Topic: Unbaptized Babies
Question:
Since you did some research on Feeneyism, could you help me answer the following point? I had argued with a Feeneyite that God wouldn't send a newborn African child dying of hunger of malaria to be sent to hell only because he didn't have a chance to be baptized. This is her response:
"Your example of the African child, according to the Council of Florence, will "descend immediately into hell but to undergo punishments of different kinds". (Dz. 693) That isn't MY "notion" of God, it is what the Church teaches. Same applies to unbaptized babies. It may "seem" wrong to you, but it is the constant teaching of the Church up to Vatican II."
Now what?
Answer:
The key here is that only those dying in a state of original sin are cut off from God. The question is the role of water baptism. The rigorists maintain that it is only through the saving waters of baptism that someone can be saved. But notice the dogma does not say that "souls who depart this life WITHOUT WATER BAPTISM are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God." We simply do not know the fate of the unbaptized. That is why near the end of my paper, I agreed that a Catholic can still believe that those who are not water baptized go to limbo for eternity. I don't agree with it, but it's still permissible to believe that.
Here is what I understand:
1) The only way the Church knows of infusing sanctifying grace and removing the curse of original is through water baptism. Even the current Catechism says this.
2) Associated with this belief and taught by the Fathers and Trent is that the desire for baptism also produces the same result insofar as removing the taint of original sin - although the baptismal character is not transmitted.
Canon 4 of Trent says: "If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, and that without them or without the DESIRE OF THEM men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, though all are not necessary for each one let him be anathema."
3) It is one thing to say that those dying without water baptism MAY not see God. It is quite another to assert this proposition on a "De Fide" level - which is heresy. The bottom line, therefore, is that a Rigorist can say "those dying without water baptism MAY not be with God". However, he cannot say "those dying without water baptism ARE excluded from the beatific vision."
John Pacheco
The Catholic Legate
February 8, 2001