Word: wilkin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...late Father Vincent Wilkin, S.J., Roman Catholic chaplain at England's University of Liverpool, was agonized by the problem. "There must be a solution somewhere," he wrote, and he left behind him a book, From Limbo to Heaven (Sheed & Ward; $3), in which he tried to puzzle out a solution for the dilemma of the children...
...Jesuit Wilkin's solution, unbaptized babies get into heaven, but not until the end of the world. On the last day, when Christian dogma holds that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead, the Gospel specifies that there will be a general resurrection of all who have died since the world's beginning-including those in hell...
This in effect will put an end to the institution of death, which dogma says is a consequence of original sin. Thus, Father Wilkin argues, original sin will obviously be wiped from the books along with death. And since the only sin the unbaptized infants have against their account is original sin, they will then be free to enter into heaven. Grownups have committed other sins, and in the Last Judgment they will be condemned to expiate them in purgatory or suffer for them forever in hell, but not so the babies. "The unbaptized infants go to heaven." writes Father...