Teaching on Limbo Evolves

From a report on the document published last year by the Vatican's International Theologial Commission:

"The traditional concept of limbo -- as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God --...[reflects] an 'unduly restrictive view of salvation.'

"...God is merciful and 'wants all human beings to be saved,'...Grace has priority over sin...

"Limbo has never been defined as church dogma and is not mentioned in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church...But limbo has long been regarded as the common teaching of the church...

"Through the centuries, popes and church councils were careful not to define limbo as a doctrine of the faith and to leave the question open. That was important in allowing an evolution of the teaching, the theological commission said.

"A key question taken up by the document was the church's teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation. That teaching needs interpretation... The need for the sacrament of baptism is not absolute and is secondary to God's desire for the salvation of every person...

"God can therefore give the grace of baptism without the sacrament being conferred...This does not deny that all salvation comes through Christ and in some way through the church, it said, but it requires a more careful understanding of how this may work...

The document said the standard teaching that there is "no salvation outside the church" calls for similar interpretation.

The church's magisterium has moved toward a more 'nuanced understanding' of how a saving relationship with the church can be realized, it said. This does not mean that someone who has not received the sacrament of baptism cannot be saved, it said.

"Rather...the holiness of the church reaches people 'outside the visible bounds of the church through the bonds of human communion'...

"The church clearly teaches that people are born into a state of sinfulness -- original sin -- which requires an act of redemptive grace to be washed away. But Scripture also proclaims the "superabundance" of grace over sin...The idea of limbo... identifies more with Adam's sinfulness than with Christ's redemption...

'Christ's solidarity with all of humanity must have priority over the solidarity of human beings with Adam,'...

From this CNS STORY.