Couple questions about Christianity

[RJT]

I think your statement that "it is heresy" is invalid. You more or less threw the gauntlet down for someone to disagree with your statement accusing Pope John Paul I of being a heretic. I picked up the gauntlet - I accept your challenge. Now you must argue your point. You are the one stating heresy. Let's here what you got.

[Peter666]

A person can either hope that an unbaptized infant can go to Heaven, or they cannot hope that an unbaptized infant can go to Hevean.

Church dogma is that an unbaptized infant cannot go to Heaven, therefore there is no hope.

But those who put the CCC together in defiance of Church dogma have stated that we can hope that unbaptized children go to Heaven. This contradicts the logical conclusion of a Catholic dogma. That is heresy.

I do not know how to make it simpler than this.

[RJT]

Peter,

Hmmm, this might be easier that I had anticipated. In fact, I might just let Bluff have the honors here of responding. He deserves an easy one for change. I will say this in the meantime: surely you are not using The Baltimore Catechism as your source of Catholic doctrine as the crux of your argument accusing John Paul I of heresy?

RJT

[Peter666]

I already stated that I am using Catholic Dogma which is the highest authoritative source there is. You seem to assume that infallible dogma can be contradicted while maintaining Catholocity. Whoever is responsible for putting the CCC together is making a heretical statement. Whether that makes JP II heretical in this instance, I don't know. But anybody who honestly believes that those without the grace of Baptism can somehow make it into Heaven, are material heretics at least. And if they maintain this position upon questioning and being confronted with the dogma, are actual heretics.

This is certainly not something that BluffTHIS will disagree with.

[BluffTHIS!]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

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: "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.

[Peter666]

Your point being? It's a nice motto there, but unfortunately, that is not defined dogma, and neither is the heretical CCC. Can we or can we not hope for the salvation of children who have died without Baptism?

From the Council of Trent, Session 7:

Canon 5: If anyone says that baptism is optional, that is, not necessary for salvation,[13] let him be anathema.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

IX. NECESSITY OF BAPTISM

Theologians distinguish a twofold necessity, which they call a necessity of means (medii) and a necessity of precept (præcepti), The first (medii) indicates a thing to be so necessary that, if lacking (though inculpably), salvation can not be attained, The second (præcepti) is had when a thing is indeed so necessary that it may not be omitted voluntarily without sin; yet, ignorance of the precept or inability to fulfill it, excuses one from its observance. Baptism is held to be necessary both necessitate medii and præcepti. This doctrine is rounded on the words of Christ. In John, iii, He declares: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he can not enter into the kingdom of God." Christ makes no exception to this law and it is therefore general in its application, embracing both adults and infants.

XI. UNBAPTIZED INFANTS

The fate of infants who die without baptism must be briefly considered here. 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. This teaching is grounded, as we have seen, on Scripture and tradition, and the decrees of the Church. 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.

And from The Fathers of the Church:

The absolute necessity of this sacrament is often insisted on by the Fathers of the Church, especially when they speak of infant baptism. Thus St. Irenæus (II, xxii): "Christ came to save all who are reborn through Him to God,infants, children, and youths" (infantes et parvulos et pueros). St. Augustine (III De Anima) says "If you wish to be a Catholic, do not believe, nor say, nor teach, that infants who die before baptism can obtain the remission of original sin." A still stronger passage from the same doctor (Ep, xxviii, Ad Hieron.) reads:"Whoever says that even infants are vivified in Christ when they depart this life without the participation of His Sacrament (Baptism), both opposes the Apostolic preaching and condemns the whole Church which hastens to baptize infants, because it unhesitatingly believes that otherwise they can not possibly be vivified in Christ," St. Ambrose (II De Abraham., c. xi) speaking of the necessity of baptism, says:" No one is excepted, not the infant, not the one hindered by any necessity."

Can we hope for the salvation of unbaptized infants?

Maybe it is a typo and the CCC really means: salivation? [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[BluffTHIS!]

My point is that you are asserting that the church teaches something that it does not. The above quote from the catechism in no way says they are saved, just that they are entrusted to the mercy of God.

More "details" for David to appreciate.

[Peter666]

Why would David, or anybody who is logical and wants the truth join a Church which obviously contradicts itself?

One doctrinal error is enough to prove its fallibility.

Again, can we or can we not hope for the salvation of unbaptized children? It's either yes or no, not yo, and that makes one side wrong and one side right. This is exactly why modern day Catholics don't feel compelled to baptize their children right away, or even do so.

My position is simple. Much of the hierarchy of today's Church (post Vatican II Church 1965) has been overrun by heretics and those suspected of heresy. And all the major problems it faces: lack of vocations, lack of true holiness (leading to the sex abuse scandals and what not) is a direct manifestation of this awful situation. The Catholic Church has not been in a greater crisis since the Arian heresy ca 4th Century.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
and those suspected of heresy

[/ QUOTE ]

Whereas all you suspectors on the fringe think that good fruit can spring from disobedience and clever rationalizations.

[RJT]

Pete,

It might help if you quote the whole text of Canon 5.

[ QUOTE ]
If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema.

[/ QUOTE ]


And then the rest, not really important to your point but I'll include it:

[ QUOTE ]
For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made inno-[Page 24]cent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.

[/ QUOTE ]

This (the first quote) says that in baptism the guilt of original sin is remitted. It does not say that without baptism an infant’s original sin cannot be remitted by God directly. This Canon is about those who deny the “power” of baptism.

RJT