ASJ Pleads with Pope: Retain ‘Limbo’ for Celibacy’s Sake!

ASJ explains that if Pope Benedict does away with the idea of limbo, he will greatly hurt celibacy and virginity.

This week in the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI is due to receive the recommendation of a panel of theologians who have been studying the question of limbo. The question facing them is whether this state between heaven and hell should be developed further or relegated to the theological junk heap as a notion inconsistent with the received faith.

For centuries, limbo has been proposed as a theological attempt to reconcile the ancient teaching in the necessity of baptism with the rational belief that unbaptized babies deserve no punishment as they have committed no actual sin.

But now, according to reports, the International Theological Commission is about to conclude that the Church should do away with the idea of limbo, and based on some of his past comments, Vatican observers believe Pope Benedict is eager to accept their recommendations.

This is more unwelcome news for ASJ, who pleads with the pope to reconsider what would be a grave mistake. To abolish the possibility of limbo would heap another error upon the pile already accumulated by Benedict in his very brief pontificate. For theological reasons of our own, ASJ is one of the biggest proponents of “limbo” in the Catholic Church.

We argue that many Catholic doctrines that would suffer irreparable harm should the pope accept the bogus recommendations of the theologians he convened. For if limbo is eliminated as an eternal possibility, this leaves only two destinies for conceived souls that, for whatever reason, never attain baptism. Since the Church has no basis to say that unbaptized babies go to hell (though some like Augustine held this harsh view), it will then have to claim that such infants go to heaven. But this is tantamount to saying that we humans are born into the state of grace! It doesn’t take a doctorate in theology to see how this would change everything.

First of all, infant baptism will totally go out the window, replaced with a practice similar to our withholding the Holy Spirit until confirmation in the early teen years. It is unlikely that children would get baptized until their first communion, or about age seven. For what will be the motivation to sit around after Sunday mass and deal with fussy babies while there are tee times to get to or football games kicking off?

This new doctrine essentially teaches that we become sons and daughters of God not by grace, but by nature! Limbo opponent Tony Kelly, a Redemptorist priest and Australian member of the commission, has said, “The fact that God loves his creatures so much that he sent his Son to die in order to save them means that there exists an ‘original grace’ just as there exists ‘original sin.’”

This, friends, is perhaps the most arrogant heresy that one can utter. It totally undercuts what Jesus accomplished for us with His death and resurrection and the establishment of the Sacraments. The whole Catholic religion goes up in a puff of Satanic smoke if it is held that we humans, by our nature alone, can produce offspring that merit eternal union with God. Rather, by nature we have only the right to be worm food, Adam and Eve having lost for us the privilege we once enjoyed.

But the most horrific corollary of teaching that the unbaptized go to heaven is that, terrible as this is to even verbalize, abortion clinics would become tremendous instruments of salvation. For what priest, however righteous, would save even a fraction of the souls every year as a regularly-attended abortion clinic? Can we truly say that the U.S. Catholic Church, lukewarm as it is, sent 1.4 million souls to heaven last year, the number of babies that were aborted in this country? Given that every year there are only about 2 million total deaths in the entire U.S., it’s no contest! And should we not then cease praying for an end to abortion when such facilities are filling the ranks of the angels? We see how the undoing of limbo makes nonsense of the deepest held Catholic convictions. After all, the main reason abortion is so horrible is that it deprives souls of the chance to receive baptism, thus guaranteeing them an eternity other than the one God desires.

Now plenty of other Catholics are also shocked about suggesting that unbaptized babies go to heaven. But—and it’s mere coincidence we’re sure—these defenders of Catholic truth never seem to get invites to participate in ITC panels. These are men like British priest and theologian Rev. Brian Harrison, who comments, “A papal decree reversing the firm Catholic belief of two millennia that infants dying unbaptised do not go to heaven would be like an earthquake in the structure of Catholic theology and belief.” As we have explained, “earthquake” is an understatement. Catholicism would become a totally new religion, and Benedict, ever-eager for attention, would be the chisel that shears this alien faith from the rock of Peter.

But there is a more strategic reason why ASJ regards the belief in limbo as so crucial to the true faith and to the mission of our apostolate. We’re talking about the connection between limbo and the widespread celibacy that ASJ promotes to return the Church to her former vibrancy.

While it may not appear at first glance that the doctrine of limbo is connected to celibacy and virginity, a closer look reveals a deep link. For the most effective way to avoid creating souls at risk of limbo is to avoid having sex. Abstinence prevents the death of an unbaptized infant every time it’s tried. So in trying to convince the vast majority of Christians to remain celibate like Jesus recommends, it is fair game to warn about the perils inherent to marrying and having kids. Here, one of our most compelling arguments is to point out that the process of beginning a family can easily result in souls that never reach eternal beatitude.

One way this can happen is when children that are given a Catholic upbringing later abandon the faith and end up in hell. For if the Apostle tells spouses, “How do you know, husband, if you will save your wife,” then how much less then do parents know if their children will be saved, since the kids will likely live long after any parental influence is possible.

But a second way this can happen, and perhaps more frequent than the first, is that miscarriage may result from licit use of the marital act. Also a fertilized egg for whatever reason may fail to implant in the uterus. These souls, begun at conception, were never believed to have gone to heaven. If anything, the Church has had to argue (rightly) to keep them out of theologians’ hell.

But the fearful prospect of starting a soul that never reaches the end for which it was created is a powerful agent in making people pause and question whether they should ever marry and have sex in the first place. The alarming frequency of miscarriage these days is justification enough for undertaking marriage only after exploring every possible avenue for avoiding it. Then Christians will be more open to the glorious path of celibacy and hopefully virginity that the Church’s greatest saints have always walked.

We see clearly that the notion of limbo fits nicely with the rest of ASJ’s theology that explains to this sinful age how widespread celibacy is most truly in accord with God’s will. But if Benedict, with one brash stroke of his pen closes the idea of limbo to theologians, then the work of ASJ becomes much more difficult. One of our strongest rational arguments for celibacy will be neutered of its convincing force. It would then become nearly impossible to read the warnings against marriage that God has written on our fallen nature, and which are made legible only in light of the true faith.

In fact, it is so unbelievable to ASJ that the Holy Spirit would allow a pope to make such a grave error, that we really are not worried about the abolition of limbo. But we are worried about the actions the Spirit might take to prevent the obstinate Benedict from tampering with Catholic truth. The judgment of God might befall the aging pope in the form of a debilitating sickness that incapacitates him before he can commit such an egregious mistake.

But we hope to spare the Holy Father this suffering. We pray that Pope Benedict right the ship. If he wants to make a name for himself, let him emulate Pope Paul VI who rejected the erroneous opinion of the panel of theologians he had appointed to study the permissibility of Catholics using birth control. Those theologians were wrong in their time and the ITC is wrong today. The pope must defend the necessity of baptism to attain heaven—if for no other reason than for celibacy’s sake.

 This article appeared in the October 4, 2006 issue of The Loyal Lion.