Out of Limbo – at Last!

Mention the word limbo and most will immediately think of a semi-naked lithe man or woman bent over backwards sliding under a bar that gets lower after each pass. But the real limbo is a region on the borders of hell where the church placed deceased people it could not accommodate elsewhere in the afterlife – rather like a suspense account in bookkeeping.

Limbo is an odd place. The inhabitants are pre-Christian righteous people such as Abraham, Moses and Plato and countless unbaptized infants. Now after an existence of 700 years the church is to consider closing the place down. Leading Roman Catholic theologians are to meet in the Vatican on Tuesday to discuss a document that will erase the concept from the church’s teaching.

But what to do with the inmates for eternity?