The Church never retracts any teaching that objectively meets the conditions on infallibility. But that doesn’t mean she never retracts “common doctrine.”

For instance, St. Augustine believed that original sin is personal culpa on the part of each person who inherits it. He even had the local Council of Carthage define as much in 419. And that was the common doctrine of Western theologians for at least a millennium thereafter. But CCC §405 repudiates it. That move became inevitable once the Church rejected Jansenism in the 18th century. And it’s perfectly compatible with Trent’s dogma on original sin, which speaks of the “guilt” of original sin as reatus rather than as culpa. For my explanation of that distinction, and the significance of it, go here and scroll down to “Original Sin as Inherited Guilt.”

The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for Florence’s dogma that those who die in original sin alone go ad infernum. As a Catholic, I accept that dogma. But simply as a matter of logic, it leaves open the question whether all infants who dies before receiving ordinary water baptism die in original sin alone; and it also leaves open the question whether, if some or all die in original sin alone and therefore go ad infernum, they are bound to stay there, unlike the OT “just” whom Christ liberated from it. The Church never bound Catholics to Augustine’s view that they are so bound; the Church never bound Catholics to Aquinas’ more optimistic view that they enjoy permanent natural happiness. Such answers never met the conditions on infallible and thus irreformable teaching. Hence they do not bind Catholics in conscience. That is why the Pope speaks as though they do not.

I suggest you delve more deeply into Ratzinger’s thought instead of suspecting him of heresy. Start with this book.

Best,
Mike

It was to counter such incoherence that Pope St. Pius X had the following statements inserted into the *Oath Against Modernism*:

“Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given to the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely.”

One cannot simply assert an undefined presupposition as possessing irreformable authority…

Yes, this is frequently the problem when people reject a doctrinal development. They assign dogmatic authority to assumptions that council fathers may in fact have held, but never stated as having dogmatic authority; hence, they reject any development contrary to that assumption. Regarding Florence in particular, many people have thought that its decree for the Jacobites, Cantate Domino, entails that the attainment of explicit membership in the Catholic Church before death is necessary for salvation. Hence the Feeneyite and SSPX rejection of Vatican II’s idea of “imperfect” or even unwitting “communion” with the Church. That may have been what the Fathers of Florence thought; but it’s not what they defined, which is why Vatican II was free to develop the doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus as it did.

Best,
Mike

The Latin Fathers of these two councils may in fact have believed that all infants who die without baptism die in original sin and therefore are excluded from the beatific vision; but that question was not what was discussed and defined by the councils, which is precisely the dogmatic point. One cannot simply assert an undefined presupposition as possessing irreformable authority, which is precisely why Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI are willing to seriously entertain the eternal salvation of unbaptized infants.

Moreover, I would suggest that you are imposing a Latin interpretation upon the conciliar definitions. It is by no means clear that the Eastern participants would have interpreted the definitions along the lines being discussed here, especially since “limbo” and “natural beatitude” are alien to Eastern theology. Certainly Byzantine Catholics do not interpret these councils as infallibly teaching the exclusion of unbaptized infants from the Kingdom of God.

The Catholic Church has achieved a clarity about the universal salvific will of God, a clarity that was not possible in earlier ages, thanks to the predestinarianism of St Augustine, which has so badly deformed Western theological reflection. As Henri Rondet notes in his book *Original Sin*, the history of the Catholic Church’s “theology of grace has been a gradual purification of the Augustinian theology of limited predestination.” Once the Church decisively rejected Jansenism, it was inevitable that she would eventually question the logic and rationale of the Limbus Infantium. The Catholic Church cannot now turn back on her apprehension of the gospel of God’s infinite love. She cannot deny the clarity she has achieved.

You will be relieved to note that in his last response to you, Dr. Liccione stated, “The claim that all such infants see God assumes that we already know that all of them receive some extraordinary form of baptism, which is also an unwarranted assumption.” Perhaps Dr. Liccione isn’t misleading people as badly as you think?

As one lover to St. Thomas to another, may I remind you how St. Thomas always gave his opponents a careful, charitable reading because he thought refuting the best objections was a great aid in coming to the truth?

The basic fallacy in your position appears in the very first paragraph of your most recent comment. From the fact–assuming it’s a fact–the Church irreformably teaches that those who die “in original sin alone go ad infernum,” it does not follow that the extraordinary forms of baptism hitherto formally recognized by the Church are the only ones possible. So the Church has in no way “egregiously misinformed and misled us.” She has simply not settled the question.

I have theologically quite general objections to the hypothesis of a permanent state of purely natural happiness, quite apart from how beliefs about the fate of infants who have died unbaptized might affect peoples’ attitude toward abortion. But this thread is already too long, so I won’t produce my entire argument for that here. Let’s just say that, in the actual world, there is no such thing as a state of pure nature. All has been graced from the beginning, and I believe that all rational creatures will, in the end, be either permanently united with God in grace or permanently alienated from him in disgrace.

The safest position, I respectfully suggest to Michael Liccione and other Catholics who are needlessly alienated from Catholic theology’s loving, compassionate hypothesis of limbo, is to honor the long tradition that has given us this reasonable deduction that is fully compatible with the dogma of original sin.

The conjecture that unbaptized infants will be gifted with unending natural happiness in limbo (St. Thomas’s solution to this troubling issue) entails much less danger for the lives of unborn children. Again, those who, unlike Mr. Liccione, believe that *all* unbaptized infants are guaranteed the supernatural happiness of heaven may, regardless of their intentions, be indirectly augmenting the threat that abortion poses to the unborn.

Please consider the words of Jacques Maritain: “This doctrine of limbo, disdained today by so many theologians who do not know what they are doing, ought to be regarded as a precious treasure by every intelligent Christian” (*Le Paysan de la Garonne: Un Vieux Laïc s’interroge à propos du temps présent*, 227-28 [footnote 4]; my translation).

I think that Paul Hamilton, Fr. Kimel, and I have already fielded the objections from dogma in our replies to Aegis and Nick Paul. But I also think your particular approach warrants separate comment.

You seem to be conceiving the issue as a choice between saying that no infants who die without baptism see God and saying that all such infants see God. But I don’t think either position can be deduced from what has been irreformably taught by the Church. The claim that no such infants see God assumes that we already know the full range of “extraordinary” forms baptism can take; but that assumption is unwarranted. The claim that all such infants see God assumes that we already know that all of them receive some extraordinary form of baptism, which is also an unwarranted assumption.

The safest position, it seems to me, is to hold that it’s possible that such infants see God. If certain dead infants go ad infernum, by virtue of having died in original sin alone, there is no a priori why their alienation from God must be permanent, any more than the limbus patrum was permanent. They could be saved retroactively by the desire and prayers of those baptized persons who love them. We don’t know that they are, of course; but neither do we know they aren’t. Hence the Pope’s position is correct. He is not a heretic.

Best,
Mike