Lovely limbo for the little losers:
According to Italian media reports on Tuesday, an international theological commission will advise Pope Benedict to eliminate the teaching about limbo from the Catholic catechism.
The Catholic Church teaches that babies who die before they can be baptized go to limbo, whose name comes from the Latin for "border" or "edge," because they deserve neither heaven nor hell.
Last October, seven months before he died, Pope John Paul asked the commission to come up with "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing the fate of such innocents.
Hey! Slow down there. Infants "innocent"? If they ain't tainted, they're pseudo-sainted—free pass to the laughter hereafter. I've yet to hear of any coherent way to describe the fate of babies in terms of the Christian afterlife. There is no transition point in any person's life when they change from a reactive aggregation of cells to a sentient being, able to take responsibility for their decisions. Growing up is a gradual process.
Changing religious stories to be "more coherent and enlightened" is a marketing exercise. Should the devoted believers accept a new spin? How will it sound?
"We didn't know enough before, but now we've studied the scriptures much betterer, and thought about it with some truly excellent communion wine. This new improved doctrinal statement has 73% more Truth. Guaranteed!"
The advice to Benedict is much more savvy. Eliminate the teaching on limbo. If you don't mention it, most of the sheep will miss the fact that there are inexplicable contradictions in the heaven/hell stories when applied to babies.
Yeah, I know. Catholic church + dogma = easy target. Just tell me when any of the major world religions will be honest enough to admit that they haven't got a clue about life beyond death?
HereEndethTheBemusedRant. RAmen.