Catholic tradition of Limbo

I now have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[or how to spell ]

 

I understand that you don't understand what I am saying, which is quite usual when we discuss about Catholic Theories.

Here are some tips from Catholic Encyclopedia about Limbo:

that their condition is one of happiness,
that it is temporary, and
that it is to be replaced by a condition of final and permanent bliss when the Messianic Kingdom is established.
In the New Testament, Christ refers by various names and figures to the place or state which Catholic tradition has agreed to call the limbus patrum.


This is quite similar to Purgatory when they explain about it.
Even when RC claim about Purgatory, they mention "Holy Tradition", then they strongly pushed Limbo by mentioning "Holy Tradition" and referred to several verses of Bible in its own way, which is typical way of RC.

If Limbo was not sustained officially by RC, why should RC Priests have to appeal to Pope to jettison it?

 

I think Limbo was discussed together with Purgatory at the Council of Florence.

Here is the article:

http://www.oxfordpress.com/business/content/shared/news/stories/LIMBO_1202_COX.html

which says:

It will cease to exist altogether. Billions of babies, along with the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel and the other great Jewish seers, will finally get into Catholic Heaven.

 

Indeed since nobody but Catholics believe in it - and since now the Catholics want to say they don't believe in it - why is the Pope trying to stop/end belief in something that you claim Catholics don't believe in??

It would be like the Pope issuing statement that said "we need to consider the Easter Bunny to no longer be real - Easter eggs should no longer be thought of as coming from the Easter Bunny".

And then of course - all RC posters saying "and of course we never did think the Easter Bunny was real". The fact that he has to make that point "clear" or to "encourage Bishops to start teaching/agreeing that the Easter Bunny is not real" betrays the serious nature of the myth and its teaching/endorsement in Catholicism.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Kind of interesting "verbage" for a doctrine the RCC never taught.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Limbo was never declared and I'm not aware of any direct scriptural background.
It is not a doctrine of the Catholic Church and never was. It was an idea floating around that some theologians thought up during the Medieval period.

[quoteThis may tell us how Roman Catholic establish their own theories and sometimes force the people believe and sometimes jettison them quietly or sometimes excuse about them in a sophisticated way.[/quote]

Limbo was an idea, it was not forced upon anyone. It was never really part of our beliefs, so it can't be jettisoned. It is not excused in a sophisticated way because it doesn't need to be excused.

Limbo was a theory developed late in Church, it has no basis (that I'm aware of) in Scripture or Holy Tradition. It was just in idea floating around that caught on in some of the clergy.

Purgatory is the name of a concept that was part of Holy Tradition with some Scriptural suggestion of its existence. It is a doctrine of the Church.

Catholics agree with that.

It has nothing to do with no faith about the power of Christ's blood. Purgatory is not about earning salvation, nor paying for your own sins. If you could pay for your sins, then you could work your way out of hell, but you can't. In order to be saved, you must receive forgiveness from God, which is forgiven by the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

To use a metaphor, if we are like planks of wood, then sins are like nails being driven into the wood. There is no way you can pull those nails out on your own- only God does that, by Christ's death and resurrection. Even though the nails have been removed, there is still damage to the wood. Purgatory helps soul undo the damage of their sins.

 

Purgatory is not on the edge of Catholic doctrine, it is Catholic doctrine.

Limbo is not, it's an idea. Doctrine is not another name of 'ideas', 'theories' or 'beliefs'. Doctrine is a belief stated by the Catholic Church and is infallible and static.

 

They are asking the Pope to comment on it and discourage clergy from subscribing to the theory.

 

Catholics subscribed to the idea, but it was not part of our official beliefs and was most definately not a doctrine. Catholics were free to believe limbo existed or didn't.

The thing about limbo is that there was nothing in the doctrine actually against it, so Catholics were free to believe in it or not.

Let's think of a contemporary issue like homosexuality. There are some Catholics who will believe that it is a choice and that people can overcome it and have heterosexual attractions. There are other Catholics who will believe it is not a choice and is permanent. While the Church teaches that homosexual activity is immoral, Catholics are free to subscribe to either notion about whether or not it is a choice.

What is going on with limbo would be like asking the Pope to discourage believing homosexuality is not a choice. Yes, there were some Catholics that believed it wasn't a choice.. but it wasn't a doctrine and wasn't a belief of the Church officially.

 

Of course, purgatory is a name for a concept. Is the word Trinity in the bible? No.

Please read my post about the wooden plank, should explain it.

Holy Tradition is not a 'tradition', it is what we call apostolic teaching. Paul taught Holy Tradition because the NT wasn't written yet. The apostles spread the Gospel through Holy Tradition- because Matthew, Mark, Luke and John weren't written yet. Like our bibles come from old Greek manuscripts, the manuscripts come from Holy Tradition.

Non-Catholics commonly confuse when something was declared a doctrine with when it was introduced. They think the Gospels were written down around the second century or so. The NT wasn't even canonized until the 5th Cnetury. Does that mean we didn't believe in the bible until the 5th Century? No, that means in the 5th Century the Church declared what texts were inspired and authoritative. The Holy Spirit inspires the men, who are the successors of the apostles, to speak on matters of faith without error, like Paul did in his epistles.

You are taking a statement out of context and make it look harsher than it does.
1) "NO SALVATION OUTSIDE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC." - the term is "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus" which translated strictly means "Outside of the Church, No salvation". It doesn't mean "Only Catholics are saved". It means outside of the Church, there is nothing that can save you.

What this means is that the teachings of Buddha can't save you. The Qur'an won't save you. Paganism, wicca, Shintoism- none of that stuff will save you. You are saved by what is in the Church- the Gospel, the Scripture, Holy Tradition, Jesus. The Church preserved and taught these things. Protestants hold on to them as well. If it wasn't for the Church, there would be no Gospel to hear about, etc. It is by Jesus pouring His grace through the Church, onto men, clergy and layman alike, that we are saved.

2) No, the Pope is not infallible. The Pope is a sinful, mortal man who can make mistakes. However, like an apostle (being a successor of Peter), the Pope can speak infallibly on matters of faith.. just like Paul, Peter, Matthew, Mark, John, et cetera all did.


I'll respond to the rest of the post later, which consists of a 'history' you'll find on geocities and hate websites, not in the books of any reputable source, nor taught in the history department of any public American Univerisity.

 

stray bullet said:
Even though the nails have been removed, there is still damage to the wood. Purgatory helps soul undo the damage of their sins.

It seems that you don't believe :

Even Undoing the damage of their sins was done already at the Cross!

Was anything left undone at the Cross?

Do you believe that Jesus cried :
IT IS FINISHED !

Can Purgatory to anything that was not done by Jesus Christ?

There are many powerful verses supporting Trinity like 1 John 5:7.

What are the powerful verses supporting Purgatory, in the Bible?

 

If Limbo is not the doctrine or belief that Catholic is holding, it would not be stated like this in the Catholic Encyclopedia:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm


When Catholic explains about Purgatory it often touches Limbo as well because Catholic invented
Third Zone in addition to Heaven and Hell.

This is from a Catholic Site : http://www.catholic.com/library/purgatory.asp

It is no wonder, then, that those who deny the existence of purgatory tend to touch upon only briefly the history of the belief. They prefer to claim that the Bible speaks only of heaven and hell. Wrong. It speaks plainly of a third condition, commonly called the limbo of the Fathers, where the just who had died before the redemption were waiting for heaven to be opened to them. After his death and before his resurrection, Christ visited those experiencing the limbo of the Fathers and preached to them the good news that heaven would now be opened to them (1 Pet. 3:19). These people thus were not in heaven, but neither were they experiencing the torments of hell.


All of this human theory is based either on the belief that The Atonement by Jesus Christ was not sufficient, and/or
that the goodness of human works can save the people, or that some unknown truth can be established as doctrine by human theory.

 

Stary Bullet said:

You are taking a statement out of context and make it look harsher than it does .
1 ) "NO SALVATION OUTSIDE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC." - the term is "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus" which translated strictly means "Outside of the Church, No salvation". It doesn't mean "Only Catholics are saved". It means outside of the Church, there is nothing that can save you

This is a tricky way how Roman Catholic escapes from the wrong statements.

check this out!
http://www.christiantruth.com/rcchurchandrcfaith.html


Pope Innocent III (1198-1216 A.D.)
By the heart we believe and by the mouth we confess the one Church, not of heretics but the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic (Church) outside which we believe that no one is saved (From the letter Eius exemplo. Found in Denzinger, p. 166, #423).

Are the Baptists within the Holy Roman Church?


Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadem, 1854
it must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation ;

If you deny these, you are not the faithful Roman Catholic!

Or

You are denying Pope is infallible.

Did they say those words in the dream? or in the toilets? (not ex-cathedra)

 

Please take some time to read Lumen Gentium; it should answer this question for you.

 

Please take some time to read Lumen Gentium; it should answer this question for you. [/QB][/QUOTE]

It is not so difficult that we find what was meant by the statements of Pope Pius 9 in 1854.

At that time no one would have thought that Pope was telling there are exceptions to the Baptists.
Throughout the history, RC maintained that position and Pius 9 just confirmed it.

In the medieval era, do you think that RC people thought there is salavation outside Roman Catholic? Do you think that RC thought there is Salavation in Anabaptists?

 

Salavation? Is that some kind of weird drooling?

I don't propose to repeat what I posted in the earlier thread about purgatory; it speaks for itself.

 

The Golden Age for the RCC was the "dark ages" for mankind.

As for the "view" of non-Catholics during those dark ages --

That is a matter of fact - history that is available to all who are willing to open their eyes.

Catholic Digest 11/1997 pg 100
The question:
A Baptist family who lives across the street gave me a book called the “Trail of Blood”, by J.M. Carroll. It attacks Catholic doctrine on infant Baptism, indulgences, purgatory, and so on. But I am writing to learn if there is anything in history that would justify the following quotation:

The answer from Fr. Ken Ryan:

In the article above – Fr. Ken Ryan makes the meaning of “extermination” of that group and “many other groups” clear for modern readers.
Catholic apologists like Catholic Digest’s Fr. Ken Ryan quoted above often argue that the RCC isn't accountable for the Inquisition, since the state carried out the torturing and the executions. It was the RCC who defined these people as "heretics", however, and the RCC handed them over to the state (John 19:11).

 

When the RCC insisted on lovingly exterminating non-Catholics - did they do that because "there IS salvation outside the church"???

We know from the decrees of Popes and councils that the RCC viewed itself as having authority over the state.

The Fourth Lateran Council, for example, the ecumenical council that dogmatized transubstantiation, declared (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html):

Other councils, such as Vienna, issued anti-Semitic decrees that ordered the persecution of Jews. The persecution of other groups, such as the Waldensians, was also ordered by the RCC.
For example, Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull in 1487 ordering that people "rise up in arms against" and "tread under foot" the Waldensians.
Roman Catholic and former Jesuit Peter de Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ (Crown Publishers, 1988),

 

The Catholic historian von Dollinger writes in The Pope and the Council,

Consider the following news stories from the Vatican City.