Limbo belief losing popularity
By Brad A. Greenberg, Staff Writer

He was a day old and dying. His parents' final request was for a Catholic priest, but none could arrive in time to baptize the baby boy and save him from an eternity of damnation.

"It was time for Godwin to baptize before the baby gave its last breath," said Godwin Asuelime, a devout Catholic and respiratory therapist at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Southern California.

Asuelime's act was motivated by a widely held Catholic belief that the unbaptized cannot enter heaven. According to this belief, humans are born with original sin -- the sin that entered the world with Adam and Eve -- and must be baptized with water to remove it.

But Catholics long have struggled with the concept that unbaptized infants go to hell. So they created the concept of limbo, a place that is neither heaven nor hell: It's eternal happiness apart from God.

Now, though, limbo finds itself in, well, limbo. Vatican theologians are studying the issue and might publish a report on it soon, according to European media.

"Most Catholics today would not say that unbaptized infants go to hell," said the Rev. Thomas Rausch, a Jesuit and theology professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. "Christ has saved us from our sins, and the child has not had the opportunity to renounce salvation."

That jibes with predominant Protestant beliefs, said the Rev. Stephen Davis, chairman of the department of philosophy and religious studies at Claremont McKenna College.

Rebecca Jones, 26, a Southern Baptist who lives in Victorville, gave birth Jan. 20 to twins who were 10 weeks premature. Blessym died Jan. 22 and Batayah on Sept. 6; neither left the hospital nor was baptized.

"Hell is here. We're in hell. My kids are in heaven," Jones said.

Other religions have widely different views.

Islam states every person is saved unless they turn away from Allah. Hindus believe a dead baby is reincarnated or moves on to another realm of life. Jewish law holds that an infant is not a child until it is 30 days old.

The limbo Rabbi Leonard Zukrow and his wife experienced when their son died was between mourning and moving on. Jonathan was on earth for 10 days and is in heaven for eternity, said Zukrow, former education director at Congregation Emanu El in San Bernardino, and now leading a synagogue in Florida.

Limbo comes from the Latin word "limbus," which means to "hem" or "border." Some Christians believe the Jewish patriarchs were kept "in limbus patrum" until Christ rose from the dead. "Limbus infantium" is the resting place of unbaptized infants, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

It is not an official belief of the Catholic Church but long has been taught in Catholic schools and catechism classes.

The Bible does not specify the fate of unbaptized infants, but in the fifth century, St. Augustine wrote that they were damned. Church leaders in the Middle Ages sought to temper this and began discussing a place that wasn't heaven and wasn't hell.

In "The Divine Comedy," Dante identified limbo as the first circle of hell, reserved for unbaptized infants and virtuous pagans -- the great poets, lawgivers, sages and philosophers -- whose lives predated Christ.

"I thought it was gospel until I was an adult," said Patricia Vesely, associate superintendent of the Diocese of San Bernardino's Office of Catholic Schools.

During the past few decades, belief in limbo has waned. It no longer is taught in area Catholic schools, Vesely said.

Some theologians contend limbo doesn't exist because eternity apart from God is the same as inhabiting hell. These are the Christians who interpret fire and brimstone figuratively.

"Hell is annihilation," said Ray Anderson, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, and author of the book "Theology, Death and Dying."

"An eternal state of nonblessing is equivalent to nonbeing," Anderson said.

Catholics tend to believe in a more literal Hades -- a place of weeping, gnashing of teeth and physical suffering. This is why they perform infant baptisms and why some seminarians are still taught to baptize a dying baby.

Six years ago, Asuelime lost his 15-month-old son, Thomas. The boy had been baptized, and Asuelime said he is now with God.