Lunatic Emeritus Fr. Richard McBrien proves once again he is on the vanguard of the now ossified “Spirit of Vatican II” movement. McBrien, in an Associated Press report, claimed that there is no original sin as proved by Pope Benedict’s announcement on limbo.
“If there’s no limbo and we’re not going to revert to St. Augustine’s teaching that unbaptized infants go to hell, we’re left with only one option, namely, that everyone is born in the state of grace,” said the Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.
“Baptism does not exist to wipe away the “stain” of original sin, but to initiate one into the Church,” he said in an e-mailed response.
The church, in reality, continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants, the document said.
In fact, Pope Benedict’s discussion of limbo is not all that new though the secular press and Mcbrien would have you believe otherwise. The 1992 the Catechism of the Catholic Church said:
As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.
In a document published April 20, the commission said the traditional concept of limbo — as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God — seemed to reflect an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.”
“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.
We see time and again the fossils of the “spirit of Vatican II” movement are now just tired poltergeists rattling their chains, mumbling about a married Jesus who didn’t really resurrect body and soul, all the while insisting on its own inevitable ressurection.
April 21, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Thank you for this post! How powerful! If you don’t mind, I will “steal it” and give your link so that others will visit you.
They’re also the same ones who don’t like to call God “Father” or “Lord”…too patriarchal for them. They’re more happy when “Creator” is used everywhere…and gender-sensitivity is now running amok in many places and some diocese. Thank God for our archdiocese in Omaha, that is growing more and more in orthodoxy and the nearby LINCOLN NEBRASKA diocese with Bishop Bruskewitcz! Going to Mass in Lincoln and rural communities around the city is like going to EWTN and we love it!
susie
May 22, 2007 at 4:16 am
We can only pray that some of that orthodoxy makes it way to South Georgia. We need shepherds that don’t sacrifice it’s flock to the wolves ‘in the spirit of Vatican II’ so as not to make waves with our separated brethren.
Vergine Immaccolata, Aiutateci!