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Does Limbo Exist?

1. God has given every man and woman the gift of free will.
2. God punishes the wicked for their sinful acts.
● For they transgressed the commandments which He had laid down.
3. God rewards the good
● For they follow His commandments.
4. God punishes or rewards the act and thought of an individual.
● Example of Punishment: Eve ate from the forbidden tree. Therefore exiled from the paradise
of pleasure (Genesis 2:23).
● Example of Reward: The repentant thief professed that Jesus Christ has done no evil. And
that He was God. (Luke 23:40-42) He will be in paradise. (Luke 23:43)
5. The question and subsequent answer comes down to this...Do infants use their free will?
● “But he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
● By the natural law, which God has laid down, children obtain the use of reason by the age of
seven years. This is supported by St. Thomas Aquinas (Volume III Q. 43 A. 2).
● Infants however cannot use the gift of free will for they have yet to obtain the use of it.
○ Therefore God cannot punish any act of sin (whether internal or external)
○ Nor God cannot reward the infant for any act of virtue (whether internal or external)
○ We then must realize that infants cannot incur guilt or a reward.
○ Since infants cannot obtain either punishment or reward for their act, they can neither
enter Heaven nor enter into Hell.
○ We thus call this state Limbo.

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 What is Hell?
There are two senses one can interpret and define Hell. There is the strict sense of the word
Hell. And the broad sense of the word Hell. According to the strict interpretation of the word Hell you
have souls of the damned. But according to the broad term, you have purgatory, Limbo of the Just souls
before the coming of Jesus Christ, and that of infants. Now the strict sense we will define as the
following:

The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Article 5, He descended into Hell : “These abodes are not
all of the same nature, for among them is that most loathsome and dark prison in which the souls of the
damned are tormented with the unclean spirits in eternal and inextinguishable fire. This place is called
Gehenna, the bottomless pit, and is Hell strictly so called.”

In the broad sense we have the following:

The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Article 5, He descended into Hell: “Among them is also
the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment, in
order to be admitted into their eternal country, into which nothing defiled entereth. The truth of this
doctrine, founded, as holy Councils declare, on Scripture, and confirmed by Apostolic tradition,
demands exposition from the pastor, all the more diligent and frequent, because we live in times when
men endure not sound doctrine.”
“The third kind of abode is that into which the souls of the just, before the coming of Christ the
Lord, were received, and where, without experiencing any sort of pain, but supported by the blessed
hope of redemption, they enjoyed peaceful repose. To liberate these holy souls, who, in the bosom of
Abraham were expecting the Savior, Christ the Lord descend into Hell.”

In this catechism, that is the Council of Trent, Limbo of infants is not strictly mentioned.

The New Catholic Dictionary, Hell, Published 1929: A place of privation and punishment after death.
In the strict sense of the term, hell (infernus) is the place of eternal punishment for the damned, whether
demons or men. In a broad sense it may mean:

(1) The limbo of infants (limbus parvulorum), where those who die in original sin, but
without personal mortal sin, are deprived of the happiness which would come to them in
the supernatural order, but not of the happiness of the natural order.

(2) The limbo of the Fathers (limbus patrum), where the souls of just who died before
Christ awaited their admission to heaven, which had been closed against them in
punishment for the sin of Adam.

(3) Purgatory, where the just who die in venial sin or who still owe a debt of temporal
punishment for sin are cleansed by suffering before their admission to heaven.

The Catechism Explained, Baptism: “For every child coming into the world has the taint of original
sin, and has not sanctifying grace, without which no man can enter heaven. Yet, although infants dying
without baptism are excluded from participation in celestial joys, the divine Judge does not consign

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them to the torments of hell, because they have never committed actual sin; they enjoy a certain natural
happiness without physical suffering or mental sadness; they are cheerful as those are with whom all
goes well on earth. But the happiness which is their portion bears much the same relation to everlasting
felicity as the feeble light of a candle does to the brilliance of the noon day sun.”

Your Questions Answered

1. Do infants go to Hell?
2. The Council of Carthage 16th (419 A.D.)
“It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: “In
my house there are many mansions”: that it might be understood that in the kingdom of
heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere where happy 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. For when the Lord says:
“Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the
kingdom of God” [John 3:5], what Catholic will doubt that he will be a partner of the
devil who has not deserved to be a coheir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will
without doubt run into the left [cf. Matt. 25:41,46].”
3. What about Denzinger 493a?
“It (The Roman Church) teaches. . . . . that the souls . . . . . of those who die in mortal sin,
or with only original sin descend immediately into hell; however, to be punished with
different penalties and in different places.”
4. Do I hold the Orthodox stance that infants go to Hell?

Do infants go to Hell?

I answer that, infants do go to Hell, but not in the technical sense of the word. But rather in the
broad sense. They are sent to Limbo. In the broad sense it is hell because of the loss of the vision of
God, our Highest Good.
Pope Innocent III, Epistle Majores Ecclesiae causas, 1201: “The penalty of original sin is the
loss of the vision of God. The penalty of actual sin is the torment of everlasting hell.”

The Council of Carthage 16th (419 A.D.)

Errors of the Synod of Pistoia, Denzinger 1526, 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
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,false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools.”

I answer that, this article condemned the Jansenist doctrine. That infants do not go to Limbo an abode
in Hell.

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What about Denzinger 493a?

You stated in your question that DZ 464 is the following: “The souls of those who die in mortal
sin or with original sin only, however, immediately descend to hell, to be punished however with
disparate punishments.” However we would could not find that quote in particular. The closest DZ
number to that quote was 493a. So we are going to use that one to base our answer.
I answer that, Limbo is an abode of Hell, just as those souls in purgatory are being purified. The
patriarchs were held in the Bosom of Abraham in Limbo before the time of Jesus Christ. In the broad
sense of the term Hell, yes infants are going to hell, but not for punishment due to actual sin. They go
to a Limbo for infants which is an abode of Hell due to the fact that they still have original sin on their
soul. Original sin banishes them from the vision of God.

Do I hold the Orthodox stance that infants go to Hell?

I answer that...

If you hold the stance that infants would go to Hell in the strict sense of the term, then no you
would cease to be orthodox.
If you hold the stance that infants would go to Hell in the broad sense of the term, then yes you
would still hold orthodoxy to the Catholic religion.

Pius IX, Encyclical, Quanto conficiamur, August 10, 1863: “We, and you, too, know well
that those who labor under invincible ignorance of our holy religion, yet keep the
precepts of the law of nature graven by God in all men's hearts, who are prepared to
obey God, and who lead an honorable and upright life, are able, by the powerful
workings of God's light and grace, to attain eternal life. For God, who sees distinctly,
who searches into and knows the mind, spirit, habits and thoughts of all men, would
never of His supreme goodness and mercy permit anyone to be punished eternally unless
he incurred the guilt of voluntary sin.”