Preamble
Our
Lord is clear in the Gospels: those who don't believe in Him are lost.
However, as for children, He said let no one prevent them from coming to
Him (Matt 19:14). This passage clearly means first, at that exact point in time, and also (we can clearly deduce) for the rest of his Earthly ministry: "Apostles, let the kids come to me; don't hinder them."
Second: Traditionally, and no doubt truly, the Church interprets this passage as meaning anyone
who wants Salvation must have the clear, innocent, beautiful Faith and
love (charity) children have. (Cold calculations, measuring everything
to a finely balanced metric, don't cut it.)
Third: "Such is
the kingdom of Heaven" – considering that these were as of that moment
unbaptized Jewish kids, it is highly probable indeed that He truly
meant ALL children were His, for He made 'em, knows their destiny
(whether they become adults or not) and so on. Remember, when God says
X, X happens. All Creation was created by the Father through the
Son (the Logos) so I think it reasonable to understand Our Lord Jesus,
Joshua, "Yahweh Saves", is proclaiming here that children will be saved.
Don't know it for sure, of course, but it makes sense.
So an answer:
Trust God. If one is going to believe in the Christian God, He went to
literally infinite trouble to become a human being, amazing the good
angels (and of course confounding the bad ones) and redoing Creation on
the off-chance (as it were) that some (small or large, probably small)
portion of His human creation wouldn't deny Him. He was Incarnated in us
so we could be incarnated in Him, through His grace ("grace" meaning
"gift".) If He enabled the Immaculate Conception, as a pure gift (grace)
through his not-yet-at-that-time Incarnation, He can save unbaptized
infants. He's Lord of the Sabbath, in short; the Sabbath (here standing
for Fallen Humanity, and Creation, and the curses of the Fall, etc.) is
not His master.
The BVM: The Blessed Mother. She is our great Advocate. And she's a mother. Does anyone think she wouldn't advocate for children who no fault of their own were not baptized? Does anyone think He would deny Her?
Protestants and Orthodox:
I suppose Prots are all over the map with answers to this. Most of the
ones I've ever known think all kids go to Heaven, as a matter of course.
The Orthodox Churches (14 independent "Ghetto" Churches), deny the
Catholic teaching that unbaptized infants go to Limbo. But then, they've
made an absolute mush of Purgatory, and trashed out a number of other
things, like divorce and remarriage, so "whaddatheyknow"?
Robert
Bellarmine, much in the news because of his teachings about bad popes,
was the last major Catholic thinker to teach that unbaptized infants
went to the Hell of the Damned. Aquinas, Vulcan Academy-trained in
logic, taught unbaptized infants didn't go to Fiery Hell, but a mild and
happy Limbo, and his position eventually carried the day, but the
Church has never actually dogmatically defined this.
An Préachán
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