved apart from the grace of Christ poured out by the Holy Spirit. (iii) Infants will not enter the kingdom of God without being freed from original sin by redemptive grace.
33. The history of theology and of magisterial teaching show in particular a development concerning the manner of understanding the universal saving will of God. The theological tradition of the past (antiquity, the Middle Ages, the beginning of modern times), in particular the Augustinian tradition, often presents what by comparison with modern theological developments would seem to be a "restrictive" conception of the universality of God's saving will.63
In theological research, the perception of the divine will to save as "quantitatively" universal is relatively recent. At the level of the magisterium this larger perception was progressively affirmed. Without trying to date it exactly, one can observe that it appeared very clearly in the 19th century, especially in the teaching of Pius IX on the possible salvation of those who, without fault on their part, were unaware of the Catholic faith: Those who "lead a virtuous and just life, can, with the aid of divine light and grace, attain eternal life; for God, who understands perfectly, scrutinizes and knows the minds, souls, thoughts and habits of all, in his very great goodness and patience, will not permit anyone who is not guilty of a voluntary fault to be punished with eternal torments."64 This integration and maturation in Catholic doctrine meanwhile gave rise to a renewed reflection on the possible ways of salvation for unbaptized infants.
34. In the church's tradition, the affirmation that children who died unbaptized are deprived of the beatific vision has for a long time been "common doctrine." This common doctrine followed upon a certain way of reconciling the received principles of revelation, but it did not possess the certitude of a statement of faith or the same certitude as other affirmations whose rejection would entail the denial of a divinely revealed dogma or of a teaching proclaimed by a definitive act of the magisterium. The study of the history of the church's reflection on this subject shows that it is necessary to make distinctions.
In this summary we distinguish first statements of faith and what pertains to the faith; second, common doctrine; and third, theological opinion.
35. a) The Pelagian understanding of the access of unbaptized infants to "eternal life" must be considered as contrary to Catholic faith.
36. b) The affirmation that "the punishment for original sin is the loss of the beatific vision," formulated by Innocent III,65 pertains to the faith: Original sin is of itself an impediment to the beatific vision. Grace is necessary in order to be purified of original sin and to be raised to communion with God so as to be able to enter into eternal life and enjoy the vision of God.
Historically, the common doctrine applied this affirmation to the fate of unbaptized infants and concluded that these infants lack the beatific vision. But Pope Innocent's teaching, in its content of faith, does not necessarily imply that infants who die without sacramental baptism are deprived of grace and condemned to the loss of the beatific vision; it allows us to hope that God, who wants all to be saved, provides some merciful remedy for their purification from original sin and their access to the beatific vision.
37. c) In the documents of the magisterium in the Middle Ages the mention of "different punishments" for those who die in actual mortal sin or with original sin only ('As for the souls of those who die in mortal sin or with original sin only, they go down immediately to hell, to be punished, however, with different punishments")66 must be interpreted according to the common teaching of the time. Historically, these affirmations have certainly been applied to unbaptized infants, with the conclusion that these infants suffer punishment for original sin.
It must be observed however that in a general way the focus of these church pronouncements was not on the lack of salvation for unbaptized infants but on the immediacy of the particular judgment after death and the assignment of souls to heaven or hell. These magisterial statements do not oblige us to think that these infants necessarily die with original sin, so that there would be no way of salvation for them.
38. d) The bull Auctorem Fidei of Pope Pius VI is not a dogmatic definition of the existence of limbo: The papal bull confines itself to rejecting the Jansenist charge that the "limbo" taught by scholastic theologians is identical with the "eternal life" promised to unbaptized infants by the ancient Pelagians. Pius VI did not condemn the Jansenists because they denied limbo, but because they held that the defenders of limbo were guilty of the heresy of Pelagius. By maintaining the freedom of the Catholic schools to propose different solutions to the problem of the fate of unbaptized infants, the Holy See defended the common teaching as an acceptable and legitimate option without endorsing it.
39. e) Pius XII's "Allocution to Italian Midwives,"67 which states that apart from baptism "there is no other means of communicating [supernatural] life to the child who has not yet the use of reason," expressed the church's faith regarding the necessity of grace to attain the beatific vision and the necessity of baptism as the means to receive such grace.68 The specification that little children (unlike adults) are unable to act on their own behalf, that is, are incapable of an act of reason and freedom that could "supply for baptism," did not constitute a pronouncement on the content of current theological theories and did not prohibit the theological search for other ways of salvation. Pius XII rather recalled the limits within which the debate must take place and reasserted firmly the moral obligation to provide baptism to infants in danger of death.
40. In summary: The affirmation that infants who die without baptism suffer the privation of the beatific vision has long been the common doctrine of the church, which must be distinguished from the faith of the church. As for the theory that the privation of the beatific vision is their sole punishment to the exclusion of any other pain, this is a theological opinion despite its long acceptance in the West. The particular theological thesis concerning a "natural happiness" sometimes ascribed to these infants likewise constitutes a theological opinion.
41. Therefore, besides the theory of limbo (which remains a possible theological opinion), there can be other ways to integrate and safeguard the principles of the faith grounded in Scripture: the creation of the human being in Christ and his vocation to communion with God; the universal salvific will of God; the transmission and the consequences of original sin; the necessity of grace in order to enter into the kingdom of God and attain the vision of God; the uniqueness and universality of the saving mediation of Christ Jesus; and the necessity of baptism for salvation.
These other ways are not achieved by modifying the principles of the faith or by elaborating hypothetical theories; rather, they seek an integration and coherent reconciliation of the principles of the faith under the guidance of the ecclesial magisterium by giving more weight to God's universal salvific will and to solidarity in Christ (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22) in order to account for the hope that infants dying without baptism could enjoy eternal life in the beatific vision.
In keeping with a methodological principle that what is less known must be investigated by way of what is better known, it appears that the point of departure for considering the destiny of these children should be the salvific will of God, the mediation of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and a consideration of the condition of children who receive baptism and are saved through the action of the church in the name of Christ. The destiny of unbaptized infants remains, however, a limit case as regards theological inquiry: Theologians should keep in mind the apophatic perspective of the Greek fathers.
2. Inquirere Was Domini: Seeking to Discern God's Ways —Theological Principles
42. Since the theme under consideration concerns a topic for which no explicit answer is directly forthcoming from revelation as embodied in sacred Scripture and tradition, the Catholic believer must have recourse to certain underlying theological principles which the church, and specifically the magisterium, the guardian of the deposit of the faith, has articulated with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. As Vatican II affirms: "In Catholic doctrine there exists an order or 'hierarchy' of truths since they vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith" (Unitatis Redintegratio, 11).
No human being can ultimately save him/herself. Salvation comes only from God the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. This fundamental truth (of the "absolute necessity" of God's saving act toward human beings) is unfolded in history through the mediation of the church and its sacramental ministry. The ordo tractandi we will adopt here follows the ordo salutis, with one exception: We have put the anthropological dimension between the Trinitarian and the ecclesiological-sacramental dimensions.
2.1. The Universal Salvific Will of God as Realized Through the Unique Mediation of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit
43. In the context of the discussion on the destiny of those infants who die without baptism, the mystery of the universal salvific will of God is a fundamental and central principle. The depth of this mystery is reflected in the paradox of divine love which is manifested as both universal and preferential.
44. In the Old Testament, God is called the savior of the nation of Israel (cf. Ex 6:6; Dt 7:8; 13:5; 32:15; 43:29; Is 41:14; 43:14; 44:24; Ps 78; 1 Mc 4:30). But his preferential love for Israel has a universal scope, which extends to individuals (cf. 2 Sm 22:18, 44, 49; Ps 25:5; 27:1) and all human beings: "Thou lovest all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made, for thou wouldst not have made anything if thou hast hated it" (Wis 11:24).
Through Israel the gentile nations will find salvation (cf. Is 2:1-4; 42:1; 60:1-14). "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth" (Is 49:6).
45. This preferential and universal love of God is intertwined and realized in a unique and exemplary fashion in Jesus Christ, who is the unique savior of all (cf. Acts 4:12), but particularly of whoever becomes low or humble (tapeinosei) like the "little ones." Indeed, as one who is gentle or humble in heart (cf. Mt 11:29), Jesus maintains a mysterious affinity and solidarity with them (cf. Mt 18:3-5; 10:40-42; 25:40, 45).
Jesus asserts that the care of these little ones is entrusted to the angels of God (cf. Mt 18:3-5). "So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish" (Mt 18:14). This mystery of his will, according to the good pleasure of the Father,69 is revealed through the Son70 and dispensed by the gift of the Holy Spirit.71
46. The universality of the saving will of God the Father as realized through the unique and universal mediation of his Son, Jesus Christ, is forcefully expressed in the First Letter to Timothy:
"This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our savior, who wills (thelel) all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time" (1 Tm 2:3-6).
The emphatic reiteration of all (vv. 1, 4, 6) and the justification of this universality on the basis of the uniqueness of God and of his mediator, who himself is a man, suggests that nobody is excluded from this salvific will. Insofar as it is the object of prayer (cf. 1 Tin 2:1), this salvific will (thelema) refers to a will which is sincere on the part of God but at times is resisted by human beings.72 Therefore we need to pray to our Father in heaven that his will (thelema) may be done on earth as it is in heaven (cf. Mt 6:10).
47. The mystery of this will, revealed to Paul as "the very least of all the saints" (Eph 3:8f), has its roots in the Father's purpose to make his only Son not just "the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom 8:29), but also "the firstborn of all creation... [and] from the dead" (Col 1:15, 18). This revelation allows one to discover in the mediation of the Son universal and cosmic dimensions which overcome all divisions (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 13).
With respect to the universality of humankind, the mediation of the Son surmounts (i) the various cultural, social and gender divisions: "There is neither Jew nor Greek... neither slave nor free... neither male nor female" (Gal 3:28); and (ii) the divisions caused by sin, internal (cf. Rom 7) as well as interpersonal (cf. Eph 2:14): "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Rom 5:19).
With respect to cosmic divisions, Paul explains that "for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace by the blood of his cross" (Col 1:19-20). Both dimensions are brought together in the Letter to the Ephesians (1:7-10): "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses... according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ... to unite all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth."
48. Certainly we do not see yet the fulfillment of this mystery of salvation, "for in this hope we were saved" (Rom 8:24). The Holy Spirit indeed testifies that it is not yet realized, and at the same time encourages Christians to pray and to hope for the final resurrection: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.... Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:22f, 26). So the groaning of the Spirit not only helps our prayers but encompasses so to speak the pains of all adults, of all children, of the whole of creation.73
49. The Synod of Quiercy (853) asserts: "Almighty God wishes all men without exception to be saved [1 Tin 2:4], although not all are saved. The fact that some are saved, however, is a gift of the Savior, while the fact that others perish is the fault of those who perish."74
Spelling out the positive implications of this statement as regards the universal solidarity of all in the mystery of Jesus Christ, the synod further asserts that "as there is no man who was, is or will be whose nature was not assumed in him [the Lord Jesus Christ], likewise there is no one who was, is or will be for whom he did not suffer, even though not everyone [factually] is redeemed by his passion."75
50. This Christocentric conviction has found expression all through Catholic tradition. St. Irenaeus, for instance, quotes the Pauline text asserting that Christ will return "to unite all things in him" (Eph 1:10) and that every knee should bow to him in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.76 On his part, St. Thomas Aquinas, once again basing himself on the Pauline text, has this to say: "Christ is the perfect mediator of God and men by reason of his having reconciled through his death the human race with God."77
51. The documents of Vatican II not only quote the Pauline text in its entirety (cf. Lumen Gentium, 60, Ad Gentes, 7), but also refer to it (cf. Lumen Gentium, 49), and furthermore repeatedly use the designation unicus mediator Christus (ibid., 8, 14, 62). This core affirmation of Christological faith also finds expression in the postconciliar papal magisterium: "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved' (Acts 4:12). This statement... has a universal value, since for all people... salvation can only come from Jesus Christ."78
52. The declaration Dominus Iesus succinctly sums up the Catholic conviction and attitude: "It must be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the one and triune God is offered and accomplished once and for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Son of God."79
2.2. Universality of Sin and the Universal Need of Salvation
53. The universal salvific will of God through Jesus Christ, in a mysterious relationship with the church, is directed to all humans, who according to the faith of the church are sinners in need of salvation. Already in the Old Testament the all-pervading nature of human sin is mentioned in almost every book.
The Book of Genesis affirms that sin did not find its origin with God but with human beings, because God created everything and saw that it was good (cf. Gn 1:31). From the moment the human race began to increase on the earth, God had to reckon with the sinfulness of humankind: "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." He was even "sorry that he had made man on the earth" and ordered a flood to destroy every living thing except Noah, who found favor in his eyes (cf. Go 6:5-7). But even the flood did not change the human inclination to sin: "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gn 8:21).
The Old Testament writers are convinced that sin is deeply rooted and pervasive in humanity (cf. Prv 20:9; Eccl 7:20, 29). Hence the frequent petitions for God's indulgence, as in Psalm 143:2: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no man living is righteous before thee" or in the prayer of Solomon:
"If they sin against thee — for there is no man who does not sin... if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart... then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place their prayer... and forgive thy people who have sinned against thee" (1 Kgs 8:46ff).
There are some texts which speak of the sinfulness from birth. The psalmist affirms: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps 51:7). And the statement of Eliphaz — "What is man, that he can be clean? Or he that is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?" (Jb 15:14; cf. 25:4) — is in agreement with Job's own convictions (cf. Jb 14:1, 4) and those of other biblical writers (cf. Ps 58:3; Is 48:8).
In wisdom literature there is even a beginning of reflection on the effects of the sin of the ancestors Adam and Eve on the whole of humankind: "But through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it" (Wis 2:24); "from a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die" (Sir 25:24).80
54. For Paul, the universality of the redemption brought by Jesus Christ finds its counterpart in the universality of sin. When Paul in his Letter to the Romans asserts "that all, both Jews and gentiles, are under the power of sin" (Rom 3:9)81 and that no one can be excluded from this universal verdict, he naturally bases this on Scripture:
"As it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one"' (Rom 3:10-12, quoting Eccl 7:20 and Ps 14:1-3, which is identical to Ps 53:1-3).
On the one side, all human beings are sinners and need to be delivered through the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the new Adam. Not the works of the law, but only faith in Jesus Christ can save humanity, Jews and gentiles alike. On the other side, the sinful condition of humankind is linked to the sin of the first man, Adam. This solidarity with the first man, Adam, is expressed in two Pauline texts: 1 Corinthians 15:21 and especially Romans 5:12:
"Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because [Gr. eph'ho: other possible translations "on the basis of which" or "with the result that"]82 all men sinned."
In this anacolouth, the primary causality for the sinful and mortal condition of humankind is ascribed to Adam, no matter how one understands the phrase eph'ho. The universal causality of Adam's sin is presupposed in Romans 5:15a, 16a, 17a, 18a and clearly expressed in 5:19a: "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners."
However, Paul never explains how Adam's sin is transmitted. Against Pelagius, who thought that Adam influenced humanity by giving it a bad example, Augustine objected that Adam's sin was transmitted by propagation, or heredity, and so brought the doctrine of original sin to its classical expression.83 Under Augustine's influence, the Western church almost unanimously interpreted Romans 5:12 in the sense of hereditary "sin."84
55. Following this, the Council of Trent in its fifth session (1546) defined: "If anyone asserts that Adam's sin harmed only him and not his descendants and that the holiness and justice received from God which he lost was lost only for him and not for us also; or that, stained by the sin of disobedience, he transmitted to all humankind only death and the sufferings of the body but not sin as well which is the death of the soul, anathema sit. For he contradicts the words of the apostle: 'Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so [death] spread to all as all men sinned in him' [Rom 5:12 Vulgate]."85
56. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it: "The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the 'reverse side' of the good news that Jesus is the savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ."86
2.3. The Need for the Church
57. Catholic tradition has constantly affirmed that the church is necessary for salvation as the historical mediation of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. This conviction found its classical expression in the adage of St. Cyprian: "Salus extra ecclesiam non est."87
The Second Vatican Council has reiterated this faith conviction: "Basing itself on Scripture and tradition, it [the council] teaches that the church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: The one Christ is mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body, which is the church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5), and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the church, which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it" (Lumen Gentium, 14).
The council expounded the mystery of the church at length: "The church, in Christ, is in the nature of [a] sacrament — a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of the unity among all men" (Lumen Gentium, 1); "just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men" (ibid., 8). "Rising from the dead (cf. Rom 6:9) he [Christ] sent his life-giving Spirit upon his disciples and through him set up his body, which is the church, as the universal sacrament of salvation" (ibid., 48).
What is striking in these quotations is the universal extent of the church's mediating role in ministering God's salvation: "the unity among all men," "salvation of [all] men," "universal sacrament of salvation."
58. In the face of new problems and situations and of an exclusive interpretation of the adage "salus extra ecclesiam non est,"88 the magisterium in recent times has articulated a more nuanced understanding as to the manner in which a saving relationship with the church can be realized. The allocution of Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadam (1854) clearly states the issues involved:
"It must, of course, be held as a matter of faith that outside the apostolic Roman church no one can be saved, that the church is the only ark of salvation and that whoever does not enter it will perish in the flood. On the other hand, it must likewise be held as certain that those who live in ignorance of the true religion, if such ignorance be invincible, are not subject to any guilt in this matter before the eyes of the Lord."89
59. The letter of the Holy Office to the archbishop of Boston (1949) offers further specifications. "To gain eternal salvation, it is not always required that a person be incorporated in reality (reapse) as a member of the church, but it is necessary that one belong to it at least in desire and longing (voto et desiderio). It is not always necessary that this desire be explicit as it is with catechumens. When one is invincibly ignorant, God also accepts an implicit desire, so called because it is contained in the good disposition of soul by which a person wants his or her will to be conformed to God's will."90
60. The universal salvific will of God, realized through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, which includes the church as the universal sacrament of salvation, finds expression in Vatican II: "All men are called to this Catholic unity which prefigures and promotes universal peace. And in different ways to it belong or are related: all the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ and finally all mankind called by God's grace to salvation" (Lumen Gentium, 13).
That the unique and universal mediation of Jesus Christ is realized in the context of a relationship with the church is further reiterated by the postconciliar papal magisterium. Speaking of those who have not had the opportunity to come to know or accept Gospel revelation — even in their case, the encyclical Redemptoris Missio has this to say: "Salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace... which has a mysterious relationship to the church."91
2.4. Necessity of Sacramental Baptism
61. God the Father intends to configure all human beings to Christ by the Holy Spirit, who transforms and empowers them by his grace. Ordinarily, this configuration to Jesus Christ takes place through sacramental baptism, whereby one is conformed to Christ, receives the Holy Spirit, is liberated from sin and becomes a member of the church.
62. The numerous baptismal statements in the New Testament in their variety articulate the different dimensions of the significance of baptism as understood by the early Christian community. In the first place, baptism is designated as the forgiveness of sins, as cleansing (cf. Eph 5:26) or as a sprinkling which cleanses the heart from an evil conscience (cf. Heb 10:22; 1 Pt 3:21). "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38; cf. Acts 22:16). The baptized are thus configured to Jesus Christ: "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4).
63. Furthermore, the activity of the Holy Spirit in connection with baptism is repeatedly referred to (cf. Ti 3:5). It is the belief of the church that the Holy Spirit is imparted with baptism (cf. 1 Cor 6:11; Ti 3:5). The risen Christ is active through his Spirit, who makes us children of God (cf. Rom 8:14), confident to call God Father (cf. Gal 4:6).
64. Finally, there are the statements about being "added" to the people of God in the context of baptism, of being baptized "into one body" (Acts 2:41). Baptism results in the incorporation of the human person into the people of God, the body of Christ and the spiritual temple. Paul speaks of "being baptized into one body" (1 Cor 12:13). Luke, instead, of "being added" to the church through baptism (Acts 2:41). Through baptism, the believer is not only an individual but becomes a member of the people of God. He or she becomes a member of the church, which Peter calls "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" (1 Pt 2:9).
65. The tradition of conferring sacramental baptism is extended to all, even to infants. Among the New Testament testimonies of Christian baptism in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, there are instances of "household baptisms" (cf. Acts 16:15; 16:33; 18:8), which possibly included children. The ancient praxis of baptizing children,92 endorsed by the fathers and the magisterium of the church, is accepted as an essential part of the faith understanding of the Catholic Church.
The Council of Trent will affirm: "In accordance with apostolic tradition, even children who of themselves cannot have yet committed any sin are truly baptized for the remission of sins, so that by regeneration they may be cleansed from what they contracted through generation. For 'unless one is born of water and the Spirit, one cannot enter the kingdom of God [Jn 3:5]."'93
66. The necessity of the sacrament of baptism is proclaimed and professed as integral to the Christian faith understanding. On the basis of the command as found in Matthew 28:19ff and Mark 16:15 and of the prescription laid down in John 3:5,94 the Christian community has from the earliest time believed in the necessity of baptism for salvation.
While considering sacramental baptism necessary inasmuch as it is the ordinary way established by Jesus Christ to configure human beings to himself, the church has never taught the "absolute necessity" of sacramental baptism for salvation; there are other avenues whereby the configuration with Christ can be realized. Already in the early Christian community it was accepted that martyrdom, the "baptism of blood," was a substitute for sacramental baptism. Furthermore, there was the acknowledgment of the baptism of desire.
In this regard the words of Thomas Aquinas are pertinent:
"The sacrament of baptism may be wanting to someone in two ways. First, both in reality and in desire; as is the case with those who neither are baptized, nor wish to be baptized.... Second, the sacrament of baptism may be wanting to anyone in reality but not in desire.... Such a man can obtain salvation without being actually baptized on account of his desire for baptism."95
The Council of Trent acknowledges "baptism of desire" as a way whereby one can be justified without the actual reception of the sacrament of baptism: 'After the promulgation of the Gospel, this transition [from sin to justice] cannot take place without the bath of regeneration or the desire for it for as it is written: 'Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, one cannot enter the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5)."'96
67. The Christian faith affirmation of the necessity of sacramental baptism for salvation cannot be depleted of its existential significance by being reduced to a merely theoretical affirmation. On the other hand, God's freedom over the saving means given by him must be equally respected. Consequently, one must avoid any attempt to oppose sacramental baptism, the baptism of desire and baptism of blood as antithetical. They are but expressions of the creative polarities within the realization of God's universal salvific will on behalf of humanity, which include both a real possibility of salvation and a salvific dialogue in freedom with the human person.
It is precisely this dynamism which impels the church, as the universal sacrament of salvation, to summon everyone to repentance, to faith and to sacramental baptism. This dialogue in grace is elicited only when the human person is existentially capable of a response in the concrete — which is not the case with infants. Hence the need for parents and godparents to speak on behalf of infants who are baptized. But what of infants who die without baptism?
2.5 Hope and Prayer for Universal Salvation
68. Christians are people of hope. They have set their hope "on the living God, who is the savior of all, especially of those who believe" (1 Tm 4:10). They ardently desire that all human beings, unbaptized children included, may share in God's glory and live with Christ (cf. 1 Thes 5:9-11; Rom 8:2-5; 23-35), in keeping with the recommendation of Theophylactus: "If he [our God] wants all men to be saved, you should also want it, and imitate God."97
This Christian hope is a "hope... against hope" (Rom 4:18), going far beyond any form of human hope. It takes its example from Abraham, our father in faith. Abraham put great trust in the promises that God had given him. He trusted ("hoped") in God against all human evidence or odds ("against hope"). So Christians, even when they do not see how unbaptized children can be saved, nevertheless dare to hope that God will embrace them in his saving mercy. They are also prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls them to account for the hope that is in them (cf. 1 Pt 3:15). When they meet mothers and parents in distress because their children died before or after birth without being baptized, they feel urged to explain to them why their own hope for salvation can also extend to those infants or children.98
69. Christians are people of prayer. They take to heart the admonition of Paul: "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all" (1 Tm 2:1). This universal prayer is acceptable to God, who "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth" (1 Tm 2:4), and to whose creative power "nothing is impossible" (Jb 42:2; Mk 10:27; 12:24-27; Lk 1:37). It is based on the hope that the whole creation will finally share in the glory of God (cf. Rom 8:22-27). Such a prayer is in line with St. John Chrysostom's admonition: "Imitate God. If he wants all to be saved, then it is reasonable that one should pray for all."99
3. Spes Orans — Reasons for Hope
3.1. The New Context
70. The two preceding chapters, considering the history of Christian reflection on the destiny of unbaptized infants100 and the theological principles that bear upon this issue,101 respectively, have presented a chiaroscuro. On the one hand, in many ways the underpinning Christian theological principles seem to favor the salvation of unbaptized infants in accordance with God's universal salvific will. On the other hand, however, it cannot be denied that there has been a rather longstanding doctrinal tradition (whose theological value is doubtless not definitive), which in its concern to safeguard and not compromise other truths of the Christian theological edifice, has expressed either a certain reticence in this regard or even a clear refusal to envisage the salvation of these infants.
There is a fundamental continuity in the church's reflection upon the mystery of salvation from generation to generation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Within that mystery, the question of the eternal destiny of infants who die unbaptized is "one of the most difficult to solve in the structure of theology."102 It is a limit case where vital tenets of faith, especially the need of baptism for salvation and the universal salvific will of God, can easily appear to be in tension.
With respect for the wisdom and fidelity of those who have investigated this difficult matter before but also with a keen awareness that the magisterium of the church has specifically and perhaps providentially opted at key moments in the history of doctrine103 not to define that these infants are deprived of the beatific vision but to keep the question open, we have considered how the Spirit may be guiding the church at this point in history to reflect anew on this exceptionally delicate issue (cf. Dei Verbum, 8).
71. The Second Vatican Council called the church to read the signs of the times and to interpret them in the light of the Gospel (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 4, 11), "in order that the revealed truth may be more deeply penetrated, better understood and more suitably presented" (ibid., 44). In other words, engagement with the world for which Christ suffered, died and rose again is always for the church, which is the body of Christ, an occasion to deepen her understanding of the Lord himself and of his love, and indeed of herself, an occasion to penetrate more deeply the message of salvation entrusted to her. It is possible to identify various signs of our modern times that prompt a renewed awareness of aspects of the Gospel which particularly bear upon the question under consideration. In some ways they provide a new context for its consideration at the start of the 21st century.
72. a) The warfare and turmoil of the 20th century and the yearning of humanity for peace and unity, shown by the founding of, e.g., the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, have helped the church to understand more deeply the importance of the theme of communion in the Gospel message and so to develop an ecclesiology of communion (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4, 9; Unitatis Redintegratio, 2; Gaudium et Spes, 12, 24).
73. b) Many people today grapple with the temptation to despair. The crisis of hope in the contemporary world leads the church to a deeper appreciation of the hope that is central to the Christian Gospel. "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call" (Eph 4:4).
Christians are particularly called today to be witnesses to hope and ministers of hope in the world (cf. Lumen Gentium, 48, 49; Gaudium et Spes, 1). The church in its universality and catholicity is the bearer of a hope that extends to all humankind, and Christians have a mission to offer that hope to everyone.
74. c) The development of global communications, graphically highlighting all the suffering in the world, has been an occasion for the church to understand God's love, mercy and compassion more profoundly, and to appreciate the primacy of charity. God is merciful, and faced with the enormity of the world's pain, we learn to trust and glorify God, "who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" (Eph 3:20).
75. d) People everywhere are scandalized by the suffering of children and want to enable children to achieve their potential.104 In such a setting the church naturally recalls and ponders anew various New Testament texts expressing the preferential love of Jesus:
"Let the children come to me... for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19:14; cf. Lk 18:15-16, "infants").
"Whoever receives one such in my name receives me" (Mk 9:37).
"Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:3).
"Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:4).
"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea' (Mt 18:6).
"See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven" (Mt 18:10).
So the church renews her commitment to show Christ's own love and care for children (cf. Lumen Gentium, 11; Gaudium et Spes, 48, 50).
76. e) Increased travel and contact among people of different faiths and the great increase of dialogue between people of different religions have encouraged the church to develop a greater awareness of the manifold and mysterious ways of God (cf. Nostra Aetate, 1, 2) and of her own mission in this context.
77. The development of an ecclesiology of communion, a theology of hope, an appreciation of divine mercy, together with a renewed concern for the welfare of infants and an ever-increasing awareness that the Holy Spirit works in the lives of all "in a way known to God" (Gaudium et Spes, 22), all of these features of our modern age constitute a new context for the examination of our question. This may be a providential moment for its reconsideration. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, the church in its engagement with the world of our time has gained deeper insights into God's revelation that can cast new light on our question.
78. Hope is the all-embracing context of our reflections and report. The church of today responds to the signs of our own times with renewed hope for the world at large and, with particular regard to our question, for unbaptized infants who die.105 We must here and now give an account of that hope (cf. 1 Pt 3:15).
In the last 50 years or so, the magisterium of the church has shown an increasing openness to the possibility of the salvation of unbaptized infants, and the sensus fidelium seems to have been developing in the same direction. Christians constantly experience, most powerfully in the liturgy, Christ's victory over sin and death,106 God's infinite mercy and the loving communion of the saints in heaven, all of which increases our hope. There the hope that is in us that we must proclaim and explain is regularly renewed, and it is from that experience of hope that various considerations can now be offered.
79. It must be clearly acknowledged that the church does not have sure knowledge about the salvation of unbaptized infants who die. She knows and celebrates the glory of the Holy Innocents, but the destiny of the generality of infants who die without baptism has not been revealed to us, and the church teaches and judges only with regard to what has been revealed. What we do positively know of God, Christ and the church gives us grounds to hope for their salvation, as must now be explained.
3.2. God's Merciful Philanthropia
80. God is rich in mercy, dives in misericordia (Eph 2:4). The Byzantine liturgy frequently praises God's philanthropy; God is the "lover of man."107 Moreover, God's loving purpose, now revealed through the Spirit, is beyond our imagining: "What God has prepared for those who love him" is something "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived" (1 Cor 2:9-10, quoting Is 64:4). Those who grieve over the fate of infants who die unbaptized, especially their parents, are often themselves people who love God, people whom these words should console. In particular, the following observations can be made:
81. a) God's grace reaches all people and his providence embraces all. The Second Vatican Council teaches that God does not deny "the assistance necessary for salvation" to those who, without any fault of their own, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, but who with the help of grace "strive to lead a good life."
God enlightens all people "that they may at length have life" (cf. Lumen Gentium, 16). Again it teaches that grace is "active invisibly" in the hearts of all people of good will (Gaudium et Spes, 22). These words apply directly to those above the age of reason, who are making responsible decisions, but it is difficult to deny their applicability also to those below the age of reason.
The following words, in particular, seem truly universal in their scope. "For since Christ died for all and since all are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine [cumque vocation hominids ultimo re vera tuna sit, scilicet divine], we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners in a way known to God in the paschal mystery" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). This profound sentence of Vatican II takes us into the heart of the loving purpose of the blessed Trinity and stresses that God's purpose exceeds our understanding.
82. b) God does not demand the impossible of us.108 Furthermore, God's power is not restricted to the sacraments: Deus virtue sum non calligraphist sacraments quoin posit sine sacraments effect um sacramento rum conferrer" (God did not bind his power to the sacraments so as to be unable to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the sacrament).109 God can therefore give the grace of baptism without the sacrament being conferred, and this fact should particularly be recalled when the conferring of baptism would be impossible.
The need for the sacrament is not absolute. What is absolute is humanity's need for the Nurserymen which is Christ himself. All salvation comes from him and therefore, in some way, through the church.110
83. cf) At all times and in all circumstances, God provides a remedy of salvation for humanity.111 This was the teaching of Aquinas,112 and already before him of Augustine113 and Leo the Great.114 It is also found in Cajetan.115
Pope Innocent III specifically focused on the situation of children: "Far from us the thought that all the small children, of whom such a great multitude dies every day, should perish without the merciful God, who wishes no one to perish, having provided for them also some means of salvation.... We say that two kinds of sin must be distinguished, original and actual: original, which is contracted without consent, and actual, which is committed with consent. Thus original sin, which is contracted without consent, is remitted without consent by the power of the sacrament [of baptism]."116
Innocent was defending infant baptism as the means provided by God for the salvation of the many infants who die each day. We may ask, however, on the basis of a more searching application of the same principle, whether God also provides some remedy for those infants who die without baptism. There is no question of denying Innocent's teaching that those who die in original sin are deprived of the beatific vision.117 What we may ask and are asking is whether infants who die without baptism necessarily die in original sin, without a divine remedy.
84. With confidence that in all circumstances God provides, how might we imagine such a remedy? The following are ways by which unbaptized infants who die may perhaps be united to Christ.
85. a) Broadly, we may discern in those infants who themselves suffer and die a saving conformity to Christ in his own death and a companionship with him. Christ himself on the cross bore the weight of all of humanity's sin and death, and all suffering and death thereafter is an engagement with his own enemy (cf. 1 Cor 15:26), a participation in his own battle, in the midst of which we can find him alongside us (cf. Dan 3:24-25 [91-92]; Rom 8:31-39; 2 Tm 4:17). His resurrection is the source of humanity's hope (cf.1 Cor 15:20); in him alone is there life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10); and the Holy Spirit offers to all a participation in his paschal mystery (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22).
86. b) Some of the infants who suffer and die do so as victims of violence. In their case we may readily refer to the example of the Holy Innocents and discern an analogy in the case of these infants to the baptism of blood which brings salvation. Albeit unknowingly, the Holy Innocents suffered and died on account of Christ; their murderers were seeking to kill the infant Jesus.
Just as those who took the lives of the Holy Innocents were motivated by fear and selfishness, so the lives particularly of unborn babies today are often endangered by the fear or selfishness of others. In that sense they are in solidarity with the Holy Innocents. Moreover, they are in solidarity with the Christ, who said: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (Mt 25:40). How vital it is for the church to proclaim the hope and generosity that are intrinsic to the Gospel and essential for the protection of life.
87. c) It is also possible that God simply acts to give the gift of salvation to unbaptized infants by analogy with the gift of salvation given sacramentally to baptized infants.118 We may perhaps compare this to God's unmerited gift to Mary at her immaculate conception, by which he simply acted to give her in advance the grace of salvation in Christ.
3.3. Solidarity With Christ
88. There is a fundamental unity and solidarity between Christ and the whole human race. By his incarnation, the Son of God has united himself in some way (quodammodo), with every human being (Gaudium et Spes, 22).119 There is therefore no one who is untouched by the mystery of the Word made flesh. Humanity, and indeed all creation, has been objectively changed by the very fact of the incarnation and objectively saved by the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ.120
However, that objective salvation must be subjectively appropriated (cf. acts 2:37-38; 3:19), ordinarily by the personal exercise of free will in favor of grace in adults, with or without sacramental baptism, or by infants' reception of sacramental baptism. The situation of unbaptized infants is problematic precisely because of their presumed lack of free will.121 Their situation acutely raises the question of the relationship between the objective salvation won by Christ and original sin, and the question also of the exact import of the conciliar word quodammodo.
89. Christ lived, died and rose again for all. Pauline teaching is that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil 2:10-11); "to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living"; "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God" (Rom 14:9-11).
Likewise Johannine teaching stresses that "the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father" (Jn 5:22-23); "I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying: 'To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!"' (Rv 5:13).
90. The Scriptures relate all humanity without exception to Christ. A major weakness of the traditional view of limbo is that it is unclear whether the souls there have any relationship to Christ; the Christocentricity of the doctrine seems deficient. In some accounts the souls in limbo seem to have a natural happiness that belongs to a different order from the supernatural order in which people choose for or against Christ. This appears to be a feature of Aquinas' account, though Suarez and the later scholastics emphasized that Christ restores human nature (his grace is gratia sanans, healing of human nature) and thereby enables the very natural happiness that Aquinas attributed to the souls in limbo. The grace of Christ was therefore implicit in Aquinas' account, though not developed.
The later scholastics thereby envisaged three possible destinies (at least in practice, though in principle they might have accepted only two destinies: heaven and hell) and understood, against Augustine, that it was by the grace of Christ that the numerous infants in limbo were there and not in hell!
91. Where sin abounded, grace superabounded! That is the emphatic teaching of Scripture, but the idea of limbo seems to constrain that superabundance. "[T]he free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many"; "as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men"; "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5:15, 18, 20). "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor 15:22).
Scripture teaches of our sinful solidarity in Adam, yes, but it does so as the backdrop to teaching our salvific solidarity in Christ. "The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the 'reverse side' of the good news that Jesus is the savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ."122
Many traditional accounts of sin and salvation (and of limbo) have stressed solidarity with Adam more than solidarity with Christ or at least such accounts have had a restrictive conception of the ways by which human beings benefit from solidarity with Christ. This would seem to have been a characteristic of Augustine's thought in particular:123 Christ saves a select few from the mass who are damned in Adam.
The teaching of St. Paul would urge us to redress the balance and to center humanity on Christ the savior, to whom all in some way are united.124 "He who is the 'image of the invisible God'125 is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare" (Gaudium et Spes, 22).
We wish to stress that humanity's solidarity with Christ (or, more properly, Christ's solidarity with all of humanity) must have priority over the solidarity of human beings with Adam and that the question of the destiny of unbaptized infants who die must be addressed in that light.
92. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.... All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent" (Col 1:15-18).
God's plan is "to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:10). There is a renewed appreciation of the great cosmic mystery of communion in Christ. This, in fact, is the fundamental context for our question.
93. Nevertheless, human beings are blessed with freedom, and a free acceptance of Christ is the ordinary means of salvation; we are not saved without our acceptance and certainly not against our will. All adults either explicitly or implicitly make a decision vis-a-vis Christ, who has united himself with them (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22).
Some modern theologians see the option for or against Christ as implicated in all choices. However, it is precisely the lack of free will and responsible choice on the part of infants that leads to the query as to how they stand vis-a-vis Christ if they die unbaptized.
The fact that infants can enjoy the vision of God is recognized in the practice of baptizing infants. The traditional view is that it is only through sacramental baptism that infants have solidarity with Christ and hence access to the vision of God. Otherwise, solidarity with Adam has priority. We may ask, however, how that view might be changed if priority were restored to our solidarity with Christ (i.e. Christ's solidarity with us).
94. Baptism for salvation can be received either in re or in voto. It is traditionally understood that the implicit choice for Christ that adults who are not actually baptized can make constitutes a votum for baptism and is salvific. In the traditional view such an option is not open to infants who have not attained the use of free will. The supposed impossibility of baptism in voto for infants is central to the whole question.
Hence, many, many attempts have been made in modern times to explore the possibility of a votum in the case of an unbaptized infant, either a votum exercised on behalf of the infant by its parents or by the church,126 or perhaps a votum exercised by the infant in some way.127
The church has never ruled out such a solution, and attempts to get Vatican II to do so significantly failed because of a widespread sense that investigation of this matter was still ongoing and a widespread desire to entrust such infants to the mercy of God.
95. It is important to recognize a "double gratuity" which calls us into being and simultaneously calls us to eternal life. Though a purely natural order is conceivable, no human life is actually lived in such an order. The actual order is supernatural; channels of grace are open from the very beginning of each human life. All are born with that humanity which was assumed by Christ himself, and all live in some kind of relation to him, with different degrees of explicitness (cf. Lumen Gentium, 16) and acceptance, at every moment.
There are two possible ends for a human being in such an order: either the vision of God or hell (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22). Though some medieval theologians maintained the possibility of an intermediate, natural destiny gained by the grace of Christ (gratia sanans), namely limbo,128 we consider such a solution problematic and wish to indicate that other approaches are possible based on hope for a redemptive grace given to unbaptized infants who die which opens for them the way to heaven. We believe that in the development of doctrine the solution in terms of limbo can be surpassed in view of a greater theological hope.
3.4. The Church and the Communion of Saints
96. Because all people live in some kind of relation to Christ (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22) and the church is the body of Christ, all people live also in some kind of relation to the church at every moment. The church has a profound solidarity or communion with the whole of humanity (cf. ibid., 1). She lives with a dynamic orientation to the fullness of life with God in Christ (cf. Lumen Gentium, Chap. 7) and wills to draw all people into that fullness of life. The church is, in fact, "the universal sacrament of salvation" (Lumen Gentium, 48, cf. 1, 9).
Salvation is social (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 12), and the church already lives the graced life of the communion of saints to which all are called and embraces all people in all circumstances in her prayer, most especially when she celebrates the Eucharist. The church includes in her prayer non-Christian adults and nonbaptized infants who die.
Very significantly, the pre-Vatican II lack of liturgical prayers for unbaptized infants who die has been remedied since the council.129 Bound in a common sensus fidei (cf. Lumen Gentium, 12), the church reaches out to all, knowing them to be loved by God. An important reason for the failure of attempts to get Vatican II to teach that unbaptized infants are definitely deprived of the vision of God130 was the testimony of bishops that that was not the faith of their people; it did not correspond to the sensus fidelium.
97. St. Paul teaches that the unbelieving husband or wife of a Christian believer is "consecrated" through their wife or husband respectively and moreover that their children too are "holy" (1 Cor 7:14). This is a remarkable indication that the holiness that resides in the church reaches out to people outside the visible bounds of the church by means of the bonds of human communion, in this case the family bonds between husband and wife in marriage and parents and children.
St. Paul implies that the spouse and the child of a believing Christian have by that very fact at least a connection to membership of the church and to salvation; their family situation "involves a certain introduction to the covenant."131 His words give no assurance of salvation for the unbaptized spouse (cf. 1 Cor 7:16) or child, but surely, once again, grounds for hope.
98. When an infant is baptized, he or she cannot personally make a profession of faith. Rather, at that moment the parents and the church as a whole provide a context of faith for the sacramental action. Indeed, St. Augustine teaches that it is the church that presents a child for baptism.132 The church professes her faith and intercedes powerfully for the infant, supplying the act of faith that the infant is unable to make; again the bonds of communion, both natural and supernatural, are operative and manifest.
If an unbaptized infant is incapable of a votum baptismi, then by the same bonds of communion the church might be able to intercede for the infant and express a votum baptismi on his or her behalf that is effective before God. Moreover, the church effectively does express in her liturgy just such a votum by the very charity toward all that is renewed in her in every celebration of the Eucharist.
99. Jesus taught, "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (Jn 3:5); from which we understand the need for sacramental baptism.133 Likewise, he said: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (Jn 6:53); from which we understand the (closely related) need for participation in the Eucharist. However, just as we do not conclude from the latter words that someone who has not received the sacrament of the Eucharist cannot be saved, so we should not deduce from the former words that someone who has not received the sacrament of baptism cannot be saved.
What we should conclude is that no one is saved without some relation to baptism and Eucharist, and therefore to the church, which is defined by these sacraments. All salvation has some relation to baptism, Eucharist and the church. The principle that there is "no salvation outside the church" means that there is no salvation which is not from Christ and ecclesial by its very nature. Likewise, the scriptural teaching that "without faith it is impossible to please [God]" (Heb 11:6) indicates the intrinsic role of the church, the communion of faith, in the work of salvation. It is especially in the liturgy of the church that this role becomes manifest, as the church prays and intercedes for all, including unbaptized infants who die.
3.5. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi
100. Before Vatican II, in the Latin church there was no Christian funeral rite for unbaptized infants, and such infants were buried in unconsecrated ground. Strictly speaking, there was no funeral rite for baptized infants either, but in their case a Mass of the Angels was celebrated and of course they were given a Christian burial. Thanks to the liturgical reform after the council, the Roman Missal now has a funeral Mass for a child who died before baptism, and there are also special prayers for such a situation in the Ordo Exsequiarum.
Though the tone of the prayers in both instances is noticeably cautious, it is now the case that the church liturgically expresses hope in the mercy of God, to whose loving care the infant is entrusted. This liturgical prayer both reflects and shapes the sensus fidei of the Latin church regarding the fate of unbaptized infants who die: lex orandi, lex credendi. Significantly, in the Greek Catholic Church there is only one funeral rite for infants, whether baptized or not yet baptized, and the church prays for all deceased infants that they may be received into the bosom of Abraham, where there is no sorrow or anguish but only eternal life.
101. "As regards children who have died without baptism, the church can only entrust them to the mercy of God as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God, who desires that all should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say, 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them (Mk 10:14; cf. 1 Tm 2:4), allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism. All the more urgent is the church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy baptism."134
3.6. Hope
102. Within the hope that the church bears for the whole of humanity and wants to proclaim afresh to the world of today, is there a hope for the salvation of infants who die without baptism? We have carefully reconsidered this complex question with gratitude and respect for the responses that have been given through the history of the church, but also with an awareness that it falls to us to give a coherent response for today. Reflecting within the one tradition of faith that unites the church through the ages and relying utterly on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus promised would lead his followers "into all the truth" (Jn 16:13), we have sought to read the signs of the times and to interpret them in the light of the Gospel.
Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered above give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us (cf. Jn 16:12). We live by faith and hope in the God of mercy and love who has been revealed to us in Christ, and the Spirit moves us to pray in constant thankfulness and joy (cf. 1 Thes 5:18).
103. What has been revealed to us is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of baptism. None of the above considerations should be taken as qualifying the necessity of baptism or justifying delay in administering the sacrament.135 Rather, as we want to reaffirm in conclusion, they provide strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the church.
Notes
The theme "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized" was placed under the study of the International Theological Commission. In order to prepare for this study, a committee was formed comprised by Msgr. Ignazio Sanna, Rev. Basil Kyu-Man Cho, Rev. Peter Damien Akpunonu, Rev. Adelbert Denaux, Rev. Gilles Emery, Of, Msgr. Ricardo Ferrara, Msgr. Istvan Ivancso, Msgr. Paul McPartlan, Rev. Dominic Veliath, SOB (president of the committee) and Sister Sarah Butler, MSTB. The committee also received the collaboration of Rev. Luis Ladaria, SJ, the secretary general of the International Theological Commission, and Msgr. Guido Pozzo, the assistant to the ITC, as well as other members of the commission. The general discussion on the theme took place during the plenary sessions of the ITC held in Rome in October 2005 and October 2006. This present text was approved in forma specifica by the members of the commission and was subsequently submitted to its president, Cardinal William Levada, who upon receiving the approval of the Holy Father in an audience granted on Jan. 19, 2007, approved the text for publication.
1 All scriptural references in this document are to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (Catholic edition).
2 Cf. International Theological Commission, "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God," Vatican City, 2005.
3 "Bethlehem, do not be sad, but be of good heart at the killing of the holy infants, because they were offered as perfect victims to Christ the King: Having been sacrificed on account of him, they will reign with him," Exapostiarion of Matins in the Byzantine liturgy, Anthologion di Tutto l'Anno, Vol. 1, Edizione Lipa, Rome 1999, 1199.
4 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pastoralis Actio, 13, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 72 (1980), 1144.
5 Catechism of the Catholic Church (hereafter referred to as Catechism), 1261.
6 Catechism, 1058.
7 Catechism, 1821.
8 Cf. Gn 22:18; Wis 8:1; Acts 14:17; Rom 2:6-7; 1 Tm 2:4; Synod of Quiercy, Henricus Denzinger and Adolfus Schometzer (eds.), Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum (hereafter referred to as DS), Rome: Herder, 1976, 623; also Vatican Council II, Nostra Aerate, 1.
9 All references in English to the documents of Vatican II have been taken from Austin Flannery (general ed.), Vatican II. The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Dublin: Costello Pub. Co., 1975.
10 Cf. Synod of Quiercy, DS 623.
11 Cf. D. Weaver, "The Exegesis of Romans 5:12 Among the Greek Fathers and Its Implication for the Doctrine of Original Sin: The 5th-12th Centuries," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 29 (1985), 133-159, 231-257.
12 (Pseudo-)Athanasius, Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem, qn. 101 (Patrologia Cursus Completa, Series Graeca PGI, LP Migne (ed.), 28, 660C). Likewise qn. 115 (PG 28, 672A).
13 Anastasius of Sinai, Quaestiones et Responsiones, qn. 81 (PG 89, 709C).
14 De Infantibus Praemature Abreptis Libellum, ab H. Polack ad editionem praeparatum in Colloquio Leidensi testimonies instructum renovatis curis recensitum edendum curavit Hadwiga Horner, in I.K. Downing, I.A. McDonough, H. Homer (ed. cur.), Gregorii Nysseni Opera Dogmatica Minora, Part II, W. Jaeger, H. Langerbeck, H. Homer (eds.), Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Volume III, Part II, Leiden, New York, Copenhagen, Cologne 1987, 65-97.
15 Ibid., 70.
16 Ibid., 81-82.
17 Ibid., 83.
18 Ibid., 96.
19 Ibid., 97.
20 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio XL — In Sanctum Baptisma, 23 (PG 36,389B-C).
21 Anastasius of Sinai, Quaestiones et Responsiones, qn. 81 (PG 89, 709C).
22 Cf. Pelagius, Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, in Expositiones XIII Epistolarum Pauli, A. Souter (ed.), Cambridge, 1926.
23 Cf. Augustine, Epistula 156, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (hereafter CSEL), 44, 448f; 175.6 (CSEL 44, 660-62); 176.3, (CSEL 44, 666f); De Peccatorurn Meritis et Remissione et de Baptismo Parvulorum 1.20.26; 3. 5.11-6.12 (CSEL 60, 25f and 137-139); De Gestis Pelagii 11, 23-24 (CSEL 42, 76-78).
24 Cf. De Pecc. Mer. 1.16.21 (CSEL 60, 20f); Sermo 294.3, Patrologia Cursus Completa, Series Latina (PL), J.P. Migne (ed.), 38, 1337; Contra Iulianum 5.11.44 (PL 44, 809).
25 Cf. De Pecc. Mer. 1.34.63 (CSEL 60, 63f).
26 Cf. De Gratia Christi et de Peccato Originali 2.40.45 (CSEL 42, 202f); De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia 2.18.33 (CSEL 42, 286f).
27 Cf. Sermo 293.11 (PL 38, 1334).
28 Cf. De Pecc. Mer. 1.9-15.20 (CSEL 60, 10-20).
29 "Cur ergo pro illis Christus mortuus est si non sunt rei?" in De Nupt et Conc. 2:33.56 (CSEL 42, 513).
30 Cf. Sermo 293.8-11 (PL 38, 1333f).
31 Sermo 294.3 (PL 38, 1337).
32 De Pecc. Mer. 1.28.55 (CSEL 60, 54).
33 Enchiridion ad Laurentium 93 (PL 40, 275); cf. De Pecc. Mer. 1.16.21 (CSEL 60, 20f).
34 C. Iul. 5.11.44 (PL 44, 809).
35 Cf. Contra Iulianum Opus Imperfection 4.122 (CSEL 85, 141-142).
36 Contra Duas Epistulas Pelagianorum 2.7.13 (CSEL 60, 474).
37 Sermo 294.7.7 (PL 38, 1339).
38 Having taught the universal salvific will of God up to the start of the Pelagian controversy (De Spiritu et Littera 33.57-58 CSEL 60, 215f), Augustine subsequently reduced the universality of the everyone in 1 Tm 2:4 in various ways: all those (and only those) who in fact will be saved; all classes (Jews and gentiles), not all individuals; many, i.e., not all (Enchir 103 [PL 40, 280]; C. Iul 4.8.44 [PL 44, 760]). Unlike Jansenism, however, Augustine always taught that Christ died for all, including infants ("Numquid [parvuli] aut homines non sunt ut non pertineant ad id quad dictum est, omnes homines [1 Tin 2:4]?" C. Iul. 4.8.42 [PL 44, 759]; cf. C. Iul. 3.25.58 [PL 44, 732]; Sermo 293.8 [PL 38, 1333]) and that God does not command the impossible (De Civitate Dei 22.2 [CSEL 40, 583-85]; De Natura et Gratia 43.50 [CSEL 60, 270]; Retractationes 1.10.2 [PL 32, 599]). For more on this question, see E Moriones (ed.), Enchiridion Theologicum Sancti Augustini, Madrid: La Editorial Catolica, 1961, 327f and 474-481.
39 Cf. Enchir. 94-95 (PL 40,275f); De Nat. et Grat. 3.3-5.5 (PL 44, 249f.).
40 DS 223. This teaching was adopted by the Council of Trent. Council of Trent, Fifth Session, Decree on Original Sin, DS 1514; 1. Neuner-J. Dupuis (eds.), The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, Theological Publications in India, Bangalore 2004 (hereafter referred to as ND), 511.
41 DS, 224: "Item placuit, ut si quis dicit, idea dixisse Dominion: 'In domo Patris mei mansiones multae sunt (Io 14,2), ut intelligatur, quia in regno caelorum erit aliquis medius aut ullus alicubi locus, ubi beati vivant parvuli, qui sine baptismo ex hac vita migrarunt, sine quo in regno caelorum, quod est vita aeterna, intrare non possunt, anathema sit." Cf. Concilia Africae A. 345-A. 525, C. Munier (ed.), Turnhout: Brepols, 1974, 70. This canon is found in some manuscripts, but it is missing from others. The Indiculus did not take it up. Cf. DS 238-249; ND 1907-1914.
42 Gregory the Great, Moralia, 9.21, commenting on Job 9:17 (PL 75, 877). See also Moralia, 12.9 (PL 75, 992993) and 13.44 (PL 75, 1038).
43 Cf. De Conceptu Virginali et de Originali Peccato, ES. Schmitt led.), t. II, cap. 28, 170-171.
44 Cf. Summa Sententiarum, Tract. V, Cap. 6 (PL 176, 132).
45 Cf. Peter Abelard, Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, Liber II [5,19] (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 11), 169-170.
46 Cf. Sententiae, Lib. II, Dist. 33, Cap. 2, I. Brady (ed.), t. I/2, Grottaferrata 1971, 520.
47 Cf. Innocent III, Letter to Humbert, archbishop of Arles, Maiores Ecclesiae Causas (DS 780): "Poena originalis peccati est carentia visionis Dei, actualis vero poena peccati est gehennae perpetuae cruciatus." This theological tradition identified the "torments of hell" with afflictive pains both sensible and spiritual; cf. Thomas Aquinas, IV Sent., Dist. 44, q. 3, a. 3, qla 3; dist. 50, q. 2, a. 3.
48 Council of Lyons II, Profession of Faith for Michael Paleologus, DS 858; John XXII, letter to the Armenians Nequaquam Sine Dolore, DS 926; Council of Florence, decree Laetentur Caeli, DS 1306.
49 Thomas Aquinas, II Sent., dist. 33, q. 2, a. 2; De Malo, q. 5, a. 3. John Duns Scotus, Lectura 11, dist. 33, q. un.; Ordinatio II, dist. 33, q. un.
50 Thomas Aquinas, De Malo, q. 5, a. 3: 'Anime puerorum... carent supernaturali cognitione que hic in nobis per fidem plantatur eo quod nec hic fidem habuerunt in actu, nec sacramentum fidei susceperunt... Et ideo se privari tali bono anime puerorum non cognoscunt, et propter hoc non dolent." Cf. ibid., ad 4; Leonine ed., Vol. 23, 136.
51 Cf. Robert Bellarmine, De Amissione Gratiae VI, c.2 and c.6, in Opera, vol. 5, Paris: Vives, 1873, 458, 470.
52Cf. Paul III, Alias cum Felicitate (Sept. 23, 1535), in Jo. Laurentii Berti Florentini, Opus de Theologicis Disciplinis, Venetiis: Ex Typographia Remondiniana, 1760, vol. V, 36; Paul III, Cum Alias Quorumdam (March 11, 1538), in ibid., Vol.1, 167-68; Benedict XIV, Dum Praeterito Mense (July 31, 1748), Non Sine Magno (Dec. 30, 1750), Sotto il 15 di Luglio (May 12, 1751), in Benedicti XIV Acta Sive Nondum Sive Sparsim Edita Nunc Autem Primum Collecta Cura Raphaelis de Martinis, Neapoli, Ex Typogr. Puerorum Artificium, 1894, Vol. 1, 554-57; Vol. II, 74, 412-413. For other texts and references, see G.J. Dyer, The Denial of Limbo and the Jansenist Controversy, Mundelein, III: St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, 1955, 139-59; see especially on pp, 139-142, the account of the discussions under Clement XIII in 1758-1759, according to the manuscript 1485 of the Biblioteca Corsiniana, Rome, classification mark 41.C.15 ("Cause trattate nella S. C. del Sant' Uffizio di Roma dal 1733 al 1761").
53 Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, DS 2626. On this question, see Dyer, The Denial of Limbo, 159-170.
54 Schema Reformatum Constitutionis Dogmaticae de Doctrina Catholica, Cap. V, No. 6 in Acta et Decreta Sacrorum Conciliorum Recentiorum, Collectio Lacensis, t. 7, Friburg Brisgoviae 1890, 565.
55 For a survey of the discussions and of some new solutions proposed before Vatican II, see Y. Cougar, "Morts Avant l'Aurore de la Raison," in Vaste Monde Ma Paroisse: Verite et Dimensions du Salut, Paris: Temoignage Chretien, 1959, 174-183; G. Dyer, Limbo: Unsettled Question, New York: Sheed & Ward 1964, 93-182 (with the indication of many publications on pp. 192-196); WA, van Roo, "Infants Dying Without Baptism: A Survey of Recent Literature and Determination of the State of the Question," Gregorianum 35 (1954), 406-473; A. Michel, Enfants Morts Sans Bapteme, Paris: Tequi, 1954; C. Journet, La Volonte Divine Salvifique sur les Petits Enfants, Paris: Desclee de Brouwer 1958; L. Renwart, "Le bapteme des Enfants et les Limbes," Nouvelle Revue Theologique 80 (1958), 449-467; H. de Lavalette, "Autour de la Question des Enfants Morts Sans bapteme,"Nouvelle Revue Theologique 82 (1960), 56-69; P Gumpel, "Unbaptized Infants: May They Be Saved?" The Downside Review, 72 (1954), 342-458; ibid., "Unbaptized Infants: A Further Report," The Downside Review 73 (1955), 317-346; V Wilkin, From Limbo to Heaven: An Essay on the Economy of Redemption, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961. After Vatican II: E. Boissard, Reflexions sur le Sort des Enfants Morts Sans Bapteme, Paris: Editions de la Source, 1974.
56 For the references, see G. Alberigo and J.A. Komonchak (eds.), History of Vatican II, Vol. 1, Maryknoll: Orbis & Leuven: Peeters, 1995, 236-245; 308-310.
57 DS 1349.
58 On these propositions and the questions they raised, see G.J. Dyer, The Denial of Limbo, 102-122.
59 Pius XII, 'Allocution to Italian Midwives," AAS, 43 (1951), 841.
60 Cf. Pius XII, Humani Generis, AAS, 42 (1950), 570: 'Alii veram gratuitatem ordinissupernaturaliscorrumpunt, cum autument Deum entia intellectu praedita condere non posse, quin eadem ad beatificam visionem ordinet et vocer."
61 Cf. Lumen Gentium, 15-16; Nostra Aerate, 1; Dignitatis Humanae, 11; Ad Genres, 7.
62 See for instance - among other authors - the observations of K. Rahner, "Die Bleibende Bedeutung des II Vatikanischen Konzils,"Schriften zur Theologie, Band XIV, Benziger Verlag: Zurich, Cologne, Einsiedeln, 1980, 314-316. With other nuances: J.H. Nicolas, Synthese Dogmatique. De la Trinite a la Trinite, Fribourg, Paris: Editions Universitaires, Beauchesne, 1985, 848-853. See also the observations of J. Ratzinger speaking as a private theologian in: Vittorio Messori a colloquio con it cardinale Joseph Ratzinger, Rapporto Sulla Fede, Cinisello Balsamo: Edizioni Pauline, 1985, 154-155.
63 See above, Footnote 38.
64 Pius IX, Quanto Conficiamur, 10.09.1863 (DS 2866): "Qui... honestam rectamque vitam agunt, posse, divinae lucis etgratiae operante virtute, aeternam consequi vitam, cum Deus, qui omnium mentes, animos, cogitationes habitusque plane intuetur, scrutatur et noscit, pro summa sua bonitate et clementia minim¢ patiatur, quempiam aeternis puniri suppliciis, qui voluntarie culpae reatum non habeat"
65 Cf. Innocent III, letter to Humbert, archbishop of Arles, Maiores Ecclesiae Causas, DS 780.
66 Profession of Faith for Michael Paleologus, DS 858; see above, Footnote 48.
67 AAS 43 (1951), 841.
68 See above, 1.6 and below, 2.4.
69 Cf. Eph 1:5, 9: "the purpose (eudokia) of his will."
70 Cf. Lk 10:22: "the one to whom the Son chooses (bouleta) to reveal him."
71 Cf. 1 Cor 12:11: "who apportions to each one individually as he wills (bouletai)."
72 Cf. for instance Mt 23:37.
73 Cf. Catechism, 307.
74 DS 623.
75 DS 624.
76 See Irenaeus, Adv Haer., I, 10, 1 (PG 7, 550).
77 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 26, art. 1, corpus.
78 John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 5.
79 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus, 14.
80 Other attestations of the Jewish belief about Adam's influence in the time of Paul are: 2 Apoc. Bar. 17:3; 23:4; 48:42; 54:15; 4 Ezr. 3:7; 7:118; "O Adam, what have you done? Though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours too who are your descendants."
81 Cf. Rom 3:23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
82 In the Western church, the Greek phrase eph'hb was understood as a relative clause with a masculine pronoun referring to Adam or a neuter pronoun referring to sin (peccatum) (cf. Vents Latina and Vulgate in quo). Augustine at first accepted both interpretations, but when he realized that the Greek word for sin was feminine (hamartia) he opted for the first interpretation, which would imply the notion of incorporation of all human beings in Adam. He was followed by many Latin theologians, either "sive in Adamo, sive in peccato," or "in Adamo."The latter interpretation was not known in the Eastern church before John Damascene. Several Greek fathers understood eph'ho as "because of whom," i.e. Adam, "all sinned." The phrase eph'ho has also been understood as a conjunction and translated as "since, because," "on condition that," or "with the result that, so that" J. Fitzmyer (Romans [AB, 33], New York, 1992, 413-416) discusses 11 different interpretations and opts for the latter possibility of a consecutive meaning: "Eph'ho, then, would mean that Paul is expressing a result, the sequel to Adams baleful influence on humanity by the ratification of his sin in the sins of all individuals" (p. 416).
83 De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia II,12,15 (PL, 44, 450): "Non ego finxi originale peccatum quod catholica fides credit antiquitus."
84 The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 404, speaks of "a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice." And it adds: "And that is why original sin is called sin only in an analogical sense: it is a sin 'contracted' and not 'committed' - a state and not an act."
85 Council of Trent, Fifth Session, Decree on Original Sin, DS 1512; ND 509. The decree of Trent echoes the second canon of the Second Council of Orange (529).
86 Catechism, 389.
87 Cyprian, Epistola ad Iubaianum 73, 21 (PL 3,1123); see also Council of Florence, Cantate Domino, DS 1351; ND 810: "The holy Roman church... firmly believes, professes and preaches that 'no one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans' but also Jews, heretics or schismatics can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go to the 'eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels' [Mt 25:41], unless before the end of their life they are joined to (aggregate) it.... 'And no one can be saved, no matter how much alms one has given, even if shedding one's blood for the name of Christ, unless one remains in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."' (Fulgentius of Ruspe, Liber de Fide Liber ad Petrum, 38, 79 and 39, 80).
88 Cf. Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctum: "Porro subesse Romano Pontifici omni humanae creaturae declaramus, dicimus, diffinimus omnino esse de necessitate salutis," DS 875; cp. DS 1351; ND 875: "Furthermore we declare, state and define that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of all human beings that they submit to the Roman pontiff."
89 Pius IX, Singulari Quadam, DS 2865i; ND 813.
90 Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, DS 3870; ND 855.
91 John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 10.
92 Polycarp may be an indirect witness to this, since he declares before the proconsul: "For 86 years I have been serving him [the Christ]," Martyrium Polycarpi 9,3. Polycarp's martyrdom probably occurred during the final years of the reign of Antoninus Pius (156-160).
93 Council of Trent, Fifth Session, Decree on Original Sin, DS 1514; ND 511. The canon echoes the second canon of the Council of Carthage (418), DS 23.
94 Taking into account the Old Testament texts regarding the outpouring of the Spirit by God, the principal idea in Jn 3:5 seems to refer to God's gift of the Spirit. If natural life is attributable to the fact of God giving the spirit to human beings, analogously eternal life begins when God gives his Holy Spirit to human beings. Cf. R.E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (1-XII), The Anchor Bible, Vol. 29, Doubleday & Co: New York, 1966, 140. In this regard, Brown observes: "The baptismal motif that is woven into the text of the whole scene is secondary; the phrase of water in which the baptismal motif expresses itself most clearly may have been always part of the scene, although originally not having a specific reference to Christian baptism; or the phase may have been added to the tradition later in order to bring out the baptismal motif" (ibid., 143). The Lord stresses the necessity of a birth "of water and spirit" to enter into the kingdom of God. In Christian tradition this has been understood as pointing to the "sacrament of baptism," although the "sacramental" reading is a limitation of the pneumatological meaning. Read in this way, the issue can be raised as to whether the text expresses here a general principle without exception. One should be aware of the slight shift in interpretation.
95 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 68, art. 2, corpus.
96 Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Decree on Justification, DS 1524; ND 1928.
97 Theophylactus, In 1 Tm 2, 4 (PG 125, 32): Ei pantas anthropous thele sothenai ekeinos, thele kai su, kai miniou ton theon.
98 It is notable that the editio typica of the encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, has replaced Paragraph 99, which read: "You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord" (a phrasing which was susceptible to a faulty interpretation), by this definitive text: "Infantem autem vestrum potestis eidem Patri eiusque misericordiae cum spe committere" (cf. AAS 87 (1995), 515), which may be translated as follows: "You can entrust your child to the same Father and to his mercy with hope."
99 John Chrysostom, In I Tm. Homil. 7,2 (PG 62, 536): Mimou Theon. Ei pantas anthropous thelei sothenai, eikotos huper hapanton dei euchesthai.
100 See above, Chap. 1.
101 See above, Chap. 2.
102 Y Cougar, Vaste Monde Ma Paroisse: Verite et Dimensions du Salut, Paris: Temoignage Chretien, 1968, 169: "un de ceux dons la solution est la plus difficile en synthese theologique."
103 See above, Chaps. 1.5 & 1.6.
104 Cf. events such as Live Aid, 1985, and Live 8, 2005.
105 Cf. Catechism, 1261.
106 "Christ is risen from the dead. By death he conquered death, and to those in the grave he granted life" (Easter troparion of the Byzantine liturgy). This paschal verse is sung many times on each of the 40 days of the Easter season in the Byzantine tradition. It is thus the principal Easter hymn.
107 In all its ceremonies and celebrations, the Byzantine liturgy praises God's merciful love: "For you are a merciful God who loves mankind, and we glorify you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever."
108 Cf. Augustine, De Natura et Gratia 43, 50 (PL 44, 271).
109 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, 64, 7; cf. III, 64, 3; III, 66, 6; III, 68, 2.
110 See below, 3.4. & 3.5.
111 Cf. Aquinas, In IV Sent. Dist.1, q. 2, a. 4, q.l, a. 2: "in quolibet statu post peccatum fuit aliquod remedium per quod originale peccatum ex virtute passionis Christi tolleretur."
112 Cf. also Note 109, above.
113 Cf. Augustine, Ep. 102, 2, 12.
114 Cf. Leo the Great, In Nat. Domini 4,1 (PL 54, 203): "Sacramentum salutis humanae nulla umquam antiquitate cessavit.... Semper quidem, dilectissimi, diversis modis multitgde mensuris human generi bonitas divina consuluit. Et plurima prouidentiae suae munera omnibus retro saeculis clementer impertuit."
115 Cf. Cajetan, In 111am Part., q. 68, a.11: "Rationabile esse ut divina misericordia provideret homini in quocumque naturali statu de aliquo remedio salutis." (It is reasonable that God's mercy should provide man, in whatever natural state [he be], with some remedy of salvation.) Cajetan was actually looking to the time before Christ when there was a kind of sacramentum naturae, e.g. offering a sacrifice, which was the occasion (but not the cause) of grace. He understood the situation of human beings prior to Christ to be "in the time of the law of nature" and understood the situation of unbaptized infants similarly. He therefore applied his principle in favor of the idea of limbo as the destiny of such infants. His fundamental point, however, is very important and does not necessarily lead to the conclusion of limbo: namely, that at all times in history and in all circumstances God cares for the human situation and offers appropriate opportunities for salvation.
116 Innocent III, Letter to Humbert, archbishop of Arles, ND, 1409, 506; DS, 780 'Absit enim, ut universi parvuli pereant, quorum quotidie tanta multitude moritur, quin et ipse misericors Deus, qui neminem vult perire, aliquod remedium procuraverit ad salutem....Dicimus distinguendum, quod peccatum est duplex: originale scilicet et actuale: originale, quod absque consensu contrahitur, etactuale, quod committitur cum consensu. Originale igitur, quod sine consensu contrahitur, sine consensu per vim remittitur sacramenti."
117 Cf. DS 780.
118 The situation of unbaptized infants may be considered by analogy with that of baptized infants, as here. More problematically, it may also perhaps be considered by analogy with the situation of unbaptized adults, see below, Footnote 127.
119 The fathers of the church delight in reflecting on the assumption by Christ of the whole of humanity; e.g. lrenaeus, Adv Haer. 3, 19, 3 (SCh 211, 380), Epideixis 33 (SCh 406, 130-131); Hilary of Poitiers, In Mt. 4, 8 (SCh 254, 130); 18, 6 (SCh 258, 80); Trin. II,24 (CCL 62, 60); Tr Ps. 51, 17; 54, 9 (CCL 61, 104; 146); etc.; Gregory of Nyssa, In Cant. Or. II (Opera, ed. Jaeger, VI, 61); Adv. Apoll. (Opera III/ 1, 152); Cyril of Alexandria, In Joh. Evang. I, 9 (PG 73, 161-164); Leo the Great, Tract. 64, 3; 72,2 (CCL 138A, 392; 442f).
120 Some fathers had a salvific understanding of the incarnation itself; e.g. Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. in Joh. 5 (PG 73, 753).
121 See below, Footnote 127.
122 Catechism, 389.
123 E.g. Augustine, Enarr in Ps. 70, II, 1 (PL 36, 891): "Omnis autem homo Adam; sicut in his qui crediderunt, omnis homo Christus, quia membra sunt Christi."This text shows Augustine's difficulty in regarding solidarity with Christ as universally as solidarity with Adam. All have solidarity with Adam; those who believe have solidarity with Christ. Irenaeus is more evenhanded in his doctrine of recapitulation; cf. Adv. Haer. 3, 21, 10; 5, 12, 3; 5, 14, 2; 5, 15, 4; 5, 34, 2.
124 By the fact of the incarnation, cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22.
125 Col 1:15; cf. 2 Cor 4:4.
126 See below, 3.4.
127 With regard to the possibility of a votum on the part of the infant, growth toward free will might perhaps be imagined as a continuum which unfolds toward maturity from the first moment of existence, rather than there being a sudden qualitative jump to the exercise of mature, responsible decision. The existence of the unborn is a continuum of human life and growth; it does not suddenly become human at some point. Consequently, infants may actually be capable of exercising some kind of rudimentary votum by analogy with that of unbaptized adults. Some theologians have understood the mother's smile to mediate the love of God to the infant and have therefore seen the infant's response to that smile as a response to God himself. Some modern psychologists and neurologists are convinced that the infant in the womb is already in some way conscious and has some use of freedom. Cf. V Frankl, Der Unbewusste Gott. Psychotherapie and Religion (1979); D. Amen, Healing the Hardware of the Soul (2002).
128 See above, Para 90.
129 See below, 3.5.
130 See above, Chap. 1.6.
131 Y. Congar, Vaste Monde Ma Paroisse, 171.
132 Cf. Augustine, First Letter to Boniface, 22, 40 (PL 44, 570).
133 Cf. Footnote 94 above.
134 Catechism, 1261.
135 Cf. Catechism, 1257.
Friday, May 04, 2007
The ITC document on limbo
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Mary Ann Glendon's Concluding Speech
Mary Ann Glendon's Concluding Speech
"Benedict XVI Highlighted 3 Challenges"
VATICAN CITY, MAY 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the message Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, gave today on concluding the plenary session of the academy held April 27-May 1. The theme of the meeting was "Charity and Justice in the Relations Among Peoples and Nations."
* * *
At the conclusion of our XIII Plenary Session, I am pleased to share with you some of what we in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences have learned over the past four days of intense meetings. In the name of the academy and its chancellor, His Excellency Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, I thank you journalists for your interest in our work this past week since we last met.
I am joined here today by Professor Juan Llach of Argentina, the principal organizer of our plenary session this year. After my introductory remarks, Professor Llach will speak to you about some of what we heard and discussed in our meetings. I will limit myself to comments of a more general character.
Our meeting this year on the theme of "Charity and Justice in the Relations Among People and Nations" is part of a broader project of the academy on questions arising from globalization. Over several years, these meetings have provided academy members with much data and creative thinking. While we are not in a position today to speak about any final conclusions, I hope to give you a sense of what we have been doing this week. In the coming months, academy members will further discuss what we have heard here, and be in a position to arrive at some conclusions for a final report. We cannot present to you today, therefore, final conclusions of the academy.
As I mentioned at the outset of our meeting, we had a record number of invited guests this year to share with us their understanding of issues related to charity and justice among nations. I would just give a few examples of what we heard.
Professor Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista, former foreign minister of Mexico, spoke about the vulnerability of poorer countries to sudden swings in world capital markets, and the need to mitigate the damage from such exposure. Doctor Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, spoke to us about the very practical issue of access to safe water. Doctor José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States, addressed us the strengths and weaknesses of international law in building peaceful relations between states. Doctor Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state of the United States, spoke about how globalization is weakening the power of nation-states, precisely as their own citizens expect them to do more to mitigate the effects of that same globalization.
The meetings of the academy are also a privileged place for the Church to listen to and converse with the world of scholarship. We were honored with a substantial address from His Eminence, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state, who spoke about the weaknesses of multilateral institutions.
He clarified for us that the Holy See strongly supports international institutions, but does not subscribe to an uncritical internationalism, any more that the Holy See subscribes to an uncritical nationalism in defending the rights of nations.
We also had the participation of several other curial cardinals, as well as His Eminence Cardinal Pierre Sfeir Nasrallah, patriarch of the Maronites, and His Beatitude Monsignor Antonios Naguib, patriarch of Alexandria. The latter two spoke with great passion and emotion about the challenges and crises of interreligious dialogue as a critical part of peace between nations. As one of our invited guests, Rabbi David Rosen, said: "Without peace between religions, there cannot be peace between nations."
In his message to us for our plenary session, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI highlighted three challenges: i) the environment and sustainable development, ii) respect for the rights and dignity of persons, and iii) the danger of losing spiritual values in a technical world.
The Holy Father also wrote in general about the work of the social sciences in the relations between nations. He reminded us that the "building of a just society is the primary responsibility of the political order," and therefore the questions before us are those largely of "practical reason and a training of the will in order to discern and achieve the specific requirements of justice."
To this work of practical reason, the Church offers a "purification of reason," permitting the light of the Gospel to illuminate the social order. In other words, relations between states cannot remain only a matter of technical skill; they must be animated by ethical concerns.
The work of the social sciences lies between the principles and practice. We heard some practical ideas about how the priority of ethical concerns might be concretely achieved, as you will hear presently from Professor Llach.
A final note about the question of subsidiarity. As I noted last week, that was one aspect of international relations which we were asked to think about.
In Catholic social thinking, the concept of subsidiarity allows space for individuals, families and communities to practice the virtues of charity and justice without being usurped by an all-powerful state. At the level of nations, is there room to allow for charity and justice to be exercised as virtues?
The nation-state, for all of its weaknesses, allows great numbers of peoples to live together in peace and freedom, with space allowed for the exercise of virtues which promote the common good. Can we say that international institutions do the same?
There can be no doubt that the Catholic Church, in its teachings on the unity of the human race and the universal destination of material goods, stands on the side of institutions which promote peace and harmony between nations. But the challenge is for those institutions to allow ample space for the virtues of charity and justice as well. The work of our Academy in the months ahead is to look at concrete proposals in that regard.
Professor Llach will now share with you some of the proposals that we heard.
Thank you again for your interest in our work.
[Original text: English; text adapted]
Papal Message to Social Sciences Academy
Papal Message to Social Sciences Academy
"There Will Always Be a Place for Charity"
VATICAN CITY, MAY 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the message Benedict XVI sent to Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, on the occasion of the plenary session of the academy held April 27-May 1. The theme of the meeting was "Charity and Justice in the Relations Among Peoples and Nations."
* * *
To Her Excellency
Professor Mary Ann Glendon
President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
As the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences gathers for its thirteenth Plenary Session, I am pleased to greet you and your distinguished confreres and to convey my prayerful good wishes for your deliberations.
The Academy's meeting this year is devoted to an examination of the theme: "Charity and Justice in the Relations among Peoples and Nations." The Church cannot fail to be interested in this subject, inasmuch as the pursuit of justice and the promotion of the civilization of love are essential aspects of her mission of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Certainly the building of a just society is the primary responsibility of the political order, both in individual States and in the international community. As such, it demands, at every level, a disciplined exercise of practical reason and a training of the will in order to discern and achieve the specific requirements of justice in full respect for the common good and the inalienable dignity of each individual. In my Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, I wished to reaffirm, at the beginning of my Pontificate, the Church's desire to contribute to this necessary purification of reason, to help form consciences and to stimulate a greater response to the genuine requirements of justice. At the same time, I wished to emphasize that, even in the most just society, there will always be a place for charity: "there is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love" (No. 28).
The Church's conviction of the inseparability of justice and charity is ultimately born of her experience of the revelation of God's infinite justice and mercy in Jesus Christ, and it finds expression in her insistence that man himself and his irreducible dignity must be at the centre of political and social life. Her teaching, which is addressed not only to believers but to all people of good will, thus appeals to right reason and a sound understanding of human nature in proposing principles capable of guiding individuals and communities in the pursuit of a social order marked by justice, freedom, fraternal solidarity and peace. At the heart of that teaching, as you well know, is the principle of the universal destination of all the goods of creation. According to this fundamental principle, everything that the earth produces and all that man transforms and manufactures, all his knowledge and technology, is meant to serve the material and spiritual development and fulfilment of the human family and all its members.
From this integrally human perspective we can understand more fully the essential role which charity plays in the pursuit of justice. My predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was convinced that justice alone is insufficient to establish truly humane and fraternal relations within society. "In every sphere of interpersonal relationships," he maintained, "justice must, so to speak, be 'corrected' to a considerable extent by that love which, as Saint Paul proclaims, 'is patient and kind' or, in other words, possesses the characteristics of that merciful love which is so much of the essence of the Gospel and Christianity" (Dives in Misericordia, 14). Charity, in a word, not only enables justice to become more inventive and to meet new challenges; it also inspires and purifies humanity's efforts to achieve authentic justice and thus the building of a society worthy of man.
At a time when "concern for our neighbour transcends the confines of national communities and has increasingly broadened its horizon to the whole world" (Deus Caritas Est, 30), the intrinsic relationship between charity and justice needs to be more clearly understood and emphasized. In expressing my confidence that your discussions in these days will prove fruitful in this regard, I would like briefly to direct your attention to three specific challenges facing our world, challenges which I believe can only be met through a firm commitment to that greater justice which is inspired by charity.
The first concerns the environment and sustainable development. The international community recognizes that the world's resources are limited and that it is the duty of all peoples to implement policies to protect the environment in order to prevent the destruction of that natural capital whose fruits are necessary for the well-being of humanity. To meet this challenge, what is required is an interdisciplinary approach such as you have employed. Also needed is a capacity to assess and forecast, to monitor the dynamics of environmental change and sustainable growth, and to draw up and apply solutions at an international level. Particular attention must be paid to the fact that the poorest countries are likely to pay the heaviest price for ecological deterioration. In my Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, I pointed out that "the destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use, and the violent hoarding of the earth's resources … are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development. Indeed, if development were limited to the technical-economic aspect, obscuring the moral-religious dimension, it would not be an integral human development, but a one-sided distortion which would end up by unleashing man's destructive capacities" (No. 9). In meeting the challenges of environmental protection and sustainable development, we are called to promote and "safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic 'human ecology'" (Centesimus Annus, 38). This in turn calls for a responsible relationship not only with creation but also with our neighbours, near and far, in space and time, and with the Creator.
This brings us to a second challenge which involves our conception of the human person and consequently our relationships with one other. If human beings are not seen as persons, male and female, created in God's image (cf. Gen 1:26) and endowed with an inviolable dignity, it will be very difficult to achieve full justice in the world. Despite the recognition of the rights of the person in international declarations and legal instruments, much progress needs to be made in bringing this recognition to bear upon such global problems as the growing gap between rich and poor countries; the unequal distribution and allocation of natural resources and of the wealth produced by human activity; the tragedy of hunger, thirst and poverty on a planet where there is an abundance of food, water and prosperity; the human suffering of refugees and displaced people; the continuing hostilities in many parts of the world; the lack of sufficient legal protection for the unborn; the exploitation of children; the international traffic in human beings, arms and drugs; and numerous other grave injustices.
A third challenge relates to the values of the spirit. Pressed by economic worries, we tend to forget that, unlike material goods, those spiritual goods which are properly human expand and multiply when communicated: unlike divisible goods, spiritual goods such as knowledge and education are indivisible, and the more one shares them, the more they are possessed. Globalization has increased the interdependence of peoples, with their different traditions, religions and systems of education. This means that the peoples of the world, for all their differences, are constantly learning about one another and coming into much greater contact. All the more important, then, is the need for a dialogue which can help people to understand their own traditions vis-à-vis those of others, to develop greater self-awareness in the face of challenges to their identity, and thus to promote understanding and the acknowledgement of true human values within an intercultural perspective. To meet these challenges, a just equality of opportunity, especially in the field of education and the transmission of knowledge, is urgently needed. Regrettably, education, especially at the primary level, remains dramatically insufficient in many parts of the world.
To meet these challenges, only love for neighbour can inspire within us justice at the service of life and the promotion of human dignity. Only love within the family, founded on a man and a woman, who are created in the image of God, can assure that inter-generational solidarity which transmits love and justice to future generations. Only charity can encourage us to place the human person once more at the centre of life in society and at the centre of a globalized world governed by justice.
With these considerations, dear Members of the Academy, I encourage you as you carry forward your important work. Upon you and your loved ones I cordially invoke God's blessings of wisdom, joy and peace.
From the Vatican, 28 April 2007
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Sarah Broadie, Whitelead Lectures
She will be delivering two WHitehad lectures at Harvard University at 4 P.M. on May 10 and 11.
source
Harvard University Department of Philosophy public lectures
source
10 May 2007 Sarah Broadie
St. Andrews Nature & divinity in Plato's Timaeus
Whitehead Lecture
Emerson 21011 May 2007 Sarah Broadie
St. Andrews Nature & divinity in Aristotle's cosmology
Whitehead Lecture
Emerson 210
Harvard University Department of Philosophy public lectures
Liberalism and the infinite
Not sure what to make of this:
Charles N. R. McCoy, The Structure of Political Thought, 255.
The self-liberation envisaged by liberalism is precisely that man may experience very tangibly the material infinity experienced theoretically by the modern physicist, and free himself from the world of common experience--the world from which the physicist never succeeds in freeing himself. If modern physics were taken to mean, indeed, that the human intellect by becoming aware of its own infinity through measuring its powers by the infinite universe, reaches things as they really are in nature so that nature be considered "operable" in itself, modern social science means that in the world produced by human effort, man is freed from the imaginary boundaries of 'indefectible principles" and "natural associations" so that he may experience practically and not merely theoretically the generic nature of his being: a shadow world of facts that have about them indeed the quality of myth and magic.
Charles N. R. McCoy, The Structure of Political Thought, 255.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
On the Politics of Virility
Stephen G. Salkever, "On the Politics of Virility," Essays on the Foundation of Aristotelian Political Science, ed. Carnes Lord and David O'Connor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 188-9.
The figure who represents the peak of moral virtue, the great-souled person (megalopsychos), does strangely little and is quite slow to do even that much and and is, above all, not tense or tightly strung, owing to a sense that nothing much in the realm of action is very great (oude syntonos ho meden mega oiomenos). Just as Plato attempts, against his culture, to transfer the laurel of andreia from the soldier to the philosopher intent upon his or her researches, so Aristotle seeks to replace the vision of the bold warrior with that of a beast who combines magnitude and a certain gentleness. The Spartans, he tells us toward the end of the Politics, aim only at courage, and so fail to produce even that. Real courage has nothing of saveagery about it but goes "rather with the gentler and more lion-like characters."
Those who see Aristotle's biology as providing a pseudoscientific apology for male supremacy are as mistaken as those who read his social science (politike) as a stirring call for a participatory politics of communal identity. The error in both instances comes from failing to see how Aristotle strives to undermine, rather than support, the evaluative distinction between public things and private things. For Aristotle, our human identity--as beings who can come into our own through living reasonably--requires both polis and oikia, and the latter even more (in one sense) than the former. This argument, itself thoroughly biological in character (in that its first premises are statements about the nature of human beings, about the problems and capacities that compose our distinct biological heritage), serves as the ground for the Aristotelian derogation of the Greek attachment to virility and the love of honor and to the extreme hierarchy and differentiation of gender roles that is the consequence of that attachment. It is his biology, in fact, that provides the basis for his high valuation of women, who were not highly valued by the culture in which Aristotle lived.
Monday, April 30, 2007
New natural law website
From Mere Comments:
NEH Funds Natural Law, Natural Rights Site
This just in from our friends at the Witherspoon Institute:The Witherspoon Institute is happy to announce that the National Endowment for the Humanities (the NEH), a federal agency, has awarded the Institute $180,000 in outright funding toward our proposed website Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism Online Resource Center.Congratulations to Witherspoon.
This Center will provide a resource, presently unavailable, for those interested in learning about the role of natural law thinking in the political and constitutional history of the United States. It will put at the disposal of faculty, students, and the general public a comprehensive collection of documents with accompanying scholarly commentaries. These resources will be adaptable for use in courses on the philosophical foundations of American constitutionalism and the moral and political controversies of the American constitutional experience.
To see the prototype of the website, click here.
For the full announcement from the NEH click here.
Papal Address to Theology Professors
Papal Address to Theology Professors
"Listen to the Answers That the Christian Faith Gives Us"
VATICAN CITY, APRIL 29, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI gave March 21 to a delegation of the theological faculty of the University of Tϋbingen, Germany.
* * *
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO A DELEGATION OF THE THEOLOGICAL FACULTY
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TÜBINGEN IN GERMANY
Paul VI Audience Hall
Wednesday, 21 March 2007
Dear Bishop, esteemed Dean, distinguished Colleagues, if I may be permitted to call you such!
I thank you for this visit and I can say that it makes me deeply happy.
On the one hand, an encounter with one's past is always beautiful because there is something rejuvenating about it. On the other, however, it is something more than a nostalgic meeting.
You yourself, Your Excellency, said that it is also a sign: a sign on the one hand of how dear to me theology is -- and how could it be otherwise? -- because I had considered teaching to be my true vocation, even if the Good Lord suddenly wanted something else.
At the same time, however, it is also a sign on your part, that is, that you see the interior unity between theological research, doctrine and theological work, and pastoral service in the Church, and thus the total ecclesial commitment for the human being, for the world and for our future.
Yesterday evening, of course, I started rummaging among my memories with a view to this meeting. So it was that a memory came to mind which fits in with what you have just said, Mr Dean: in other words, the memory of the Grand Senate. I do not know today whether all the appointments still pass through the Grand Senate.
It was very interesting that when, for example, a chair of mathematics or Assyriology or the physics of solid bodies or any other subject was to be assigned, the contribution from the other faculties was minimal, and everything was resolved quite quickly because almost no one dared to speak out. The situation in the humanistic disciplines was rather different and when the chairs of theology came up in both faculties, in the end, everyone had their say.
Thus, it was evident that all the professors of the University felt in some way competent in theology; they had the feeling that they could and should participate in the decision. Theology was obviously very dear to them.
Consequently, on the one hand it could be perceived that their colleagues in the other faculties in a certain way considered that theology was the heart of the University, and on the other, that theology was precisely something that concerned everyone, in which all felt involved and somehow also knew that they were competent.
In other words, come to think of it, this means that precisely in the debate concerning the chairs of theology, the University could be experienced as a university. I am pleased to learn that these cooptations exist today, more than in the past, although Tϋbingen has always striven for this.
I do not know whether the Leibniz-Kolleg of which I was a member still exists; in any case, the modern University runs a considerable risk of becoming, as it were, a complex of advanced study institutes externally and institutionally united rather than being able to create the interior unity of universitas.
Theology was evidently something in which the universitas was present and in which it was demonstrated that the whole forms a unit, and that precisely at its root are a common questioning, a common task, a common purpose.
I think, moreover, that one can see in this a deep appreciation of theology. I consider this a particularly important fact.
It reveals that in our time -- at least in the Latin countries where the secularity of the State and State institutions is emphasized to the extreme and therefore the omission of all that has to do with the Church, Christianity and faith is demanded -- interconnections exist from which it is impossible to separate that complex reality which we call theology (which is also fundamentally linked with the Church, faith and Christianity).
It thus becomes evident in our collection of European situations -- however secular, in a certain perspective, they are and must be -- that Christian thought with its questions and answers is present and accompanies them.
I maintain, on the one hand, that this fact shows that theology itself continues in a certain way to make its contribution and to constitute what the University is.
But on the other, it naturally also implies an immense challenge to theology to satisfy this expectation, to be equal to it and to carry out the service entrusted to it and expected of it.
I am pleased that through the cooptations which have now become visible in a rather practical way -- far more than they used to be -- that the intra-university debate makes the University truly what it is, involving it in a collective self-questioning and responding.
However, I think that this is also a reason to reflect on how far we are able -- not only in Tϋbingen but also elsewhere -- to satisfy this need. The University and society, humanity, in fact, need questions, but they also need answers. And I hold that in this regard there emerges for theology -- and not only for theology -- a certain dialectic between scientific rigour and the greatest question that transcends it and constantly emerges from it: the question about truth.
I would like to make this clearer with an example. An exegete, an interpreter of Sacred Scripture, must explain it as a historical work "secundum artem", that is, with the scientific rigour that we know in accordance with all the historical elements that require it and with the necessary methodology.
This alone, however, does not suffice for him to be a theologian. If he were to limit himself to doing this, then theology, or at any rate the interpretation of the Bible, would be something similar to Egyptology or Assyriology, or any other specialization.
To be a theologian and to carry out this service for the University, and I dare to say for humanity -- hence, the service that is expected of him -- he must go further and ask: but is what is said there true? And if it is true, does it concern us? And how does it concern us? And how can we recognize that it is true and concerns us?
In my opinion, in this regard, even in the scientific context, theology is always also requested and called into question over and above the scientific perspective.
The University and humanity are in need of questions. Whenever questions are no longer asked, even those that concern the essential and go beyond any specialization, we no longer receive answers, either.
Only if we ask, and if with our questions we are radical, as radical as theology must be radical over and above any specialization, can we hope to obtain answers to these fundamental questions which concern us all.
First of all, we have to ask questions. Those who do not ask do not get a reply.
But I would add that for theology, in addition to the courage to ask, we also need the humility to listen to the answers that the Christian faith gives us; the humility to perceive in these answers their reasonableness and thus to make them newly accessible to our time and to ourselves.
Thus, not only is the University built up but also humanity is helped to live. For this task, I invoke God's Blessing upon you.
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Brian Goodwin, Introducing holistic science
PATTERNS OF WHOLENESS
Introducing holistic science.
from Resurgence issue 216
SEVERAL ARTICLES IN this issue of Resurgence focus on a development in science that is of deep significance for the way we understand the world and how we behave in it. Many of the contributors are people who have gone through the process of struggling with the separation of facts and values, the distinction between what is called objective and subjective knowledge in science, and have found it wanting for a variety of reasons.
When Galileo and Descartes laid the foundation of scientific method in the sixteenth century, they considered that the state of mind of the experimenter was irrelevant for the experimental study of nature, which required a dispassionate observer who submitted to the discipline of scientific observation. Each area of scientific study required special ways of precise measurement and so the different 'disciplines' of science were born, fragmenting it into the various subjects that make up our university science departments today.
This was an extremely successful strategy in gaining precise knowledge about the natural world, which could then be used to control nature in many different ways. In fact, science adopted the strategy of control and prediction of natural processes, so that there is an intimate relationship between scientific knowledge and its technological applications. This has given us an extraordinary diversity of means to turn nature to our advantage: radio, television and the Internet for communication; bicycles, trains, cars and aeroplanes for travel; drugs, surgery and gene manipulation to control disease and repair damaged parts, to mention but a few. There can be no denying the extraordinary benefits that have come from this cultural adventure into ways of improving the lot of humans on this planet.
However, the limitations of this approach to understanding nature are now becoming all too obvious. We are faced with a variety of crises, in health, community life, the environment, climate, economics and human organisations. These share a number of distinctive characteristics: they are complex processes that do not respond predictably to attempts at manipulation and control. So it seems that it is time for science to change in some fairly fundamental ways. These changes have been developing within science itself during the course of the twentieth century, and what we are now witnessing is the possibility of some basic shifts in the way we relate to nature and understand its complex phenomena.
The situation we find ourselves in is rather like that described for the young prince in a fairy tale that presents the whole story in a nutshell. This comes from John Fowles' novel The Magus, published in 1966 when Western culture was going through one of its brief moments of expansion and enlightenment.The Prince and the Magician
Once upon a time there was a young prince, who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, and he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of God, the young man believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace. He came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.
"Are those real islands?" asked the young prince.
"Of course they are real islands," said the man in evening dress.
"And those strange and troubling creatures?"
"They are all genuine and authentic princesses."
"Then God also must exist!" cried the prince.
"I am God," replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
"So you are back," said his father, the king.
"I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God," said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
"Neither real islands, nor real princesses, nor a real God, exist."
"I saw them!"
"Tell me how God was dressed."
"God was in full evening dress."
"Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?"
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled. "That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived."
At this, the prince returned to the next land, and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.
"My father the king has told me who you are," said the young prince indignantly. "You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician."
The man on the shore smiled. "It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them."
The prince returned pensively home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eyes.
"Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?"
The king smiled, and rolled back his sleeves.
"Yes, my son, I am only a magician."
"Then the man on the shore was God."
"The man on the shore was another magician."
"I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic."
"There is no truth beyond magic," said the king.
The prince was full of sadness.
He said, "I will kill myself."
The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
"Very well," he said. "I can bear it."
"You see, my son," said the king, "you too now begin to be a magician."
WESTERN SCIENCE, LIKE the young prince, arrived during the twentieth century at a land where things were not as expected from previous scientific knowledge about the world. For three centuries, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, scientists dedicated their lives to discovering the real truth about nature, interpreted as law-governed processes that can be understood in terms of mechanical causality. Then in the twentieth century came a series of wake-up calls indicating that some basic assumptions needed revision and change.
The first awakening of Western science to the unexpected subtlety of the world came in the early years of the twentieth century with Einstein's discovery of relativity as the way to describe the relationships between different observers in a world where communication is not instantaneous but is limited by the velocity of light. There is no absolute frame of reference, no preferred perspective that gives one observer authority over another in observing natural processes. Each observer is free to choose whatever frame of reference is most convenient and elegant for describing whatever is being observed, and consistency with other observers' chosen reference frames depends upon relations defined by a mathematical transformation.
The second wake-up call to occur in science was the development of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics reveals a physical reality that is holistic. The world does not consist of independent particles whose characteristics of position, momentum, electrical charge, spin, and so on, can be varied independently of each other. The quantum realm is governed by principles of intimate entanglement and co-ordination between its components, a non-local connectedness resulting in holistic, correlated order that extends over time and space, while what is observed depends also on what the observer chooses to look at. This was revealed in the work of physicists such as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and David Bohm. The units of matter and those exploring them are entangled in a unity, not separated in lonely isolation from one another.
The third transforming development in science came in the 1970s with the realisation that the laws governing the motion of the planets and the dynamics of the weather include the possibility of what is called deterministic chaos, which means that their behaviour cannot be predicted accurately beyond a limited period of time. Of course, we always knew that the weather is unpredictable, especially if you live in the uk, but this made it official, not because of limitations in our capacity to observe weather states accurately or to compute their unfolding patterns but because of a property known as sensitivity to initial conditions. The first person to understand this was the great French mathematician/physicist Henri Poincaré, but it was Edward Lorenz who made this property clear through his computer simulations at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit) in the sixties and seventies.
A final development within science that transformed our view of nature came with the emergence of complexity theory in the eighties and nineties. This started in physics but quickly spread to biology and economics and other areas, the Santa Fe Institute in the usa being a major centre for this work.
Complex systems are defined as those made up of many elements, often of diverse nature, that interact with one another according to well-defined rules. What became evident is that it is possible to understand the behaviour of these elements in isolation and have a perfectly clear understanding of their rules of interaction, but one is unable to predict the coherent behaviour of the whole system.
The patterns that emerged in computers simulating such systems, which include flocks of birds, social insects such as ants and termites, evolving ecosystems, and the dynamic patterns described in Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, reveal that the Earth is like a living organism; the patterns are often unexpected but can be understood after one sees their behaviour. However, the slightest change in the properties of the components or their rules of interaction can produce quite unpredicted behaviour. These unexpected phenomena are known as emergent properties of complex systems. They give us insights into the natural creativity of the world, and urge caution in how we interact with it.
THESE DEVELOPMENTS IN science mean that we now need to learn a more participatory way of relating to reality than the approach of prediction and control that has worked so well for selected aspects of nature. Like the prince in the fairy tale, we need to learn how to engage appropriately with the natural magic of the world. Most of the natural systems on which the quality of our lives depend are complex, uncontrollable and unpredictable, though their behaviour is self-consistent and therefore intelligible to scientific study.
While preserving what we have learned from reductionism and analysis, scientific method now needs to be extended to include ways of direct participation and knowing that give us insight into the properties of the coherent, emergent wholes that make up much of the natural world. Often called intuition or non-inferential knowing, this gives us insight into the qualities of organisms, landscapes, ecosystems, families, communities and organisations, allowing us to recognise whether they are healthy or stressed, integrated or fragmented, coherent or disturbed.
As we engage in this process of gaining knowledge, we ourselves are changed in ways that allow us to see how to behave responsibly in our engagement with the creativity of the world. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, in their remarkable book The Tree of Knowledge, put it this way: "We have only the world we can bring forth with others, and only love helps bring it forth … This is the biological foundation of social phenomena: without love, there is no social process and, therefore, no humanness." This is the way of 'science with love', which is the essence of the holistic approach to understanding and action. o
Brian Goodwin teaches Holistic Science at Schumacher College.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Limbo: In or Out?
Via Open Book:
Limbo: In or Out?
An exclusive interview with a member of the Pontifical Theological Commission on the controversial topic of original sin, baptism, salvation, and the doctrine of limbo
By Andrew Rabel
On Friday, April 20, 2007, the International Theological Commission (ITC), an advisory body comprised of 30 theologians from around the world chosen by the Pope, released its long-awaited document, The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized -- the issue of original sin, baptism, salvation, and limbo.
Following the release of the document, commissioned under Pope John Paul II (1978-2005), there was considerable confusion in the press, with typical comments being that the Church had finally buried its teaching on Limbo after some 800 years.
In hopes of shedding some light on this controversial theological matter, Inside the Vatican’s Andrew Rabel, an Australian Catholic writer, in late April conducted an exclusive interview with an International Theological Commission member, the American nun Sr. Sara Butler, a Missionary Servant of the Most Blessed Trinity (MSBT). She is one of two women appointed to the International Theological Commission by John Paul II in 2004, and presently teaches dogmatic theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York.
Sr. Butler has been a Missionary Servant of the Most Blessed Trinity since 1956. She has served as instructor and professor at a variety of institutions, including 14 years at Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago. She is a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission.
An early supporter of women's ordination, Sr. Butler says she came to the conclusion, after much theological research, that she could support the Church’s teaching. She recently published The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church, (Hillebrand Books, 2007), a strong defense of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, the document in which Pope John Paul II set forth the reasons for the Church’s teaching that only males may be priests. Here is the transcript of the interview.
Inside the Vatican: Sister Butler, your commission’s latest document about limbo has sparked a lot of controversy. In essence, what is the International Theological Commission trying to say in its document about the fate of unbaptized infants?
Sister Sara Butler: The commission is trying to say what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1260, 1261, 1283) has already said: that we have a right to hope that God will find a way to offer the grace of Christ to infants who have no opportunity for making a personal choice with regard to their salvation. It’s trying to provide a theological rationale for what has already been proposed in several magisterial documents since the Council.
ITV: The weekend after the document was issued, statements in the media indicated Pope Benedict had approved its publication, and agreed with its contents. Can you comment on this?
Sister Butler: The Pope was present for the initial discussion at the meeting of the International Theological Commission, as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). He said this was a topic that had been brought by bishops to the CDF and therefore was being recommended for our consideration.
At that time, Cardinal Ratzinger did not impose any conclusion on us, and as far as I know it would be unprecedented that a Pope would comment publicly on a document prepared by the ITC.
The current Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal William Levada, has approved the document. According to our statutes, the conclusions are submitted to the Pope and are published only with his consent. It seems that this document is being handled in a different way than previous documents. I don’t remember that any previous ones received special notice from the Pope.
ITV: If this is not a document of the Magisterium, does this mean we can expect subsequent action from the Holy See, affirming any authentic theological developments here?
Sister Butler: The document is a theological explanation of why the Church now feels it is possible to hope that a way of salvation is open for infants who die without Baptism; in the past, it seemed that there was no hope for them.
I would not be able to speculate on whether there will be any subsequent action. I think the document is for the use of other theologians. Generally, the ITC documents offer a point of reference for bishops and theology professors in seminaries, for example, to offer an explanation for the development of doctrine. But I doubt whether this would lead to a further statement from the Magisterium, because it says no more than what has already been said in the CCC, in the funeral rites for infants who have died without baptism in the 1970 Roman Missal and, in Pastoralis Actio (the document from 1980 from the CDF on the baptism of infants). It says nothing new; it is simply trying to make explicit the theological grounding for this hope. Gaudium et Spes 22 and Lumen Gentium 14 & 16 at Vatican II, opened the way for this development. Actually, some wanted the teaching on Limbo formally defined at the Council, but the topic was excluded from the agenda.
ITV: In paragraph 37 of your document, a line from the Council of Lyons II is cited: that "as for the souls of those who die in mortal sin or with original sin only, they go down immediately to hell to be punished with different punishments." It says that these magisterial statements do not oblige us to think that these infants necessarily die with the stain of original sin, so that there would be no way of salvation for them. How so?
Sister Butler: That quotation is taken from a section entitled "Issues of a Hermeneutical Nature." The effort there is to give a theological interpretation of a magisterial statement from the past. First of all, you have to consider what was at issue at the time. The question was whether the soul is judged immediately after death or whether the judgment was deferred till later on. The focus was not on the destiny of unbaptized infants who die but on when the soul was judged. This was a question between the East and the West, and the formulation you quote was proposed to the Eastern Church in the hopes of restoring full communion.
So the "hermeneutical question" requires understanding the document in its context. The controversy was whether judgment took place at the moment of death, or at the end of time. No one was contesting whether different kinds of sin warranted different kinds of punishment.
ITV: In n. 40 it says in summary: the affirmation that infants who die without Baptism suffer the privation of the beatific vision has long been the common doctrine of the Church, which must be distinguished from the faith of the Church. It then says that the privation of the beatific vision, which is the traditional understanding of this punishment, is a theological opinion.
How does that square with statements in Denzinger numbers 858 and 1306 (according to the new version) which after all is a compilation of magisterial teaching, in this case taken from the Councils of Lyon II and Florence?
Sister Butler: I don’t have my Denzinger near at hand. In number 40 of the document we are trying to distinguish what belongs to the faith of the Church from the "common teaching." The faith of the Church is that these infants inherit original sin and therefore baptism is necessary for them as the ordinary means of salvation. That infants who die without being cleansed of original sin by baptism are deprived of the beatific vision is the common teaching.
That common doctrine that such infants suffer the loss of the beatific vision is not the same thing as the faith of the Church; it’s a conclusion theologians drew. The theories that they suffer only this loss, and not the torments of hell, or that they enjoy a "natural happiness," are theological opinions.
So we are distinguishing three things, (i) the faith of the Church, (ii) the common doctrine about the privation of the beatific vision, and (iii) certain theological opinions. There are different levels of teaching here.
We did a thorough review of the history of the doctrine, and what is in Denzinger has been taken into consideration in the document.
ITV: Reading sections 68-69, the document seems to take a line similar to the late Swiss theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, who seemed to argue that we are allowed to hope that all men may be saved. Is the document trying to say all unbaptized infants are saved, on the basis of this theological concept?
Sister Butler: It doesn’t draw that conclusion; it just indicates that given our understanding of God’s mercy and the plan of salvation which includes Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Church, we dare to hope that these infants will be saved by some extra-sacramental gift of Christ. We do not know what the destiny of these children is, but we have grounds for hope. We are very clear that the ordinary means of salvation is baptism, and that infants should be baptized; Catholic parents have a serious obligation.
The document makes no blanket declaration. It only attempts to justify, in view of what was previously the common teaching, that it is reasonable to hope that these infants may be the object of God’s special providence. We hope that God will embrace them in His saving mercy, just as it says in the Catechism, the funeral rites, and Pastoralis Actio.
ITV: In section 86 the document says, "Some of the infants who suffer and die do so as victims of violence. In their case, we may readily refer to the example of the Holy Innocents and discern an analogy in the case of these infants to the baptism of blood which brings salvation." This seems to square with what certain groups in the Church are pushing for, namely, the declaration of aborted unborn infants as martyrs of the Church, thus baptized in their own blood. Does the document lend support to such individuals?
Sister Butler: I’m sure we never considered suggesting that these infants be declared martyrs. We were, of course, aware that in many places Catholics remember the unborn babies who have been aborted on the feast of the Holy Innocents. We didn’t propose a solution; we just offered some indicators as to why we think God offers them a way of salvation. In this particular instance, death is the way these children might be united with Christ: through the violent circumstances of their deaths, they may be united to His Paschal Mystery.
ITV: In Ludwig Ott’s masterful treatise Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, he says, "Other emergency means of baptism for children dying without sacramental baptism, such as prayer and the desire of the parents or the Church (vicarious baptism of desire - Cajetan), or the attainment of the use of reason in the moment of death, so that the dying child can decide for or against God (baptism of desire - H. Klee), or suffering and death of the child as quasi-Sacrament (baptism of suffering - H. Schell), are indeed possible, but their actuality cannot be proved from Revelation."
Does the ITC document say anything much different from this when it says in paragraph 79, "It must be clearly acknowledged that the Church does not have sure knowledge about the salvation of unbaptized infants who die. She knows and celebrates the glory of the Holy Innocents, but the destiny of the generality of infants who die without Baptism has not been revealed to us, and the Church teaches and judges only with regard to what has been revealed. What we do positively know of God, Christ and the Church gives us grounds to hope for their salvation, as must now be explained."
Sister Butler: The ITC document agrees that nothing has been directly revealed about the destiny of these infants. It does not directly endorse any of the theories he mentions. Ott’s manual was published just before the Council, and summarized what was taught at that time. At this time -- especially in the 1950s -- there was a very lively discussion of the topic, with theologians proposing different ways in which God might bring about the salvation of these infants. You might say this discussion was interrupted by the Council, and now it has been taken up again, with the advantage that it can incorporate the conciliar teachings.
The Council explicitly taught that God provides a way of salvation for those who are invincibly ignorant of the Gospel and therefore have no access to sacramental baptism. The Council is optimistic about the possibility of salvation for those persons when it teaches in Gaudium et Spes 22 (cited in CCC 1260) that "since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal Mystery."
The Catechism goes on to say, "Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved." The ITC report extends the logic of this teaching to infants. We suggest that the Holy Spirit offers to them, in a way known to God, the possibility of being made partakers in the Paschal Mystery. Pope Pius XII said in an Allocution to Italian midwives that since infants are incapable of making a personal act of love that would bring about their salvation, it is imperative to see that they are baptized. Given the teaching of the Council that I have just mentioned, we are more confident that God will offer them salvation in some way. We are not obliged to conclude that they are in Limbo, without any further hope.
However, the theory of Limbo is not ruled out. According to no. 41 of the document: "...besides the theory of Limbo (which remains a possible theological option), there can be other ways to integrate and safeguard the principles of faith outlined in Scripture." The ITC wants to give more weight to God’s universal salvific will and to solidarity in Christ than to the necessity of baptism, which is not absolute but is qualified in certain ways.
ITV: The document says that Catholic belief in Limbo actually did not start to be challenged until the middle of the 20th century (ie no. 26). Do you envisage this doctrine surviving? The document still says that Limbo is a legitimate option to uphold in balancing the tension between the necessity of sacramental baptism and the infinite mercy of God...
Sister Butler: The report concludes that Limbo remains a "possible theological opinion." Anyone who wants to defend it is free to do so. This document, however, tries to give a theological rationale for hoping that unbaptized infants may be saved.
If somebody like Fr. Richard McBrien supposes that the ITC document rejects the doctrine of original sin, this is of course a mistake. The fact that one might jump to this conclusion, however, is precisely why a careful theological study was needed. There are several doctrines involved. We have set out the theological principles in a new order. From our review we conclude that the common teaching which has been in our possession does not belong to the faith of the Church. We take the doctrine of God’s universal saving will of God as a starting point. By contrast, St. Augustine took the necessity of Baptism as a starting point, and incorporated the doctrine of God’s universal saving will in a very qualified way.
ITV: Following the attacks made by McBrien et alia, does the Church say now that baptism is not necessary for salvation?
Sister Butler: Those who suppose this document denies the doctrine of original sin are wrong, but so are those who presume it teaches that all unbaptized infants who die are saved, as if this were a truth of revelation. It says there are good grounds for the hope that God offers them a way of salvation. This is an important distinction: we don’t know, for there has been no revelation about this. We are only trying to assess what we don’t know from what we do know. From what has been revealed, we judge it reasonable to hope that God will bring unbaptized infants to heaven.
As to your question regarding baptism, "Does the Church now say that baptism is not necessary for children?" the answer is "no." In the Catechism, paragraph no. 1257 says: "We do not know of any means other than baptism into eternal beatitude." But God is not bound to the sacraments, and therefore, just as we understand there are other possible ways for adults who are in invincible ignorance of the Gospel to achieve salvation, so we presume there are other ways, known to God, open to infants who unfortunately die without baptism.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Murray Rothbard on Georgism
Text reveals more ancient secrets
Text reveals more ancient secrets
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News
Scientists used advanced imaging technology on the original parchment (left) to reveal the under-text (right), which was previously hidden
Experts are "lost for words" to have found that a medieval prayer book has yielded yet another key ancient text buried within its parchment.
Works by mathematician Archimedes and the politician Hyperides had already been found buried within the book, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest.
But now advanced imaging technology has revealed a third text - a commentary on the philosopher Aristotle.
Project director William Noel called it a "sensational find".
The prayer book was written in the 13th Century by a scribe called John Myronas.
But instead of using fresh parchment for his work, he employed pages from five existing books.
Dr Noel, curator of manuscripts at the US-based Walters Art Museum and a co-author of a forthcoming book on the Archimedes Palimpsest, said: "It's a rather brutal process, but it means you can reuse parchment if you are short of it.
"You take books off shelves, you scrub off the text, you cut them up and you make a new book."
In 1906 it came to light that one of the books recycled to form the medieval manuscript contained a unique work by Archimedes.
Archimedes was a mathematician from what is now Sicily
And in 2002, modern imaging technology not only provided a clearer view of this famous mathematician's words, but it also revealed another text - the only known manuscript of Hyperides, an Athenian politician from the 4th Century BC.
"At this point you start thinking striking one palimpsest is gold, and striking two is utterly astonishing. But then something even more extraordinary happened," Dr Noel told the BBC News website.
One of the recycled books was proving extremely difficult to read, explained Roger Easton, a professor of imaging science at Rochester Institute of Technology, US.
"We were using a technique called multispectral imaging," he said.
This digital imaging technique uses photographs taken at different wavelengths to enhance particular characteristics of the imaged area.
Subtle adjustments of this method, explained Professor Easton, suddenly enabled these hidden words to be revealed.
"Even though I couldn't read Ancient Greek, just the fact that I could see the words gave me shivers," he said.
Foundations of logic
An international team of experts began to scrutinize the ancient words, explained Reviel Netz, professor of ancient science at Stanford University, US, and another co-author of the palimpsest book.
The paintings and words in the prayer book cover the hidden works
A series of clues, such as spotting a key name in the margin, led the team to its conclusion.
"The philosophical passage in the Archimedes Palimpsest is now definitely identified as a relatively early commentary to Aristotle's Categories," said Professor Netz.
He said that Aristotle's Categories had served as the foundation for the study of logic throughout western history.
Further study has revealed the most likely author of this unique commentary is Alexander of Aphrodisias, Professor Robert Sharples from University College London, UK, told BBC News.
If this is the case, he said, "it gives us part of a commentary previously supposed lost by the most important of those ancient commentators on Aristotle".
A provisional translation of the commentary is currently being undertaken.
It reveals a debate on some aspects of Aristotle's theory of classification, such as: if the term "footed" is used for animals, can it be used to classify anything else, such as a bed?
The passage reads:
For as "foot" is ambiguous when applied to an animal and to a bed, so are "with feet" and "without feet". So by "in species" here [Aristotle] is saying "in formula".
For if it ever happens that the same name indicates the differentiae of genera that are different and not subordinate one to the other, they are at any rate not the same in formula.
Dr Noel said: "There is no more important philosopher in the world than Aristotle. To have early views in the 2nd and 3rd Century AD of Aristotle's Categories is just fantastic.
"We have one book that contains three texts from the ancient world that are absolutely central to our understanding of mathematics, politics and now philosophy," he said.
He added: "I am at a loss for words at what this book has turned out to be. To make these discoveries in the 21st Century is frankly nutty - it is just so exciting."
"Just the fact that I could see the words gave me shivers." Professor Roger Easton
"I am at a loss for words at what this book has turned out to be." Dr Will Noel
Thursday, April 26, 2007
E. Michael Jones on Sam Francis
His speech commemorating Samuel Francis.
Actually, this post isn't about Dr. Jones's remarks about Samuel Francis, but what he says about the "revolutionary Jew," this point in particular:
On the one hand, Dr. Jones asserts that there are Jews who sincerely pursue and follow the truth as they understand it. On the other hand, he wishes to distinguish between the Jews who accepted Christ and those who rejected him. But then he generalizes by saying all who reject Christ reject Logos, and reject any order that is "not of their own making." Who is culpable for rejecting Christ? Only God knows. Do all who reject Christ do so culpably? No, and Dr. Jones admits this if he thinks there are Jews who do follow at least the lower Logos. It is one thing to criticize the form of Judaism that develops after the destruction of the Temple, it's another to say that all Jews are opponents of Logos or Christ, simply because of their beliefs.
Actually, this post isn't about Dr. Jones's remarks about Samuel Francis, but what he says about the "revolutionary Jew," this point in particular:
He is not our enemy because of some occult racial inheritance. The revolutionary Jew is our enemy because he has rejected Logos. This means that Jews to the extent that they accept, honor and revere Logos, are not our enemies. There are Jews who accept Logos fully by sincerely accepting baptism, and there are Jews who accept it in some lesser capacity by their docility to the truth. We all know Jews like this, and they should not be excluded from our fellowship, especially since many of them have suffered at the hands of “the Jews” themselves.
As the Gospel of St. John makes clear, the Jews became “the Jews” the minute they rejected Christ. As such, their only identity is negative. The minute they rejected Logos, which means reason, order, speech, and word, they became revolutionaries, determined enemies not only of Christ and the Christian social order, but any order in any society not of their own revolutionary making.
On the one hand, Dr. Jones asserts that there are Jews who sincerely pursue and follow the truth as they understand it. On the other hand, he wishes to distinguish between the Jews who accepted Christ and those who rejected him. But then he generalizes by saying all who reject Christ reject Logos, and reject any order that is "not of their own making." Who is culpable for rejecting Christ? Only God knows. Do all who reject Christ do so culpably? No, and Dr. Jones admits this if he thinks there are Jews who do follow at least the lower Logos. It is one thing to criticize the form of Judaism that develops after the destruction of the Temple, it's another to say that all Jews are opponents of Logos or Christ, simply because of their beliefs.
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