By Bro. Peter Dimond, O.S.B. -4/23/07-

"We can say we have many reasons to hope that there is salvation for these babies," the Rev. Luis Ladaria, a Jesuit who is the commission's secretary-general, told The Associated Press. (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0702216.htm) "Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision," the document said. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267420,00.html)

By now many of you have heard that, on Friday April 20, Benedict XVI approved the release of a new document on limbo. According to news reports, this document teaches that limbo (the highest part of Hell where those who die in original sin only go) doesn't exist. It concludes, therefore, that unbaptized infants go to Heaven. This document had been in the works for a long time; Benedict XVI officially approved its release on Friday. The implications of this blatantly heretical document are very significant, as I will discuss.

Before I get into a brief doctrinal discussion of this issue, I want to make something clear. It's time, once again, to call out those who are enemies of the Catholic Faith in this regard. I am thinking not just of those who obstinately and enthusiastically defend Vatican II and the New Mass, but also false traditionalists who, being fully aware of the arguments proving the sedevacantist position and the facts surrounding Benedict XVI’s many heresies, criticize his actions – such as the latest outrage denying original sin – but obstinately maintain that he is not a heretic who has placed himself outside the Church.

Now that Benedict XVI has publicly denied original sin and the necessity of Baptism, for them to maintain that this man is a Catholic, and not a public heretic, shows that they are public heretics who have completely severed themselves from the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. There is absolutely no excuse for them anymore when they assert that this man, who has just denied original sin, is not a public heretic. They have chosen to serve Satan, and please their fellow men, rather than serve God and stand for the truth. They are wicked enemies of God, faithless destroyers of Catholic teaching, servants of the Devil, friends of Beelzebub, no matter what they might say to the contrary. Why do they continue to lie, and say that this manifest heretic is a Catholic, if they are not servants of the Devil? Why are they afraid to tell the truth, and proclaim it publicly, that he is outside the Church, if they are not bound down by Lucifer?

They are utter liars; and when they lie down at night they should know that they lie to God and to man and that – if they continue on their compromising path and fail to publicly denounce Benedict XVI as a non-Catholic antipope – nothing but Hell awaits them, where all liars go (Apoc. 22:15). True Catholics should look upon them with the horror and the severe disapproval that a Catholic should hold for those who obstinately mock Jesus Christ and His truth, and do so by deceptively posing as defenders of it.

The defenders of Benedict XVI's claim to be pope will be quick to emphasize that this document was not promulgated in any form that meets the requirements for an ex cathedra teaching. That is certainly true, but it makes no difference. Benedict XVI approved it; he agrees with it. To use an analogy I've used many times: James Smith could draw up a document which denies the Immaculate Conception, and even if Benedict XVI didn't sign Smith's document or promulgate it with solemn language, if he publicly manifested agreement with it he would be a formal heretic.

Well, the truth that unbaptized infants are conceived in a state of original sin and that they cannot be freed from original sin without the saving waters of baptism, and consequently that infants are excluded from Heaven if they die unbaptized, is a dogma just as solemn and just as defined as Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception. In fact, the truth that infants cannot be saved without the Sacrament of Baptism, due to the original sin they inherit from Adam – and the related truth that those who die in original sin only descend into Hell – has been dealt with in many more dogmatic texts than Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, as we will see below.

Here is a portion from my book, Outside the Catholic Church There is Absolutely No Salvation, which quickly covers some of the key dogmatic texts on this matter.

The Catholic Church teaches that aborted children and infants who die without baptism descend immediately into Hell, but that they do not suffer the fires of Hell. They go to a place in Hell called the limbo of the children. The most specific definition of the Church proving that there is no possible way for an infant to be saved without the Sacrament of Baptism is the following one from Pope Eugene IV.

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Session 11, Feb. 4, 1442, ex cathedra: “Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the Devil [original sin] and adopted among the sons of God, it advises that holy baptism ought not be deferred for forty or eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people...” (Denz. 712)

Pope Eugene IV here defined from the Chair of Peter that there is no other remedy for infants to be snatched away from the dominion of the devil (i.e., original sin) other than the Sacrament of Baptism. This means that anyone who obstinately teaches that infants can be saved without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism is a heretic, for he is teaching that there is another remedy for original sin in children other than the Sacrament of Baptism.

Pope Martin V, Council of Constance, Session 15, July 6, 1415 - Condemning the articles of John Wyclif - Proposition 6: “Those who claim that the children of the faithful dying without sacramental baptism will not be saved, are stupid and presumptuous in saying this.” - Condemned

This is a fascinating proposition from The Council of Constance. Unfortunately, this proposition is not found in Denzinger, which only contains some of the Council’s decrees, but it is found in a full collection of the Council of Constance. The arch-heretic John Wyclif was proposing that those (such as ourselves) are stupid for teaching that infants who die without water (i.e., sacramental) baptism cannot possibly be saved. He was anathematized for this assertion, among many others. And here is what the Council of Constance had to say about John Wyclif's anathematized propositions, such as #6 above.

Pope Martin V, Council of Constance, Session 15, July 6, 1415: “The books and pamphlets of John Wyclif, of cursed memory, were carefully examined by the doctors and masters of Oxford University... This holy synod, therefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, repudiates and condemns, by this perpetual decree, the aforesaid articles and each of them in particular; and it forbids each and every Catholic henceforth, under pain of anathema, to preach, teach, or hold the said articles or any one of them.”

So those who criticize Catholics for affirming the dogma that no infant can be saved without the Sacrament of Baptism are actually proposing the anathematized heresy of John Wyclif. Here are some other dogmatic definitions on the topic.

Pope St. Zosimus, The Council of Carthage, Canon on Sin and Grace, 417 A.D.- “It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions’ [John 14:2]: that it might be understood that in the kingdom of heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere where the blessed infants live who departed from this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is life eternal, let him be anathema.” (Denz. 102, authentic addition to canon 2.)

Pope Paul III, The Council of Trent, On Original Sin, Session V, ex cathedra: “If anyone says that recently born babies should not be baptized even if they have been born to baptized parents; or says that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins, but incur no trace of the original sin of Adam needing to be cleansed by the laver of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life, with the necessary consequence that in their case there is being understood a form of baptism for the remission of sins which is not true, but false: let him be anathema.” (Denz. 791)

This means that anyone who asserts that infants don't need the “laver of rebirth” (water baptism) to attain eternal life is teaching heresy.

Pope Gregory X, Council of Lyons II, 1274: “We define also that... the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go straightaway to hell, but to undergo punishments of different kinds.” (Denz. 464)

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Letentur coeli,” Sess. 6, July 6, 1439, ex cathedra: “We define also that... the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go straightaway to hell, but to undergo punishments of different kinds.” (Denz. 693)

Pope Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, Aug. 28, 1794:

“26. The doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable, that place of the lower regions (which the faithful generally designate by the name of the limbo of the children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the condemned, exclusive of the punishment of fire, just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk” – Condemned as false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools. (Denz. 1526)

Here Pope Pius VI condemns the idea of some theologians that infants who die in original sin suffer the fires of Hell. At the same time, he confirms that these infants do go to a part of the lower regions (i.e., Hell) called the limbo of the children. They do not go to Heaven, but to a place in Hell where there is no fire. This is perfectly in accord with all of the other solemn definitions of the Church, which teach that infants who die without water baptism descend into Hell, but suffer a punishment different from those who die in mortal sin. Their punishment is eternal separation from God.

Pope Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge (# 25), March 14, 1937: “‘Original sin’ is the hereditary but impersonal fault of Adam’s descendants, who have sinned in him (Rom. v. 12). It is the loss of grace, and therefore eternal life, together with a propensity to evil, which everybody must, with the assistance of grace, penance, resistance and moral effort, repress and conquer.”

In considering these texts, one should zoom in on a few things. First, please consider carefully the texts from the Councils of Florence and Trent. These constitute dogmatic definitions of the highest teaching authority that unbaptized children in original sin are under the domination of the Devil, and that they cannot be saved without the waters of baptism. In the passage quoted above from the Council of Trent, we can see that Trent specifically anathematizes anyone who would assert exactly what Benedict XVI and the new document which he approved assert. Allow me to quote this particular one again:

Pope Paul III, The Council of Trent, On Original Sin, Session V, ex cathedra: “If anyone says that recently born babies should not be baptized even if they have been born to baptized parents; or says that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins, but incur no trace of the original sin of Adam needing to be cleansed by the laver of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life, with the necessary consequence that in their case there is being understood a form of baptism for the remission of sins which is not true, but false: let him be anathema.” (Denz. 791)

In light of these facts, could anyone say that Benedict XVI is not a formal heretic on this point? Of course not; he is absolutely a formal heretic, and anyone who would deny this (in light of these facts) is an enemy of Christ and of the Catholic Church. Second, one should note that two more dogmatic councils, the Councils of Florence and Lyons II, explicitly defined that all who die in original sin only go to Hell, but suffer a punishment different from those who die in mortal sin. Finally, as cited already, Pope Pius VI, in Auctorem Fidei, condemned those who would deny that there is a place in Hell where unbaptized children go which doesn’t have the punishment of fire.

In addition to all of these formidable dogmatic definitions, anyone who has spent some significant time reading the fathers of the Church knows that the truth that infants cannot be saved without the Sacrament of Baptism – since they are in a state of original sin – was one of the most emphasized truths in the early Church. Here’s how the early Church father Pope St. Innocent emphatically expressed the mind of tradition on this point, against heretics such as the Pelagians:
Pope St. Innocent, 414 A.D.: “But that which Your Fraternity asserts the Pelagians preach, that even without the grace of Baptism infants are able to be endowed with the rewards of eternal life, is quite idiotic... But those who defend this for them without rebirth seem to me to want to quash Baptism itself, when they preach that infants already have what is believed to be conferred on them only through Baptism.” (Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 3: 2016.)

According to Papal teaching, Benedict XVI and his theological panel are “quite idiotic.” It's accurate to say that Benedict XVI's latest heresy obliterates original sin. If infants go to Heaven without Baptism, that means that all people are born in the state of grace. Therefore, there is no necessity to baptize infants, although the Vatican II sect still encourages it just as Protestant sects do. Like other Protestant sects, the Vatican II sect now considers Baptism to be a nice initiation rite which marks entrance into a community, but it’s neither necessary nor efficacious.

Let’s remember that Our Lord Jesus Christ was the one who laid down the requirement that all men, including infants, must be baptized for salvation. He declared: “Unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5). What we see, therefore, in this latest heresy from the Vatican II sect, is another overturning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They’ve told us that Hell is not a place, that false religions are good, that Judas might not be in Hell, that Jesus might not even be the prophesied Messiah, that the Primacy of St. Peter is optional, etc. This latest – and hugely significant – heresy is another sign of the end: that the Antichrist is presently in Rome waging a massive spiritual war on the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the very buildings of the Catholic Church which his Counter Church has overtaken. The Antichrist is not coming with horns on his head attempting to stab you with a pitchfork. No, his assault is more subtle and more devastating: he is bit by bit attempting to overturn all of the central truths given by Christ and the apostles and dogmatically taught by the Church; yet he is simultaneously attempting to deceive Catholics by mixing this new religion of apostasy with conservative statements and promises of a Latin Mass.

For instance, consider that Benedict XVI recently paid homage to St. Augustine at his tomb. While at the tomb, Benedict XVI called St. Augustine a “model of conversion” for all ages: “PAVIA, Italy (CNS) -- Paying homage to one of the most important figures of the church, Pope Benedict XVI prayed at the tomb of St. Augustine and called him a "model of conversion" for Christians of all ages.” (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20070423.htm#head7) This is very interesting because St. Augustine was perhaps the most outspoken proponent of the apostolic truth that infants who die without Baptism are excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven (since they have original sin).

St. Augustine, A.D. 415: “Anyone who would say that infants who pass from this life without participation in the Sacrament [of Baptism] shall be made alive in Christ truly goes counter to the preaching of the Apostle and condemns the whole Church, where there is great haste in baptizing infants because it is believed without doubt that there is no other way at all in which they can be made alive in Christ.” (Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 3: 2016.)

Do you not see the satanic subterfuge, the diabolical deception that is being engaged in by the execrable Benedict XVI?! On Friday, April 20, Benedict XVI attempts to overturn the Gospel, and the dogmatic teaching of the Church, and the teaching of the fathers of the Church, by approving the new heresy which obliterates the necessity for infants to be baptized; but just two days later, on Sunday, April 22, he gives the appearance of devotion to tradition and to the fathers by paying homage to St. Augustine – the one who was so outspoken on the aforementioned dogma which Benedict XVI just obliterated – as a model of conversion for all ages! Benedict XVI probably deliberately chose St. Augustine as a model of conversion for all ages to subtly mock the fact that St. Augustine couldn’t be considered a model convert today in the Vatican II sect – especially not after Benedict XVI’s approval of the newly published document on infants going to Heaven without Baptism! There is no doubt that Benedict XVI is a manifest heretic who also engages in this kind of satanic mockery of Christ and His Church. This is a spiritual war: Catholics must take sides.

APPENDIX: TWO STATEMENTS FROM BENEDICT XVI’S BOOKS WHICH DEMONSTRATE HIS HERESY ON THIS MATTER

This latest heresy of Benedict XVI makes it relevant to quote two passages that we covered in the review of Benedict XVI’s books, in which he is expressing the same heresy. This latest document which he approved proves, once again, that our interpretation of Benedict XVI’s heretical statements (contrary to the claims of Benedict XVI’s heretical defenders) was absolutely correct.

BENEDICT XVI REJECTS THE DOGMA ON THE NECESSITY OF INFANT BAPTISM AS “UNENLIGHTENED”

“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, 2000, p. 401:
“Q... But what happens, when a man dies unbaptized? And what happens to the millions of children who are killed in their mothers’ wombs?

A. The question of what it means to say that baptism is necessary for salvation has become ever more hotly debated in modern times. The Second Vatican Council said on this point that men who are seeking for God and who are inwardly striving toward that which constitutes baptism will also receive salvation. That is to say that a seeking after God already represents an inward participation in baptism, in the Church, in Christ. To that extent, the question concerning the necessity of baptism for salvation seems to have been answered, but the question about children who could not be baptized because they were aborted then presses upon us that much more urgently. Earlier ages had devised a teaching that seems to me rather unenlightened. They said that baptism endows us, by means of sanctifying grace, with the capacity to gaze upon God. Now, certainly, the state of original sin, from which we are freed by baptism, consists in a lack of sanctifying grace. Children who die in this way are indeed without any personal sin, so they cannot be sent to hell, but, on the other hand, they lack sanctifying grace and thus the potential for beholding God that this bestows. They will simply enjoy a state of natural blessedness, in which they will be happy. This state people called limbo. In the course of our century, that has gradually come to seem problematic to us. This was one way in which people sought to justify the necessity of baptizing infants as early as possible, but the solution is itself questionable. Finally, the Pope made a decisive turn in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae, a change already anticipated by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, when he expressed the simple hope that God is powerful enough to draw to himself all those who were unable to receive the sacrament.”

There is a lot of heresy in Benedict XVI’s answer to this question. First, he indicates that people can be saved without baptism. Second, he says earlier ages “had devised” (but not received from Christ) the teaching about how infants need baptism for sanctifying grace to avoid limbo. He says that this teaching is “unenlightened”!

“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 1982, p. 43: “The conflict over infant baptism shows the extent to which we have lost sight of the true nature of faith, baptism and membership in the Church. Once we begin to understand again, it will be clear to us that baptism is neither the imposition of burdens about which we should have been allowed to make our own decision nor acceptance by a society into which we have been forced without being consulted in advance but rather the grace of that meaning which, in the crisis of self-doubting mankind, can alone enable us to rejoice in being human. It is obvious also that the meaning of baptism is destroyed wherever it is no longer understood as an anticipatory gift but only as a self-contained rite. Wherever it is severed from the catechumenate, baptism loses its raison d’etre [its reason to be]."

This means that infant baptism has no reason to be.