long answer go!cheyinkaJanuary 23 2009, 21:24:26 UTC
The official Catholic position is "we don't know what happens to those under the age of reason who die unbaptized"; that is to say, anyone under the age of 7 and anyone who never reaches a mental age of 7. The older assumption was that they'd go to Limbo, which was a place of perfect natural happiness but not spiritual happiness (or unhappiness, for that matter - it wasn't thought of as a bad place, just not as good as Heaven). The newer assumption is that since God can do anything, he's not restricted to saving someone through baptism, so we can reasonably hope that his mercy make it possible for those who never had the chance to want baptism before they died to be saved anyway, and so they'll be in Heaven, having never committed any sins.
In general it's assumed that anyone who dies under the age of reason is treated roughly the same way, whether it's because of a miscarriage or an induced abortion or falling out of a highchair or getting smushed in a plane crash or whatever.
That said, it's not uncommon for someone who goes into very premature labor to have the newborn baptized immediately if there is any possibility that the child survived birth, because we don't know. (We don't think you can baptize the dead, so if there's no doubt that the child was stillborn, we won't baptize the body.)
In general it's assumed that anyone who dies under the age of reason is treated roughly the same way, whether it's because of a miscarriage or an induced abortion or falling out of a highchair or getting smushed in a plane crash or whatever.
That said, it's not uncommon for someone who goes into very premature labor to have the newborn baptized immediately if there is any possibility that the child survived birth, because we don't know. (We don't think you can baptize the dead, so if there's no doubt that the child was stillborn, we won't baptize the body.)
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