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It seems it’s a good time to be the betrayer of Christ. After it sat on the shelf for a couple of years, Judas Iscariot finally got his own TV drama in 2004, following the success of The Passion of the Christ. As its director, Catholic Charlie Carner, explained, in Tom Fontana’s script Judas becomes a follower of Jesus because he thinks Jesus would liberate the Jews and is consequently manipulated by Caiaphas: ‘I want you to get an understanding of Judas without ever excusing him.’ Then, last month, it emerged that the National Geographic Society has acquired and intends to publish a long-lost second-century ‘Gospel of Judas’ which commends Judas for performing necessary work in the salvation of humanity by precipitating Jesus’s crucifixion. And now, courtesy of The Times, comes the news that Vatican scholars are reconsidering the matter of Judas: ‘They have offered the argument that the betrayal is an essential part of the story of Christ and that He was well aware of this role.’ The poor Times leader writer can’t quite stomach this:

Yet, Judas is surely a ‘bad chap’.

Still, any improvement in his status could provide some hope to others in the Good Book who were not treated sympathetically. Cain’s unusual family history might be cited in his favour. The discrimination that Goliath faced as a man who attracted unwanted attention for his exceptional height has to be considered. Herod’s fear of being usurped is the material with which popular psychologists are too familiar. The Devil might try to use the ‘a necessary evil’ clause to his advantage. At that point, belated forgiveness and hip rebranding must really meet its limits.

Judas has not had it so good since the second-century Gnostic sect of the Cainites declared, according to Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 1.31.1):

that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.

It is thought that this may be the very gospel now acquired by the National Geographic Society.

As Dante’s Infernal Test indicated that Limbo was to be my final destination, I was naturally confused by news that the Catholic International Theological Commission has drawn up a recommendation to replace the harsh idea of the limbus infantium with a compassionate ‘hope beyond hope’ that God will save unbaptised children. Back in October, I pointed out the nagging injustice of the fate of (hypothetical) unbaptised alien young in Catholic exotheology: this new theology may do away with that problem.

In The Guardian, John Hooper astutely wonders what the afterlife will hold for good pagans like Plato, traditionally dispatched to the limbus patronum, if limbus infantium is being stricken from the books. In terms of balancing God’s mercy with the insistence in John 3:5 that only the baptised can be saved, the Limbo of the Fathers poses less theological problems than that of the Innocents. By his sacrifice, Christ opened the gates of Heaven to the good people who were stranded in Limbo, and before his Ascension he preached to them (see especially Peter 3:19 20). Now that Heaven was open, those who lived after Christ but had not heard the Gospel might be saved by the baptism of desire (which I discussed in my earlier post).

I am not one to stand in the path of theological progress, but there does seem to be a certain amount of self-deception in the way this change of stance is being presented. While the mainstream press largely treats it as an opportunity for jokes about how Limbo is itself in Limbo, the Commission and Catholic news organs seem to be trying to kid themselves that the Church was never serious about Limbo anyhow. For example, the Catholic News Service report writes:

Many Catholics grew up thinking limbo — the place where babies who have died without baptism spend eternity in a state of ‘natural happiness’ but not in the presence of God — was part of Catholic tradition.

Instead, it was a hypothesis — a theory held out as a possible way to balance the Christian belief in the necessity of baptism with belief in God’s mercy.

Like hypotheses in any branch of science, a theological hypothesis can be proven wrong or be set aside when it is clear it does not help explain Catholic faith.

Out in the blogosphere, Cacœthes Scribendi objects to a Reuters report that says this will be a change to the teaching and Catechism of the Church: ‘limbo has never been a doctrine of the Church and isn’t contained in the Catechism’. Thomas P. Rausch and Catherine E. Clifford summed up the situation similarly in Catholicism in the Third Millenium (Liturgical Press, 2003), p. 201:

Belief in limbo developed in the Church to counter the teaching of Augustine on the fate of unbaptized children. In response to the Pelagian teaching that children were granted access to a place of beatitude, Augustine taught that they were consigned to eternal punishment, though of the mildest kind (Enchiridion 93). His position was mitigated by Peter Abelard and other medieval theologians in the twelfth century who held that unbaptized infants were not subject to punishment but could not receive the beatific vision. This intermediate state was known as limbo (from the Latin limbus, ‘border’). Though belief in limbo become part of popular Catholicism and was widely held, the Church has no formal doctrine regarding the fate of unbaptized children. Thus limbo remains a theological opinion.

Today Catholic theology assumes that infants who died without baptism enter eternal life, since they have had no chance to reject the salvation merited for all humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus himself held up little Jewish children as examples of openness to God’s kingdom (Mark 10:14). The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not mention limbo and expresses the hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism (1261).

But the reality is rather more confused. It is true that the late Pope John Paul II, like the then Cardinal Ratzinger, had their doubts about Limbo and that when the Catholic Catechism came out in 1992 its main text omitted the word. But Limbo does crop up in the official index, which directs the reader to Article 1261:

As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ [Mark 10:14; cf. 1 Timothy 2:4] allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

It is hard to reconcile this desperate, ambiguous ‘hope’ with the confident allocation of unbaptized children to Heaven that Rausch and Clifford ascribe to modern Catholic theology.

Moreover, all this revisionism occludes the fact that within orthodox debate between the late fourth century and the twentieth, the question was not whether unbaptised infants might be saved, but rather, given that they cannot possibly be saved and enter heaven, what is their fate? This is made evident by the discussion of Limbo in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907. The dogma that, on account of original sin, unbaptised babes could not enter heaven was included in the the great Catechism issued after the Council of Trent in 1566 under the aegis of Pius V (Part II, s.v. ‘De baptismi sacramento’, Article XXX, from the London edition of 1687, published by Nathaniel Thompson, at p. 143):

Sed cum caetarum rerum cognitio quae hactenus expositae sunt, Fidelibus utilissima habenda sit: tum vero nihil magis necessarium videri potest, quam ut doceantur, omnibus hominbus baptismsi legem a Domino praescriptam esse, ita ut, nisi per baptismi gratiam Deo renascantur in sempiternam miseriam, & interitum, a parentibus sive illi Fideles, sive infideles sint, procreentur. Igitur saepius a Pastoribus explicandum erit, quod apud Evangelistam legitur: Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua, & spiritu, non potest introire in regnum Dei.

This translates into English as:

But when the knowledge of these things has been propounded, it will be held very useful to the Faithful: indeed nothing can be appear more essential, than to be taught that the law of baptism is prescribed by the Lord to all men, so that, unless they are reborn to God through the grace of baptism, they are procreated to eternal misery and destruction by their parents, whether they are among the Faithful or the unbelievers. Therefore Pastors should often explain what we read in the Evangelist [John 3:5]: ‘no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is reborn of water and the spirit.’

Pope Pius X’s famous catechism for the diocese of Rome reiterated this (s.v. ‘The Sacraments’, Question 12, trans. John Hagan):

Q.: Why such anxiety to have infants receive Baptism?

A.: There should be the greatest anxiety to have infants baptized because, on account of their tender age, they are exposed to many dangers of death, and cannot be saved without Baptism.

The reasons offered for this doctrinal sea-change away from the exclusion of unbaptized infants from Heaven are rather curious. For example, The Telegraph quotes Swiss Cardinal Georges Cottier, Theologian of the Pontifical Household, as saying: ‘We need to consider it and take into account the fact that many children die victims of modern evils — hunger in the world, for example, and many ills coming from huge social disorder and misery, let alone the fruits of abortion and such things.’ It’s striking that none of these are new phenomena, although I suppose abortion has a much greater public prominence than it once did. The Telegraph goes on to observe that the Church is competing with Islam for the souls of the starving in the Third World, where the Muslim belief that all children go straight to heaven may have more appeal.

It is hard to pin down the convulsing Catholic leviathan. Long-held beliefs are being jettisoned in favour of a baffling mixture of ‘compassionate’ theology, ancient practices revived, and radical sexual moralizing. Turning its back a centuries-old attempt to rid its clergy of their stubborn attachment to the female sex, the Church appears to have suddenly decided that only red-blooded hetrosexuals can become priests. Exorcism is back in fashion, and the late Pope John Paul II famously canonized 482 saints, more than all the popes in the past 500 years put together. Meanwhile the Catholic Church in Britain is now teaching that while the Bible is to be believed in matters relating to salvation, ‘we should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.’ The first eleven chapters of Genesis, for example, contain ‘historical traces’ at most.

Arguably, this more creative approach to scripture and tradition is to be welcomed as much as the Church’s relapses into base bigotry are to be regretted. But this does not mean we should not be cynical when contemporary theologians tell us that what was once commonly held truth has always been considered a mere theory, or that the compromises of theology are comparable to the rigour of the scientific process. This last point is especially important given the surreal American debate over evolution’s theoretical status.

The Vatican revised its exorcism rituals in 1999 to give increased recognition to the distinction between mental illness and demonic possession (Richard Owen, ‘Bad Become Mad as Vatican reformers Drive Satan Out’, The Times, 25 January 1999). The Guardian noted: ‘All Roman Catholic diocese have an exorcist — a priest specially appointed to the post by his bishop. But the degree to which exorcists are used is said to vary enormously, and Church officials say that in some parts of the world they are scarcely employed at all.’ (Much like British public services, demonic influence is apparently geographically patchy.)

The British press connected the change in ritual with declining credence in traditional images of Satan and devils, but the Vatican’s liturgical update seems in fact to have aimed to adapt to increasing public interest in exorcism, which grew still further with the re-release of The Exorcist. Official statistics are not available, but according to figures published in The Times the number of priests performing exorcisms in Italy rose from twenty in 1994 to about three hundred in 2000 (Ruth Gledhill, ‘Deliver Us from Illicit Exorcisms, Bishops Plead’, 28 April 2000). The Church of England has been struggling to cope with demand. In 1998 the new prayer book introduced a service for exorcism (Madeleine Bunting, ‘Anglican Prayer Book to Include Exorcism’, The Guardian, 6 July 1998). In 2000 bishops expressed concern at a report indicating a surge in the number of exorcisms conducted in Anglican churches without episcopal approval (Gledhill again). In 2004 the Scottish Kirk officially recognised that ‘exorcisms can be effective in delivering people from demonic possession’, although they ‘stopped short of creating an official rite of exorcism, or a set liturgy, … believing that would “do more harm than good and create unwarranted publicity and demand”.’ This year a Vatican university offered a course for aspiring exorcists. According to the New York Times, students are assured that ‘[t]here is no doubt that the devil is intervening more in the life of man these days’. And it’s not just the churches: even the state is getting in on the act. In 1999 the British Health Education Authority released Promoting Mental Health: The Role of Faith Communities, a report warning mental health practitioners not to dismiss exorcism out of hand (Clare Garner, ‘Religious Beliefs Can Be Good for Your Health’, The Independent, 5 October 2005).

One can see why churches are keen on cautious regulation of exorcism, given the recent high profile cases of ‘exorcisms’ that involve long-term child abuse. Other than increased devilish activity, does anyone have any theories accounting for the recent explosion of demand for exorcism in recent years?

Simon at untitled #3 links to an Independent Catholic News report on Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno, who has just published a new book, Intelligent Life in the Universe? Catholic Belief and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life, tackling urgent theological questions such as whether aliens require evangelisation.

In an excerpt from his earlier book, Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist, Consolmagno turns to Stephen J. Dick’s Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate to support his contention that alien life would not call Catholic beliefs into question:

He notes that most atheists seem to think discovering extraterrestrial life would be the death of religion; but, in fact, most religious people don’t see it that way at all. Indeed, as it happens some of the most prominent scientists currently working on the question of life on Mars are also active churchgoers.

Consolmagno contends that if extraterrestrials, like humans, are contaminated by original sin, then they too would benefit from baptism:

St. Paul’s hymns in Colossians 1 and Ephesians 1 make it clear that the resurrection of Christ applies to all creation (‘… everything in the heavens and everything on earth’). It is the definitive salvation event for the cosmos. Another bit of Biblical evidence is the opening of John’s Gospel, who tells us that The Word (which is to say, the Incarnation of God) was present from the beginning; it is part and parcel of the woof and weave of the universe.

Just how this ‘Word’ might be ‘spoken’ to the rest of the intelligent universe, I don’t know. But it will be in ‘words’ (that is, events) appropriate to those beings. In any event, good extraterrestrials (ETs), just like good humans, do not need to know about Christ for salvation; that’s the tradition of ‘baptism by desire.’

The point there is that, even though the life of Jesus occurred at a specific space-time point, on a particular world line (to put it in general relativity terms), it also was an event that John’s Gospel describes as occurring in the beginning — the one point that is simultaneous in all world lines, and so present in all time and in all space. Thus, there can only be one Incarnation — though various ET civilizations may or may not have experienced that Incarnation in the same way that Earth did.

Consolmagno’s reference to ‘baptism of desire’ risks touching on an even more troubling aspect of the problem of evil than the salvation of those who are ignorant of the Good News. As the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907 explains, baptism by desire, also called baptism of the Holy Ghost (baptism flaminis), consists of ‘a perfect contrition of heart, and every act of perfect charity or pure love of God which contains, at least implicitly, a desire (votum) of baptism.’ Devised to accommodate the good pagans of antiquity, this doctrine was easily flexed to cover the peoples of the ‘New World’, and could obviously be expanded to encompass worlds that orbit other stars. But, crucially, baptism by desire cannot apply to children, who can only be freed from original sin by water baptism or martyrdom. After affirming the necessity of baptism to salvation (1257), the Catholic Catechism ruefully concludes (1261):

As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

I’m not a believer, but I wonder if, from a Catholic perspective, this undermines Consolmagno’s claim that ‘good extraterrestrials …, just like good humans, do not need to know about Christ for salvation’.

Of course, this discussion optimistically assumes aliens will give Christians a chance to bring them the Good News. In the 1953 film version of The War of the Worlds, Pastor Collins reasons that if the Martians are ‘more advanced than us, they should be nearer the Creator for that reason!’ In an attempt at communication, he walks towards the Martian spacecraft reciting the Twenty-Third Psalm, only to be obliterated by their death ray. (Bonus link: The War of the Worlds in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies, and uncannily close to the original.)