Daniel and Un-baptized Infants

Baby Daniel

On Tuesday, the 18^th of September, 2012, a beautiful baby boy was born into the sober quiet of an Illinois hospital room. We knew, before he was born, that he was dead – he had been dead three days; we never found out how. But it is not the how that is the most desperate question for the family members: it is the why that kills you. Why would God take such a badly-wanted child from the loving and expectant arms of his mother, father, three sisters, and five brothers? So much love would have encased and blessed his life, bearing him on a cloud of care and laughter; instead, his deprivation led to many months of heartbroken tears.

        
As we gathered about the hospital bed to hold our new baby brother for the first and last time, not one of us in the room doubted that he was being held in the warm and maternally loving arms of the Blessed Mother. We knew very little of the Church’s teachings on un-baptized infants, but we knew much of the unfailing Mercy of Jesus Christ and trusted in it wholeheartedly.
      I had just begun classes at the College of Saint Mary Magdalen (now known as Northeast Catholic College) and after the funeral I flew back to New Hampshire to continue my courses. That first year was difficult, understandably, but the worst was the first semester of my sophomore year. Apparently, I have a delayed reaction to grief, and this reaction was benefited in no way by the Theology classes I was taking at the time. I began to learn that the Church did not necessarily teach that Baptism of Desire applies to un-baptized infants, or that God’s mercy compensated for his justice in this matter. I even heard that St. Augustine taught that un-baptized infants experience the torments of hell-fire.

Naturally enough, I reacted extremely emotionally to these discoveries, lashing out at my teacher, and vehemently defending Jesus’ mercy to the friends who already agreed with me. I did not care about objective truth, I cared about my baby brother.

Daniel with his brothers and sisters.
That's me in the middle, holding him.

Since then, I have gradually been more and more able to listen with an objective mind to the theories that Catholics put forward regarding the fate of un-baptized infants. At least, I don’t yell at them.

Unfortunately, the Church is unclear in her definite teachings, and the theories regarding this topic are varied and even, sometimes, completely opposite. The lack of a dogmatic definition is saddening and has led to various schools of thought amongst Catholics: schools of thought wherein one group often refers to another as ‘heretical’. It is a topic that has not only been hotly debated by Catholics since the beginning of the Church, but one on which the Church herself has seemed to change her teachings on multiple occasions.

Augustine says infants experience hell-fire, Thomas Aquinas claims they experience no pain, but only separation from the beatific vision, and John Paul II has recently declared that they may even experience heaven. Some claim infants are in Limbo, some claim Limbo is a heresy. We can not even turn to the decrees of the popes for clarification, for the popes, throughout the years, have said many different things, and never under a doctrinal decree. What is a Catholic, one who is seeking the truth of Christ objectively, – in disregard to his personal feelings about lost loved ones – to believe?

(To be clear, I do not know the truth of this matter, and if at any point I seem to be supporting one theory or another, it is only because I am allowing it weight, attempting to examine every aspect of every argument. I have personal preferences for what I wish were true, but I do not think my feelings are sufficient proof for the validity of an argument.)

NewAdvent, a catholic online encyclopedia, discusses Baptism of Desire, stating, “it is to be noted that only adults are capable of receiving the baptism of desire.” In another section, it discusses un-baptized infants specifically, declaring,

“The Catholic teaching is uncompromising on this point, that all who depart this life without baptism, be it of water, or blood, or desire, are perpetually excluded from the vision of God....Moreover, that those who die in original sin, without ever having contracted any actual sin, are deprived of the happiness of heaven is stated explicitly in the Confession of Faith of the Eastern Emperor Michael Palæologus, which had been proposed to him by Pope Clement IV in 1267, and which he accepted in the presence of Gregory X at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274. The same doctrine is found also in the Decree of Union of the Greeks, in the Bull "Lætentur Caeli" of Pope Eugene IV, in the Profession of Faith prescribed for the Greeks by Pope Gregory XIII, and in that authorized for the Orientals by Urban VIII and Benedict XIV. Many Catholic theologians have declared that infants dying without baptism are excluded from the beatific vision; but as to the exact state of these souls in the next world they are not agreed.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02258b.htm# vii; emphasis mine)

       It seems, according to this Catholic source, that infant’s deprivation of the Beatific Vision is soundly held by the Church, with extensive documentation and history upholding the position. The article goes on to talk about the exact state of the infant souls, and the various theories regarding it,

“In speaking of souls who have failed to attain salvation, these theologians distinguish the pain of loss (paena damni), or privation of the beatific vision, and the pain of sense (paena sensus). Though these theologians have thought it certain that unbaptized infants must endure the pain of loss, they have not been similarly certain that they are subject to the pain of sense....Since the twelfth century, the opinion of the majority of theologians has been that unbaptized infants are immune from all pain of sense. This was taught by St. Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, St. Bonaventure, Peter Lombard, and others, and is now the common teaching in the schools. It accords with the wording of a decree of Pope Innocent III (III Decr., xlii, 3): "The punishment of original sin is the deprivation of the vision of God; of actual sin, the eternal pains of hell." Infants, of course, can not be guilty of actual sin.... Many, following St. Thomas (De Malo, Q. v, a. 3), declare that these infants are not saddened by the loss of the beatific vision, either because they have no knowledge of it, and hence are not sensible of their privation; or because, knowing it, their will is entirely conformed to God’s will and they are concious that they have missed an undue priviledge through no fault of their own.”(Ibid)

If it is the case that my infant brother is deprived of the Beatific Vision, then it is Thomas Aquinas’ theory that I would hope were true. For I would hope that my brother was happy in existing in accord with the will of God.

"Again (a. 2) he [Aquinas] says: "They will rejoice in this, that they will share largely in the divine goodness and in natural perfections." While the opinion, then, that unbaptized infants may enjoy a natural knowledge and love of God and rejoice in it, is perfectly tenable, it has not the certainty that would arise from a unanimous consent of the Fathers of the Church, or from a favorable pronouncement of ecclesiastical authority.” (Ibid)

It would appear that recent scholastic thought has shifted from the views maintained in the article by NewAdvent, toward a more liberal view that hopes for salvation for all souls. In a recent document written by the International Theological Commission, and published by the Vatican under the name The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized, the Commission acknowledges the pain experienced by parents in relation to their un-baptized dead child,

“Parents experience great grief and feelings of guilt when they do not have the moral assurance of the salvation of their children, and people find it increasingly difficult to accept that God is just and merciful if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness, whether they are Christian or non-Christian.” (http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html; intro, paragraph 2)

The guilt and grief associated with the death of un-baptized children is nothing new in the situation of mankind, and did not seem to deter St. Augustine or many popes in their pronouncements concerning punishment for these little souls. Truth, unfortunately, does not always accommodate the feelings of individuals. For example, when a young man asked Christ if he could wait until his father died in order to follow Him, Jesus unequivocally told him that he must follow immediately, and must not worry about the disappointed feelings of his father.

         The basis for the Commission’s theory is not based solely on feelings, however, but rather on the hope that all Catholics must have regarding the Mercy and Love of God. “The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness, even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in Revelation.” (Ibid; preface) It appears, then, that the current consensus of the Vatican at this time is in agreement with the mentality of my family as we gathered in the hospital room three years ago. It is in Christ’s Mercy that we must trust, and in the belief that for God, all things are possible. And if, at any future time, it is declared unconditionally and doctrinally that infants do not receive the blessings of Heaven or the Beatific Vision, it can not be used as an excuse for us to leave the Church; for if we are Catholic, then we believe in the great goodness of God. The Goodness of God is beyond our understanding, and involves greater good for our loved ones than we can grant, even if it goes against our understanding or our preferences. For His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).