A Feb. 10th AP article, Archaeologists search for unbaptized babies' grave, renews the heresy of Pelagius, this time aided and abetted by Pope Benedict XVI himself. The Irish are looking for a grave of unbaptized babies, buried separately from the faithful because they died outside the Church, with the goal of moving them to rest with their families. The operation seems geared more to shame the old tradition than to comfort families 100 years distant from the deaths.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
"We're coming out of what we can only regard as a mistaken theology of a hundred years ago," said the Rev. John McManus, a Belfast priest who has been working with local families demanding that their children's resting place be mapped, marked and preserved. "People have been carrying the grief and burden of losing a child for decades. It's important we get this right."
Although Catholics have long believed that children who die without being baptized are with original sin and thus excluded from heaven, the Church has no formal doctrine on the matter. [A total lie—more below] Theologians long taught that such children enjoy an eternal state of perfect natural happiness, a state commonly called limbo, but without being in communion with God.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI reversed centuries of that teaching by approving a report by the International Theological Commission, a Vatican advisory panel, that said there were "serious" grounds to hope that children who die without being baptized can go to heaven.
Well, Pope Benedict didn't exactly reverse the doctrine, but he did approve a report from a commission that seriously undermines it (see CNS from 2007):
After several years of study, the Vatican's International Theological Commission said there are good reasons to hope that babies who die without being baptized go to heaven.
"Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision," the document said.
The 41-page document, titled "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized," was published in Origins, the documentary service of Catholic News Service. Pope Benedict XVI authorized its publication earlier this year. (emphasis added)
It's an absolute horror that a pope could allow any latitude in the necessity of baptism for infants, a most firmly defined doctrine. Observe the confusion and scandal it begets. Pope Benedict hails from the the same theological circle as Henri de Lubac, a heretic who was silenced by Pope Pius XII for the very error of denying the gratuity of the supernatural. That is, de Lubac denied that supernatural grace is necessary for salvation, but rather, that the supernatural is inherent in the natural. This is Pelagianism, an error clearly condemned more than 1600 years ago. For example:
“If anyone says that, because the Lord said ‘In My Father’s house are many mansions,’ it might be understood that in the Kingdom of Heaven there will be some middle place, or some place anywhere, where the blessed infants live who departed from this life without Baptism, without which they cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven which is life eternal: Let him be anathema. For when the Lord says ‘Unless one be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the Kingdom of God,’ what Catholic will doubt that one who has not deserved to be a co-heir with Christ will be a partner of the Devil?” (Pope Saint Zosimus at the Council of Carthage XVI, Canon 3, Denzinger , 30th edition, p.45, note 2).
For more information on the doctrinal pronouncements of the Church, click here. For more information about Pelagius, click here.
Pray the Rosary every day, and pray for Pope Benedict.
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