Years ago we heard to unbaptized infants go to limbo. It’s not heaven, we were told, but at least “they are happy.” “It is true that there was much talk about limbo in the past. Some Catholics probably still think of it as a “place to go” after death. The fact is, however, that the Church
never did have much to say officially about limbo (Latin for “fringe” or “border”). For centuries it was assumed that God took care of unbaptized infants in His own way. Certain theologians once held that unbaptized infants suffered some type of pain, but in the 12th or 13th centuries that idea was pretty much abandoned.
Later on, limbo became the subject of heated theological debate when a heretical sect called Jansenists taught that all infants dying without baptism are condemned to the fires of hell. In 1794, Pope Pius VI condemned this teaching. He said, in effect, that one may believe in a limbo, a “middle state” of happiness that is not heaven with God, and still be a Catholic (Errors of the Synod of Pistoia, no. 26). That remains the only significant mention of limbo in any Catholic document. Obviously, it’s a long way from saying that limbo belongs anywhere in official Catholic teaching.
As you have surely noticed, one seldom hears the word anymore. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which touches on everything seriously connected with the Catholic faith, doesn’t mention it. The reason seems to be that limbo implies some sort of two-tiered final goal for human beings. One is eternal life with God. The other is a “natural” happiness apart from God (limbo) where people “go” who for no fault of their own do not reach the top level.
The Catechism clearly teaches otherwise. There is only one final goal, one desire of happiness for all humanity life with and in the God who created us. We may attain that goal or we may reject it by our own fault, but there is no half-happiness somewhere in between. God has raised us to a supernatural life, a sharing in His life far beyond our natural capacity. Having done that, there is, so to speak, no going back.
The desire for this happiness, says the Catechism, is part our nature, a gift from God, a vocation addressed to every human being. The ultimate goal then of human existence, of every individual and of everything people do, is the same: To share in the very happiness of God (1718-1719). Whatever mysteries we must negotiate in exploring answers to questions about what happens to the unbaptized, we will need to find those answers without resorting to something called “limbo.”