You searched for limbo - To Give a Defense

No, the Council of Florence did not teach Limbo.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 3, 2019 • Apologetics; Church History

Ye olde debate over Limbo has been resurrected because Fr. Richard Heilman shared this article of mine from the National Catholic Register. “Four Reasons I Don’t Believe in the Limbo of Infants” — that was the title. I can’t remember whether the title was mine or the Register chose it; it doesn’t matter. Immediately the Limbo apologists crawled like spiders over Fr.‘s post, and one declaimed that it was a scandal indeed to share my article on this, since the INFALLIBLE Council of Florence had declared otherwise. Uh. No. It did not.

The definition of “common teaching” and what that tells us about Limbo.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 29, 2016 • Apologetics

The fact that Limbo is “accepted generally” does not, ipso facto, take it out of the category of free opinions and place it in the category of infallible and binding teaching. It would take an ex cathedra definition to do that; and as Mr. Kukla concedes, there is no such definition. Common teaching does not bind the conscience. That is why Benedict XVI, while he was Cardinal Ratzinger and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, rightly said that “Limbo was never a defined truth of the faith”; and added: “I would abandon it.”

Some further responses to Limbo apologists.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 21, 2016 • Apologetics

If Auctorem Fidei is a definitive, Magisterial teaching that the “limbo of the children” does exist, one naturally wonders how Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger missed it. The pope condemns the denial of Limbo as a doctrine. But I don’t pass off my denial of Limbo as a doctrine that must be held by all Catholics. If I did that, then I would be under the condemnation of Pius VI. But since I happily concede that I am writing nothing other than my own opinion, and Dr. Staudt is free to believe as he wishes, Auctorum Fidei has no application to me. (There’s an update on this in the post.)

Purgatory is not in the Bible! Answers to Common Objections VI, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • June 30, 2019 • Apologetics; Purgatory

Except that it is. Purgatory is in the Bible more times than the notion that something must be in the Bible; sola scriptura is in the Bible precisely zero times. But Purgatory is in the Bible, in 2 Maccabees 2:46: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.” Some teachings we derive from the Bible by inference. If a person is in heaven, he does not require our prayers. If a person is in hell, no prayers can help. There must therefore be a third place, or state. This, we call Purgatory.

Is premarital kissing a sin? and other quick takes: 7QT XXIII, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • June 17, 2016 • Seven Quick Takes

Apparently there’s a crisis of premarital kissing afoot, and Traddy bloggers must call it out, or legions will end up in the Second Circle. Or something. I actually guffawed, and loudly, when I saw this post over at ProLife365. “There Kukla goes again,” I said. “Stopping abortions by stopping kissing first.” Then, on the Facebook discussion, Micah Murphy (who admits to scrupulosity even about the potential sexual temptations of hand-holding, one of the most dangerous sins of this present age), directed me to the always-credible Dr. Taylor Marshall.

Did Pius V condemn Cajetan on the baptism of desire?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 27, 2016 • Apologetics; Church History; Sacraments

At stake in all this is that Limbo apologists like Kevin Kukla claim that baptism of desire is only for adults on their own behalf; and that parents cannot suppply it vicariously to their children. This is the trick by which they concede baptism of desire while retaining their belief in Limbo. So it would bolster their argument if they could find a pope who condemned a statement about vicarious desire. But what’s odd is that Mr. Kukla cites no source for his claim. He does not give the name of the document in which Pius V supposedly condemned this error.

Mr. X riddles us more on papal infallibility.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 21, 2013 • Apologetics; papacy; Papal Infallibility

I am worried about TurretinFan. Normally, he is one of the abler critics of the Catholic Church. His earlier critiques of two of my articles on sola scriptura, though wrongheaded, were at least cogent. They at least made arguments that were serious and scholarly and worth addressing. But I am afraid some inconsistency has crept in to the works, starting with this article of his on Pope John XX, and now just yesterday with this very strange addition to his latest examination of papal succession and infallibility. I frankly know not what to make of it. Is Mr. X merely tired?

A clarification on the salvation of infants who die without baptism.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 20, 2013 • Apologetics; Sacraments

God made the sacraments for man, not man for the sacraments. They are the ordinary means of salvation, and no one should believe that the sacrament of baptism can be put off because God is merciful. But some people — stillborn infants, or infants who die by abortion — simply have no opportunity, through no fault of their own, to receive them. God is not going to send infants to some hypothetical Limbo because of a technicality. God instituted the sacraments, but the sacraments do not bind his hands. And that is hardly “warped Catholicism.”