The Divine Lamp

The Guardian, a British publication which likes to pretend it’s a newspaper,  recently published and article about the alleged, impending conversion, of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Catholicism.  Its not surprising that it took the opportunity to engage in some snotty comments.  I just love it when a reporter tries to use the malignant growth in his/her head as if it were brains.

There are many questions I’d like to ask him. Like, what happened to limbo? It was just abolished. Were people who believed in it for centuries because the church told them simply wrong?

I’m sure this fellow (or fellette) still has some brain cells willing to work to overcome the malignant growth of his (or her)liberal pseudo-thinking, therefore I will try to explain why this question is so stupid.

The recent document issued by the International Theological Committee on limb has this to say in its opening statement: This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. IT REMAINS THEREFORE A POSSIBLE THEOLOGICAL HYPOTHESIS. (The Hope of Salvation For Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized)

What happened to limbo is simply this: It was, and still remains, nothing more than a theological hypothesis.  To speak about its being abolished is therefore false.  But since falsehood is the type of “facts” the media often deals in, this person’s ignorance is not surprising. This member of the sucular media would do well to remember the type of “facts” his (or her) profession deals in and give Mister the Blair the benefit of the doubt-i.e., that he is fully informed on the matter in spite of the kerygma of the press.

And now that it’s all right to eat meat on Fridays, are the people who did so before the ban was lifted still in purgatory?

Many liberal European countries have loosened their drug laws in recent years, legalizing many things once forbidden, should it now release those convicted under the old laws?  If the US were suddenly to lift the tax on liqour should it then release all those convicted of bootlegging?  Being a politician who presumably has some concept of law and order, I suspect Mister Blair’s response would be no.   Perhaps this question tells us more about the  author of the column than it does of Mister Blair, or Church discipline.