Church searches for 'enlightened' description of baby limbo

VATICAN CITY - Limbo, the place where the Catholic Church teaches that babies go if they die before being baptised, may have its days numbered.

According to Italian media reports, an international theological commission will advise Pope Benedict to eliminate the teaching about limbo from the Catholic catechism.

The Church says unbaptised babies go to limbo, derived from the Latin for "border" or "edge", because they deserve neither heaven nor hell.

Last October, seven months before he died, Pope John Paul asked the commission to come up with "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing the fate of such innocents.

The commission, which has been meeting behind closed doors, may make its recommendation soon.

In his Divine Comedy, Dante passes limbo on his way into hell and writes: "Grief seized on my own heart when this I heard, because some people of much worthiness I knew, who in limbo were suspended."

- REUTERS