Limbo had a nice, 800-year run, said Ian Fisher in The New York Times, but the final curtain is about to come down. After a recent review by a panel of leading Catholic theologians, the Vatican is moving to delete limbo as one of the realms of the afterlife. Limbo was never an official church teaching; it was invented by St. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval Catholic theologians as a destination for babies who died before they were baptized and cleansed of original sin. Rather than go to hell, Aquinas theorized, such babies—and worthy pagans and Jews—would go to a waiting room in the afterlife where no one suffered, but where God was not present. Today, though, limbo has fallen out of favor as an
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why are student loan borrowers falling behind on payments?Today's Big Question Delinquencies surge as the Trump administration upends the program
-
Not there yet: The frustrations of the pocket AIFeature Apple rushes to roll out its ‘Apple Intelligence’ features but fails to deliver on promises
-
George Foreman: The boxing champ who reinvented home grillsFeature He helped define boxing’s golden era
