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Limbo is in limbo

John Hooper

Catholic Church moves to drop concept

Rome: It is an odd place. The inhabitants include Plato, Moses, Abraham and lots of babies. Now after more than 700 years of shadowy existence, limbo faces closure. The world's 30 leading Roman Catholic theologians were meeting in the Vatican on Monday to discuss a document that would sweep the concept out of the Church's teaching.

Limbo was concocted in the 13th century as a solution to the theological conundrum of what happened to babies who died before they were christened. According to doctrine, they could not go to heaven because their original sin had not been expunged by baptism. Yet they had done nothing to harm anyone so they scarcely deserved purgatory, let alone hell. Limbo also proved a useful solution to other problems such as where to put holy people who lived before Christ and who also had no chance of baptism. Dante added the classical sages to the list.

John Paul II was troubled by limbo and had it dropped from the Church's 1992 catechism. He asked the International Theological Commission, which advises the Vatican, to take up the issue. Pope Benedict has been in favour of dropping the concept so it is unlikely the theologians will decide otherwise.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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