the catholic church officially teaches nonbaptized infants go to hell

i think con is confusing the actual and intended purposes of the texts. it'd probably be helpful to paraphrase the key ideas he quoted. ""It (the Church) firmly believes, professes and preaches that never was anyone, conceived by a man and a woman, liberated from the devil's dominion except by faith in our lord Jesus Christ." This simply states that there has NEVER been a child conceived, that was saved from Hell, except by FAITH. That means NOT even by baptism, but by FAITH. This proves that it is possible for an infant not to go to hell. [1]" all that that quote is saying is that faith is the prerequisite. it doesn't say baptism isn't necessary. "Session 6"6 July 1439 "Also, if truly penitent people die in the love of God before they have made satisfaction for acts and omissions by worthy fruits of repentance, their souls are cleansed after death by cleansing pains; and the suffrages of the living faithful avail them in giving relief from such pains, that is, sacrifices of masses, prayers, almsgiving and other acts of devotion which have been customarily performed by some of the faithful for others of the faithful in accordance with the church's ordinances." [1] "Also, the souls of those who have incurred no stain of sin whatsoever after baptism, as well as souls who after incurring the stain of sin have been cleansed whether in their bodies or outside their bodies, as was stated above, are straightaway received into heaven and clearly behold the triune God as he is, yet one person more perfectly than another." [1] These two small paragraphs come back to back. This makes it easy to see that the second paragraph is referring to the prior paragraph, when it states, "as was stated above,"". If you put the two paragraphs into one it states, "the souls of those who have incurred no stain of sin whatsoever after baptism, as well as souls who after incurring the stain of sin have been cleansed whether in their bodies or outside their bodies, as was stated above, {(content from above), their souls are cleansed after death by cleansing pains; and the suffrages of the living faithful avail them in giving relief from such pains, that is, sacrifices of masses, prayers, almsgiving and other acts of devotion which have been customarily performed by some of the faithful for others of the faithful in accordance with the church's ordinances.}, are straightaway received into heaven and clearly behold the triune God as he is, yet one person more perfectly than another." This is one of the many reasons Catholics prayers such as, the prayers for the dead [3] and St Gertrude"s Prayer [2], when they pass by a cemetery." the text was referring to 'penitent' people. that means you have to be able to be penitent. babies cant be. and, this text is not saying baptism isn't necessary. it is talking about satisfaction after baptism. all those prayers for the dead and such extend to them, not to the unbaptized. ""The effect of this sacrament is the remission of all original and actual guilt, also of all penalty that is owed for that guilt. Hence no satisfaction for past sins is to be imposed on the baptized, but those who die before they incur any guilt go straight to the kingdom of heaven and the vision of God." [1]" this isnt refering to incurring guilty before baptism. it's talking about incurring guilt after baptism. those who incur no guilt after baptism go to heaven... that's why they were talking about the situation of satisfaction after being baptized. you have to look at the context of the sentence. noteably, if what con said was true, the unofficial teaching would be that infants go to heaven, not what is currently unofficially taught that it is open to speculation. the original quotes i cited in the original post say it- those with original sin go to hell. babies have original sin. the other quote even says that without baptism, they are in the dominon of the devil. that is enough of a statement to mean hell. con says that limbo was taught ot be a neutral area. this isnt true. it was taught to be an upper level of hell. my original sin and dominon of hte devil quotes illustrate as much.. even if con was rght about this, the church would be officialy teaching a neutral place, but unoffically teaching it's open to speculation-- a contradiction at least unofficially. and it isn't far removed to say they aren't going to heaven as it is to say they are going to hell- though if con was correct it is still noteworthy per the technical resolution of the debate says they are going to hell. as to what's true about limbo, just read wikipedia. the latin fathers said it was hell. and the medieval fathers said "If heaven is a state of supernatural happiness and union with God, and hell is understood as a state of torture and separation from God then, in this view, the Limbo of Infants, although technically part of hell (the outermost part, "limbo" meaning "outer edge" or "hem") is seen as a sort of intermediate state." the wiki article tries to act as if it hasn't been defined, because of catholics who edit the page, but if you look at where it talks about florence, you see it is said to be necessary, and doesnt' even mention anyone who'd say otherwise till three hundred years later. it's also noteworth that the old catechism talked about limbo of the infants, despite current teaching that it's open to speculation (catechism isn't considered infallible)