Medieval scholars came up with two new locations in Middle Earth. This was hardly reassuring to parents, especially considering the infant-mortality rates of the Middle Ages, so holy thinkers were quick to reach for the Apocrypha in an effort to prevent a crisis. Saint Augustine made it clear that unbaptized babies went straight to hell, though he did note that their suffering was somewhat mitigated. The Old and New Testaments are extremely vague on the precise functions and operations of heaven and hell.Īccording to the French historian Jacques Le Goff, limbo and the adjoining netherworld of purgatory both have their roots in the Gospel of Nicodemus, which is part of the Apocrypha (testaments that were never considered credible enough to include in the Bible).Īs early as the fourth century, scholars had addressed the fate of the unbaptized. The fate of unbaptized babies has been a subject of obsession among the faithful since the earliest centuries of Christianity. Within the church, though, limbo remains in a state of, well, uncertainty. One Australian cardinal, George Pell, once dismissed limbo as “not the best seats in the house.” The last four popes have tried to eradicate it from church teachings. If the commission, which has been meeting behind closed doors, recommends banishing limbo, it will put an end to more than 700 years of fear, unease and ambiguity in one of the church’s most awkward and embarrassing areas of faith. It is now headed by his successor at the Vatican’s doctrinal department, Archbishop William Levada, an American from San Francisco. It was then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected pope in April. Last October, seven months before he died, Pope John Paul II asked the commission to come up with “a more coherent and enlightened way” of describing the fate of such innocent babes. This week, the Italian media reported that an international commission of high-ranking theologians intends to advise Pope Benedict XVI to banish the notion of limbo from all teachings of the Catholic catechism. Its place, alongside such well-known medieval additions as the gates of heaven, the nine circles of hell, purgatory and the heavenly vestibule, has become increasingly shaky. Now, it seems that limbo, a place invented in the Middle Ages that soon became a well-known part of the architecture of the cosmos, is about to be struck from the theological blueprints as part of the Vatican’s lengthy renovation of its heavenly layout.
Drags limbo in europe fate daylight full#
LONDON – In Latin, it means “the lip,” and for centuries devout Roman Catholics have tried to avoid thinking about its full meaning: the edge of hell, where those who have died without baptism – notably babies – are sent for eternity.