Catholics & Catholicism

Question:

What is the fate of unbaptized babies?

The current Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church does not directly address the theological question of "Limbo."  However it does teach the following about infants who die without the sacrament of Baptism. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994. Article 1 The Sacrament of Baptism VI. The Necessity of Baptism 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,"(63) allow us to hope that there is a way for 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. — Footnote 63 Mark 10:14; cf. 1 Tim 2:4 – who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Response:

Why DO we baptize babies?

Other than the theological belief that Baptism is the beginning of the Christian Life, and the RCC teaches that that Life in Christ should begin as soon as possible. I suppose the question is, why not baptize babies? There is certainly scripture that supports the fact that Christ desired even the smallest child to come unto him: Matthew 18:5  "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me" And Matt 18:10 "See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven."

Response:

When did the first vestiges of the "catholic" Church appear in the world after the Peter died? We, as Catholics are known to follow the apostolic succession, but I am at a loss to explain the continuity after Peter..our first "Pope"…

An excellent question, I believe that the question of Apostolic succession is key to this debate as to why the Roman Catholic Church has the authority to interpret and teach the Christian Faith. First I see you are talking to Mormons, keeping in mind that they have an entire State all to themselves, this would indicate that what ever they believe, it is deeply entrenched and there is no reason to think that they are interested in questioning their own faith, they are only interested in questioning and undermining YOUR faith. I believe that this is a very important idea to keep in mind.  And I do not mean that people who have ofaiths different from ours are "bad," but it should always be remembered that people who knock on your door and write to your news group may have a very serious agenda and that agenda does not include stregthening your faith, but in weakening it. What ever you discover about your faith, my thought is that it will not "convince" someone else that your faith is correct. So, I hope for the sake of your good disposition that this information is for you and not for use to dispute with Mormons or anyone else, because my own experience is that prosylatizers are not in the habit of changing their beliefs once they acquire them. The Church, as you probably know, has a doctrine of "invincible ignorance" and this could mean that a person through no fault of their own can become deaf to the Gospel, yet it does not necessarily imply that they have lost a chance at salvation. I’m would guess that the intervening generations between the last of the twelve apostles and Joseph Smith did not fare as well in the eyes of the Mormon Church. But on to the issue of apostolic succession: We find in the Acts of the apostles a series of problems that the church had to face after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.  Jesus was not around to tell the Church what to do, so before his ascension we find that he commissioned the apostles to preach and teach, and at Pentacost, the holy Spirit descended on them and sealed their commission to preach and teach. As the Church grew the apostles had to solve several problems that Jesus never addressed while on earth, such as: do gentiles have to be circumcised in order to accept salvation? In order to decide this issue, the apostles and other elders whom they had commissioned to preach the Gospel,  met in Jerusalem as the Church and discussed the matter commending themselves to the holy Spirit for guidance. Now at this time, .c 35-50 A.D. the collection of documents that we now call the "New Testament" did not exist. In fact, the first document to be written, Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, was not written until 50 to 55 A.D.  And the Acts themselves were not written until well into 70 A.D. So there is an entire generation or two that had no ability to appeal to the collection of writings that we call "the Bible" until after the year 100.  And the process of collecting and evaluating the works which we call the New Testament did not begin until the year 150 when a man named Marcion rose up and said that only parts of the Gospel of Luke and some of the letters of Paul were the authentic teachings of Christ. The first question to ask is, without the Bible how did the Church prevail? The RCC answer is, the apostles had the power given to them by Christ to preach and teach the ways of Jesus, this power was not solely dependant on any written document.  Though this does not discount the importance of scripture inthe life of the Church, but it does demonstrate that the evolusion of the Church, its growth and development was not solely restricted to what could or could not be found in a written work. The apostles also had the power as shown in Acts, to appoint successors and others not of the original twelve, to go out and found new Churches. The contention that the Church died with the last apostle has to first deal with the fact that the apostles themselves appointed successors.  The Mormon assertion would have to mean that the apostles themselves had fallen into error by appointing successors especially since the apostles had every expectation that these successors would carry on their work of preaching and teaching the Gospel. The other question the Mormons would have to deal with is the fact that Jesus promised that the holy Spirit would always be with the Church and protect it. It is this Spirit which guides the men and women who administer the Church, it is not the individual men and women who just out of the blue decide things for themselves.  So the contention that the Catholic Church only teaches man made doctrine is not accurate.  The Church teaches what the holy Spirit instructs the Church to teach. And the holy Spirit is able to speak through the successive generations of appointed leaders that trace their succession back to Peter. It seems to me that the incident with the man named Marcion (.c 150 A.D.) is very important.  Because Marcion asserted that only a narrow number of texts could be used to teach the gospel, the rest of the Church had to respond to this new teaching which is called Gnosticism (Oversimplification – Gnosticism: a teaching that believes that Jesus whispered a "secret" word to the apostles and unless you too know the "secret" you can not be saved, a teaching rejected by the Church) In about the year 150, the Church had to decide which spiritual works were and which were not canonical, that is a real part of Christ’s teaching. At the time they had LOTS of written works to choose from. One of the ways they attempted to articulate the faith was to gather as a Church, (as seen in acts) and invoking the power of the holy Spirit (where two or more are gathered in my name I am there also, say Jesus) they tried to discern and understand which works spoke of Christ and which did not. I’ll let Justo L. Gonzalez take up the story from his work, "The Story of Christianity." At this point, the notion of apostolic succession became very important. What was argued was simply that, had Jesus had some secret knowledge to communicate to his disciples-which in fact he did not-he would have entrusted that teaching to the same apostles to whom he entrusted the church. If those apostles had received any such teaching, they in turn would have passed it on to those who were to follow them in the leadership of the church. Therefore, were there any such secret teaching, it should be found among the direct disciples of the apostles, and the successors of those disciples, the bishops. But the truth of the matter is that those who can now – that is, in the second century – claim direct apostolic succession unanimously deny the existence of any such secret teaching. In conclusion, the Gnostic claim that there is a secret tradition, and that they have been entrusted with it, is false . In order to strengthen this argument, it was necessary to show that the bishops of the time were indeed successors of the apostles. This was not difficult, since several of the most ancient churches had lists of bishops linking them with the apostolic past. Rome, Antioch, Ephesus, and others had such lists. Present-day historians do not find such lists absolutely trustworthy, for there are indications that in some churches – Rome among them – there were not at first "bishops" in the sense of a single head of the local church, but rather a collegiate group of officers who sometimes were called "bishops" and sometimes "elders." But in any case, be it through actual bishops or through other leaders, the fact remains that the orthodox church of the second century could show its connection with the apostles in a way in which Marcion and the Gnostics could not. Does this mean that only churches that could show such, apostolic connections were truly apostolic? Not so, since the issue was not that every church could prove its apostolic origins, but rather that they all agreed on the one faith, and could jointly prove that this faith was indeed apostolic. At a later date, the idea of apostolic succession was carried further, with the notion that an ordination was valid only if performed by a bishop who could claim direct apostolic succession. When first developed, late in the second century, the principle of apostolic succession was inclusive rather than exclusive: over against the closed and secret tradition of the Gnostic teachers, it offered an open and shared tradition that based its claim, not on a single favorite disciple of Jesus, but on the witness of all the apostles. The Ancient Catholic Church This was the original meaning of the phrase "catholic church." The word ..catholic" means " universal," but it also means "according to the whole." To separate itself from the various heretical groups and sects, the ancient church began calling itself "catholic." This title underscored both its universality and the inclusiveness of the witness on which it stood. It was the church, "according to the whole," that is, according to the total witness of all the apostles. The various Gnostic groups were not "catholic" because they could not claim this broad foundation. Indeed, those among them who claimed apostolic origins did so on the basis of a hypothetical secret tradition handed down through a single apostle. Only the church "catholic," the church "according to the whole," could lay claim to the entire apostolic witness.

Response:

 My question is…Why DO we baptize babies…aside from the cleansing of Adamic sin?? What is the fate of unbaptized babies? There is no biblical reason for baptising infants, all the accounts of baptism recorded in the bible show that knowledge and a definite commitment to dedicating your life to God is essential. Until a child is of an age that makes them able to make the decision to serve God, they are under the protection of the parents. If the parents are God fearing the child will be protected. Geoff

Response:

2. Their religion dictates that when all of the Apostles died, so did Christianity and that all of us are living an apostasy. The real story (according to Joseph Smith, again) is that some guy named Lehi came to the New World with some bronze tablets which are supposed to be considered the "fulfilment" of the Gospels. Mormons believe many things that are not scriptural. The real test of new prophets is whether they are in complete harmony with the rest of the bible. Mormons believe that it was Gods plan that Adam HAD to sin. (Making God unjust) That we were angels before we became humans. John 1:18 No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the bosom [position] with the Father is the one that has explained him. That you must fight for your country. John 13:33 I say also to YOU at present. 34 I am giving YOU a new commandment, that YOU love one another; just as I have loved YOU, that YOU also love one another. 35 By this all will know that YOU are my disciples, if YOU have love among yourselves." Acts 5:27 So they brought them and stood them in the San’he