Is Limbo distinct from Purgatory and hell?
Yes, because these two latter are places where punishment is inflicted for personal sins (LXIX. 6).
Do infants who have died without baptism suffer the pain of loss in Limbo?
Yes, to a certain degree, for they know they are deprived of the vision of God; but this has not the character of torture such as those in hell suffer (Appendix, 1. 2).
Whence arises this difference as regards the pain of loss?
It comes from this, that although they know they are deprived of the vision of God, they also know that this is not by reason of any personal sin but by reason of their being born of Adam, who sinned (ibid.).
For them, then, there is no horrible worm that gnaws their souls such as torments the damned in hell?
No. But they live in a state without any kind of suffering or sadness, except that they are conscious of that supreme happiness which would have been theirs had the merits of the redemption been applied to them and which they will never have, not by any fault on their part but because the inscrutable counsels of God have arranged it so (ibid.)
Next - The Catechism of the Summa - Tertia Pars - XLVIII. OF THE PLACE OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT JUDGED, VIZ., OF THE LIMBO OF INFANTS (C)
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