Limbo Rock

Limbo is closed. The Pope says so. His holiness has nothing against sliding underneath a pole to that crazy Latin beat. Well, actually, he probably does. But the Limbo Pope Benedict (our first Pope named for a fancy egg dish) is referring to is the place reserved for the unbaptized dead, including good people who lived before the coming of Christ. Infants killed in tragic baptismal font mishaps before they manage to have the words spoken and drops of holy water dripped on their heads were not allowed to ascend. Little babies who had the misfortune of not being baptized can now enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Church's International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of salvation." I would have to agree with that sentiment. You know who is not in heaven? Gandhi. Not because he wasn't baptized, but because he wasn't Catholic. Or Christian. Come to think of it, there's a whole load of people who would be hanging out in limbo. In "The Divine Comedy", Dante finds the place chock full of of virtuous pagans including Socrates and Plato. Come to think of it, maybe God just doesn't want anybody showing up at the Pearly Gates already dressed in flowing robes.
The good news is for the young set. "People find it increasingly difficult to accept that God is just and merciful if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness, whether they are Christian or non-Christian," says the ITC. Now if we can just swing a deal for Jimmy Cliff.