

Therefore, we all have the same destiny: heavenly joy. To put this passage in simpler language, Jesus died for everyone. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity (CCC 1260). 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.

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 of the Catholic Church expresses well the Catholic Church’s teaching on how we can reconcile the necessity of baptism with the belief that God wills the salvation of all people: We also know that God is merciful and that people can get to heaven who have not known Jesus through no fault of their own. God wills for all people to join him in heaven. The Catholic Church teaches that God wants all people to be saved. Limbo’s theological foundations are shaky at best. Some incorrectly identify this limbo with the hell of the Apostle’s Creed where, according to tradition, Christ spent the interval between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. These people experience every natural happiness, but they remain excluded from the Beatific Vision of God in heaven. Limbo was considered to be a place or state of where unbaptized persons enjoy a natural state of happiness. Augustine, these theologians defined limbo as a quasi-heaven. Unlike the state of quasi-hell posited by St. Later theologians, in the Middle Ages, posited the existence of limbo as a way to soften the harshness of St. They do not suffer all its pains because they are not guilty of personal sin, but because baptism is necessary for salvation, they will not enter heaven. 430) contended that unbaptized children who die are condemned to hell. 425), who taught that the heresy that baptism is not necessary for salvation (called Pelagianism), St. Is it possible that God would send these innocent children to hell? And if not, without the graces of baptism, can they go to heaven? History of the Theory of Limbo Infants do not have the capability to choose to sin. Original sin is inherited, it is not a choice made by the infant to turn away from God. After all, they have not committed personal sin. Yet, if an infant with original sin dies, does he or she go to hell? A person who dies in a state of sin and without the graces of baptism may not enter heaven. Through baptism the stain of original sin is removed and we are made children of God.

Peter says, “Baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21). We also know that baptism is necessary for salvation. We know that we are born with original sin. If we are born with original sin and an infant dies before infant baptism, will he or she go to hell? Limbo is not an official doctrine of the Catholic Church, but it has not been officially rejected by the Church. Limbo is a theory developed by Medieval theologians as the place where unbaptized persons go when they die.
