When I was in parochial gradeschool, we learned all about the place that unbaptized babies go when they die: Limbo. Over the years we learned that the church sent any holy unbaptized soul to Limbo, kind of like that can where you throw all your spare change. Baptism had to have top billing and is the only way one can get into heaven, so they had to come up with this Limbo schtick.
Oh, woe is me, I have discovered that the Church is about to do away with Limbo for good. Limbo is one of those concepts that we laughed about even in gradeschool and it got me to thinking. Lately, the Church is just no fun anymore, what with abusive priests, anti-gay proclamations, Santorum… you know, no fun. Why can’t it be like the old days when church stuff was a hoot?
I recall when giving to the missions was our reason to be. The absolute best was “pagan babies”. We forked over our nickels and dimes to the nuns and received little certificates for each pagan baby we bought. I think most of my pagan babies now play in the NBA.
When I got to high school, still under the thumb of the nuns, there was still plenty of schtick to go around. When I was a senior our English teacher, Sister Mary Frederick, mysteriously sent the boys to the library. Turns out she was going to prepare us young women for the wicked world of men and sex. Some of Freddie’s biggest hits:
* NEVER sit on a man’s lap without the thickness of a Sears and Roebuck’s catalogue between you
* NEVER use a white tablecloth… it reminds men of bedsheets
* NEVER wear a necklace… it draws a man’s attention to your chest
* NEVER EVER wear black patent leather shoes because it reflects your underwear
She held these “sex education” classes for an entire semester and there was little or no absenteeism among the senior girls on those days. Sister Mary Frederick was sweet and as old as the hills and we loved her dearly. Years later, when she passed on, one of my friends and I held an Irish wake and toasted her all night long. Sister Mary Frederick most assuredly is not in Limbo.
Anyone else have silly memories of growing up in the throes of religious schtick?
Update [2005-12-1 9:26:53 by Nag]:Oops, I forgot to include the original article because I just know this Limbo thing is so earthshattering, I’d better be able to substantiate it.
Here’s another one I just remembered. In the Catholic church, women were always supposed to cover their heads in church, so on the days the nuns marched us all into the church for confession, or practice for some upcoming event, half of us girls had tissues pinned to our heads. I guess Jesus didn’t like the look of our naked heads and would prefer we wear tissues or even toilet paper to cover the ugly things. Why boy’s naked heads were ok, I’ll never know….. oh.
You’re giving me a lot of flashbacks, LOL.
Seriously, though, getting rid of limbo and saying those innocent babies are in heaven opens an interesting question of how they can get in without being baptized, since they’re still under the “taint of original sin.” What does this do to the concept of original sin? Is it then not a sin in the usual sense of the word? And if not, then why baptism? For that matter, why the crucifixion and resurrection?
You see why this has been a “third rail” issue for 700 years, even though it’s silly on the surface.
It opens the door to require a reinterpretation of what original sin is, why we need baptism, and why the need for the redemption. It can be done, and some work in that regard was started under Vatican II, but there’s been a retrenchment from more liberal theology in the Church in recent years and so I’m a bit surprised they’re messing with this now.
When we first moved to the South, some conservative evangelical neighbors tried to get my wife into a “Ladies Bible Study Group.” They were already suspicious, since we were still Catholic at the time (they’d die if they knew what our worldview is now!), but wanted to convert her. This whole issue came up, and they were quite willing to condemn unbaptized babies to hell, along with Gandhi. My wife told them that if that was the price of Christianity, she couldn’t believe in Original Sin. They were shocked, shocked, and didn’t make an effort to invite her back…
Interestingly, I’ve heard the Greek Orthodox tradition doesn’t necessarily believe in Original Sin. It would be interesting to see if this move on the part of Roman Catholicism reopens doors to reunion with the Orthodox Church.
Of course, now that I’m a philosophical Taoist it’s not really my problem, but it’s still interesting intellectually to see how they resolve these issues.
Original sin is one of those concepts that never made sense to me. Limbo was truely a catch all… what about all those souls from the Old Testament? So Abraham and Solomon and even Moses aren’t in heaven because they were never baptised? OK, no more Limbo, so where are they? So many theological concepts have holes big enough to drive a VW through which is what turns me right off.
According to the article I linked to, Pope John Paul had severe problems with the concept of Limbo and left it out of the Catholic catechism. Ratzinger apparently felt the same way and is continuing to phase out Limbo. It may be interesting to see how this is resolved.
I’d actually be more interested in finding out if Ratzinger wears black patent leather shoes under that cassack. 😉
Actually, he prefers red shoes (good photo here). I heard somewhere recently on the news that they were Prada. Guess his job pays well, LOL.
Oh, thanks! I couldn’t resist posting this here. If he’s God’s Rotwieller I suppose he has a matching ruby studded spiked collar and leash.
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Great joy in catholic schools
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Family roots in the Netherlands with a “devout” grandma in her beliefs. The Catholic grade schools in The Hague were somewhat elite where prayers more pronounced in French, a relic from a brief occupation early 19th century by Napoleon. The school however, was open for all classes of society from the poor to the rich. When my grandma observed a nun discriminating a girl for her being low-born, she took the nun aside and scolded her for such behavior, not beholding for a Christian person. That was in the year 1920!
In my own youth in St. Louis county late fifties, I played soccer instead of baseball during the midday break. It didn’t take long, the nuns of the grade school wanted to learn the game, and my brother and I did teach the nuns the game in a matter of weeks. That was great fun.
Respect must always be earned by persons who claim authority. The German culture may be different, where in everyday life a formal respect is shown to everyone with authority, especially in business relations with your superiors. The college and university titles are minutely specified in all correspondence. The Dutch were rather casual, so their letters would be forwarded to all persons with title “gentlemen”. The secretary of a German manager “Herr Dr. Ing.” would object and return the letter for correction. Our reply was standard: “Is herr Schneider not a gentleman?”
I have been living outside the States for more than a decade now, and would be surprised if in all American diocese a great change in Catholic teaching would have taken place. In the Netherlands, there is a strong Protestant culture of Calvin origin, where Sunday observance has been mandatory, also for the Catholic part of the population.
In St. Louis county – Creve Coeur – , the rural area, when traveling to Sunday Mass, the Irish pastor would greet the parishioners while mowing the lawn! It’s all in one’s perspective, customs and culture, how the relationship is with your religious leaders. I do think when you are active in community life, there usually are less thresholds.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
I was always taught to respect the nuns and priests, but that only goes so far. Token respect is OK, but if in the course of an ongoing relationship respect is not earned, all the titles in the world are meaningless. By the time I hit high school, I often viewed religious leaders with suspicion.
We had one Monseignor who preached in church that we should “…give to the treasury of God”. Yeah, he was talking about money and if you give until it hurts, you will be assured a place in heaven. He also had his nose deeply inserted in local politics. I despised that man.
Sister Mary Frederick, although she pushed her own form of silly religious dogma, earned our undying respect. I felt sorry for the nuns who actually took a vow of poverty as opposed to the priests who had servants in those rectories and always took marvelous vacations around the world. You will never convince me that those big black cars and globe trotting vacations didn’t come out of the money we gave on Sundays.
In spite of everything, I mostly loved the nuns and treasure those times.
In Catholic grade school in St. Louis in the 60’s the priest met separately with the boys and girls to talk about sex. He was a film geek so he explained to us girls that girls were like the old fashioned black and white TV sets that take a long time to warm up. Boys were like the brand new color TV’s — you push the button and they are ready to go! So be careful you don’t push the button.
I remember when Creve Coeur was empty — its now a very crowded suburb.
I bet THAT was helpful. 🙂
I remember a nun in cathecism (sp?) class told us that don’t let anyone touch your body– so for years if someone just bumped into me I said an act of contrition..
However once I discovered sex I knew it wasn’t wrong and I enjoyed it immensely LOL!
Oh, Rosee, that made me laugh out loud. Thanks.
act of contrition… that’s funny!!!
When I was small, we visited my grandmother often. She let me share her bed. We would talk and talk before going to sleep – and say our prayers, of course. Once, after our hail mary… I must have been about six… I realized we used this word ‘Virgin’ about Mary all the time but I had no idea what a virgin was. So I asked.
I could feel the chill in the darkness. Clearly a wrong question. As I tried to puzzle that out, finally my grandmother answered, “It’s a holy person.” “Oh,” said I, and blithely continued on for the next five or six years believing that a virgin was “a holy person” until…
In sixth grade I hosted a slumber party for my friends. Giggling, the one girl went around the room and asked all the others if they were virgins. She asked me. I thought about it seriously for a moment, then said, “No.”
Well, they straightened me out, and I’ve been getting milage out of that story for years…
My grandmother!
What a great story! I’m still giggling.
Where to begin? (And where to end?!!) I wrote about the folly of religion a couple of weeks back. A survey had been sent to us and our fellow congregants with questions about what we liked about our synagogue, leading up to the final question. That question asked what would make us more likely to come to saturday services. Hmmm. Where to begin? (And where to end?!!)
So Limbo is errrr in Limbo?
It’s just purgatory waiting to hear for sure. 🙂