[indcons]

"A sophisticated debate about Darwinian evolution is going on at the topmost levels of the Catholic Church."

Got to be kidding me...is this the same CAtholic Church that ruled recently that they were wrong about limbo. Looks like all that "sophisticated debate" didn't provide many answers there!

[Cicero]

Well, no, unless I missed it the Catholic Church has not yet ruled on Limbo.

[Bogie]

Well, maybe sophisticated is the wrong word. But surely you would not deny the Jews their shot at understanding. After all, Jesus started his logic from the Jewish postulates.

[Bogie]

Well, maybe sophisticated is the wrong word. But surely you would not deny the Jews their shot at understanding. After all, Jesus started his logic from the Jewish postulates.

[hispanichoosier]

Got to be kidding me...is this the same CAtholic Church that ruled recently that they were wrong about limbo. Looks like all that "sophisticated debate" didn't provide many answers there!

Actually, the Church itself never formally accepted the theory of limbo. The theory was formulated by theologians--St. Thomas Aquinas being the most prominent of them--to explain the state of the mortal souls of unbaptized children who died. The theory gained great acceptance because of its excellent reasoning and the stature of the theologians who put it forth but was never held to be a doctrine. Indeed, other theologians opposed the theory of limbo and claimed that unbaptized children were damned.

Pope Benedict XVI has asked theologians today to discuss the theory of limbo in order to determine what its position should be in Catholic Tradition.

[Tokra]

Got to be kidding me...is this the same CAtholic Church that ruled recently that they were wrong about limbo. Looks like all that "sophisticated debate" didn't provide many answers there!

The Catholic Church wasn't "wrong" about Limbo. The Church never officially "believed" in Limbo.

Limbo was a term coined by St. Augustine to describe the place where people who died before Jesus went.

According to scripture - only those who are baptized and believe in Jesus can go to heaven. That begs the question, "Where did all the people in the Old Testament go when they died?"

That's a good question - just where did they go?
According to the Bible, they couldn't have gone to heaven because they didn't believe in Jesus. (and how could they? He hadn't been born yet!)The other question that arises is, what happens to babies that die before they are baptised? According to the Bible, they can't go to heaven. Should they go to Hell? Should all of the Old Teatament people have gone to Hell? If they couldn't go to heaven, and they didn't go to hell - just where DID they go? According to St. Augustine - they went to Limbo (a word meaning "fringe").

Got a better answer?

Limbo was never an "official" belief of the Church.