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I saw this question and answer on another web site:
Question:
What if God, Our Father, called
His children at an early age,
say from one day old, to fourteen
years old, or older, depending on
what age they were baptized?
Where do their souls go?
Answer:
According to the constant teaching
of the Church, those who die before
baptism will never see the Kingdom
of God.
Source: hidden
"Likewise, whosoever says
that those children who depart
out of this life without partaking
of that sacrament shall be made
alive in Christ, certainly contradicts
the apostolic declaration, and
condemns the universal Church,
in which it is the practice to
lose no time and run in haste
to administer baptism to infant
children, because it is believed,
as an indubitable truth, that
otherwise they cannot be made
alive in Christ."
Augustine, Epistle 167,7,21 (A.D.
415)
Web site source where quote was
taken: hidden
According to the answer above, is
it fair to say that according to Catholic teaching,
the state of a child at birth before
Baptism is hopelessly lost and self condemned?
If not, what is the state of the child
and how do you harmonize it with the following
statements?
Thank you,
Laura
{
Is
it fair to say that before Baptism the
state of the child is hopelessly lost and
self condemned? }
Eric
replied:
Laura —
These statements do not represent
the official teaching of the Catholic
Church, which is that we don't know
the fate of unbaptized infants and
we leave them to God's Mercy. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official guide to Catholic doctrine,
in paragraph 1261 says:
1261 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:
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.
However, those who believe that unbaptized
infants cannot be saved are not condemned
by the Church.
It is a fact that all are born into
a state of separation from God, and
need some form of Baptism, usually
water Baptism, to receive the enlivening
grace necessary to see God and be
saved.
However, God is not bound by the
sacraments, and we cannot rule out
the possibility that, in His Mercy,
He provides some, or even all unbaptized
infants some sort of grace or opportunity
to be saved.
Eric
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